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On thy misfortunes, sought thee in thy miseries,
Relieved thy wants, and raised thee from the state
Of wretchedness in which thy fate had plunged thee,
To rank thee in my list of noble friends;

All I received, in surety for thy truth,

Were unregarded oaths, and this, this dagger,

Given with a worthless pledge, thou since hast stolen:
So I restore it back to thee again;

Swearing by all those powers which thou hast violated,
Never, from this cursed hour, to hold communion,
Friendship, or interest with thee, though our years
Were to exceed those limited the world.

Take it-farewell-for now I owe thee nothing.
Jaff. Say, thou wilt live then.

Pierre. For my life, dispose it

Just as thou wilt. Because 'tis what I'm tired with.
Jaff. O Pierre !

Pierre. No more.

Jaff. My eyes won't lose the sight of thee,

But languish after thine, and ache with gazing.

Pierre. Leave me :-Nay, then, thus I throw thee from me;

And curses, great as is thy falsehood, catch thee!

Jaff. He's gone, my father, friend, preserver;

And here's the portion he has left me;

This dagger. Well remembered! With this dagger,
I gave a solemn vow of dire importance;

Parted with this, and Belvidera together.

Have a care, mem'ry, drive that thought no farther :
No, I'll esteem it as a friend's last legacy;
Treasure it up, within this wretched bosom,

Where it may grow acquainted with my heart,

That, when they meet, they start not from each other.
So, now for thinking-A blow, call'd traitor, villain,
Coward, dishonourable coward; faugh!

Oh for a long sound sleep, and so forget it !2

[Exit.

Act IV. Sc. 2.

Jaffier's wife, Belvidera, whom he had given to the conspirators as a hostage for his fidelity.

This passage does not exhibit the strength of the genius of Otway, which lies in the representation of emotions of a deeper character than those displayed in the text; but it is difficult to take from his plays an available extract of any length.

[In approaching the age of Queen Anne and George I. space again compels us to drop many names of great or of respectable merit. The poetry of this period is peculiarly that of artificial life, and holds a much lower estimation in public opinion than it retained down to the times subsequent to the writings of Cowper. Among the omitted names are those of Rowe, Philips, Walsh, Tickell, Garth, Duke, Blackmore, Halifax, Congreve,

&c.]

MATTHEW PRIOR.

(1664-1721.)

PRIOR is supposed to have been born in 1664, at Winburn in Dorsetshire, or, as some allege, in London. He furnishes no intelligence respecting his obscure origin. Shortly after leaving Westminster School, while residing with a relation in London, he attracted the notice of the Earl of Dorset, who sent him to Cambridge. The publication, with Montague, of the " City Mouse and the Country Mouse," in ridicule of Dryden's "Hind and Panther," seems to have opened to the young poet the road of preferment. He obtained the secretaryship of the English Embassy in the congress at the Hague in 1691. From this period till the end of the reign of Queen Anne, he was employed by the government in high official situations. On the accession of the queen he had changed his politics; he became the intimate friend of Bolingbroke and Oxford, the chiefs of the Tory party. In 1712, at the conclusion of the Spanish Succession War, he acted under the English ambassador at the French court, for the speedier arrangement of the peace between England and France, which the tardy conferences at Utrecht were slow in effecting. In 1713, on the return of the Duke of Shrewsbury from France, Prior enjoyed till the following year the dignity of ambassador at Paris. The death of the queen leading to the fall of the Tory party, he was recalled, and shared in the hardships of impeachment and imprisonment, with which their opponents visited the friends of Bolingbroke and Oxford. On his release in 1717 he was in distressed circumstances, but he realized a considerable sum by the publication of his collected works; and the gratitude of Lord Oxford's son purchased an estate for his father's friend. He did not long enjoy the tranquillity of old age after his busy life. He died in 1721, at Wimpole, a seat of the Earl of Oxford. He left L.500 to build him a monument in Westminster.

Prior is a lively and graceful writer, sometimes far from pure in sentiment; never rising to passion or sublimity; but moving in a round of elegant and sparkling, though common thought. "His diction," says Johnson, "is more his own than that of any among the successors of Dryden." "His diligence has justly placed him amongst the most correct of the English poets." His poems consist of Epistles, Humorous Tales, Fables, Epigrams, Ödes in honour of his patrons William and Anne, Songs, &c. His longer works are "Henry and Emma," a frigid paraphrase of the beautiful old ballad, the "Nutbrown Maid ;" "Solomon on the Vanity of the World," in heroic rhyme ; and “ Alma, or the Progress of the Mind," a humorous philosophical piece in the style of Hudibras.

WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND AND LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE CONTRASTED.

Virtue to verse immortal lustre gives,

Each by the other's mutual friendship lives;

Eneas suffered, and Achilles fought,

The hero's acts enlarged the poet's thought,

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Or Virgil's majesty, and Homer's rage,
Had ne'er, like lasting nature, vanquish'd age.
Whilst Louis then his rising terror drowns

With drums' alarms, and trumpets' sounds;
Whilst, hid in arm'd retreats, and guarded towns,
From danger as from honour far,

He bribes close murder against open war:

In vain you Gallic muses strive

With laboured verse to keep his fame alive :
Your mouldering monuments in vain ye raise,
On the weak basis of the tyrant's praise:
Your songs are sold, your numbers are profane,
'Tis incense to an idol given,

Meat offered to Prometheus' man,

That had no soul from heaven.

Against his will, you chain your frighted king
On rapid Rhine's divided bed;

And mock your hero, whilst ye sing
The wounds for which he never bled;
Falsehood does poison on your praise diffuse,
And Louis' fear gives death to Boileau's muse.

On its own worth true majesty is rear'd,
And virtue is her own reward;
With solid beams and native glory bright,
She neither darkness dreads, nor covets light;
True to herself, and fix'd to inborn laws,
Nor sunk by spite, nor lifted by applause,
She from her settled orb looks calmly down,

On life or death, a prison or a crown.

When bound in double chains poor Belgia lay,
To foreign arms and inward strife a prey,

Whilst one good man buoy'd up her sinking state,
And virtue labour'd against fate;

When fortune basely with ambition join'd,
And all was conquer'd but the patriot's mind;
When storms let loose, and raging seas,

Just ready the torn vessel to o'erwhelm,
Forc'd not the faithful pilot from his helm,
Nor all the syren songs of future peace
And dazzling prospect of a promis'd crown,
Could lure his stubborn virtue down;

But against charms, and threats, and hell, he stood,
To that which was severely good;

Then had no trophies justified his fame,

No poet blest his song with Nassau's name.

I Prior displays the most unrelenting contempt for the poetical flatterer of Louis.

A SIMILE.

Dear Thomas, did'st thou never pop
Thy head into a tinman's shop?
There, Thomas, did'st thou never see
('Tis but by way of simile)
A squirrel spend his little rage,
In jumping round a rolling cage;
The cage, as either side turned up,
Striking a ring of bells at top?-

Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks he climbs :
But, here or there, turn wood or wire,
He never gets two inches higher.

So fares it with those merry blades,
That frisk it under Pindus' shades,
In noble song and lofty odes,

They tread on stars, and talk with gods;
Still dancing in an airy round,

Still pleas'd with their own verses' sound;
Brought back, how fast soe'er they go,
Always aspiring, always low.

CHARITY.

A PARAPHRASE OF THE 13TH CHAPTER OF THE FIRST EPISTLE TO

THE CORINTHIANS.

Did sweeter sounds adorn my flowing tongue
Than ever man pronounced, or angels sung;
Had I all knowledge, human and divine,
That thought can reach, or science can define;
And had I power to give that knowledge birth,
In all the speeches of the babbling earth;
Did Shadrach's zeal my glowing breast inspire
To weary tortures, and rejoice in fire;
Or had I faith like that which Israel saw
When Moses gave them miracles and law:
Yet, gracious Charity! indulgent guest,
Were not thy power exerted in my breast,
Those speeches would send up unheeded prayer;
That scorn of life would be but wild despair;
A cymbal's sound were better than my voice;
My faith were form, my eloquence were noise.
Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind,
Softens the high, and rears the abject mind;
Knows with just reins and gentle hand to guide
Betwixt vile shame and arbitrary pride.
Not soon provoked, she easily forgives;
And much she suffers, as she much believes.

Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives;
She builds our quiet, as she forms our lives;
Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even,
And opens in each heart a little heaven.

Each other gift, which God on man bestows,
Its proper bound and due restriction knows;
To one fix'd purpose dedicates its power,
And, finishing its act, exists no more.
Thus, in obedience to what Heaven decrees,
Knowledge shall fail, and prophecy shall cease;
But lasting Charity's more ample sway,
Nor bound by time, nor subject to decay,

In happy triumph shall for ever live,

And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive.
As through the artist's intervening glass,

Our eye observes the distant planets pass,

A little we discover, but allow

That more remains unseen, than art can show:

So, whilst our mind its knowledge would improve

(Its feeble eye intent on things above),

High as we may, we lift our reason up,
By faith directed, and confirm'd by hope :
Yet we are able only to survey

Dawning of beams, and promises of day.

Heaven's fuller effluence mocks our dazzled sight;
Too great its swiftness, and too strong its light.
But soon the mediate clouds shall be dispell'd;
The sun shall soon be face to face beheld,
In all his robes, with all his glory on,
Seated sublime on his meridian throne.

Then constant faith and holy hope shall die,
One lost in certainty, and one in joy:1
Whilst thou, more happy power, fair Charity,
Triumphant sister, greatest of the three,
Thy office and thy nature still the same,
Lasting thy lamp, and unconsum'd thy flame,
Shalt still survive-

Shalt stand before the host of heaven confest,
For ever blessing, and for ever blest.

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SOLOMON'S CONTEMPLATION OF THE FUTURE STATE OF THE WORLD.

How can he bind or limit his decree,

By what our ear has heard, or eye may see?
Say then, is all in heaps of water lost,
Beyond the islands, and the mid-land2 coast?

1 This is a violation of the sense of the text; neither faith nor hope are said to die in the future world. 2 The Mediterranean.

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