Tell of towns stormed, of armies over-run,

And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won;
How, while you thundered, clouds of dust did choke
Contending troops, and seas lay hid in smoke.

Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.

Here, in low strains, your milder deeds we sing;
But there, my lord! we'll bays and olive bring

To crown your head; while you in triumph ride
O'er vanquished nations, and the sea beside;
While all your neighbour-princes unto you,
Like Joseph's sheaves,* pay reverence, and bow.

TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND MASTER EVELYN,†

UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF LUCRETIUS.

LUCRETIUS (with a stork-like fate,
Born, and translated, in a state)
Comes to proclaim, in English verse,
No monarch rules the universe;

But chance, and atoms, make this All
In order democratical,

Where bodies freely run their course,
Without design, or fate, or force.
And this in such a strain he sings,
As if his muse, with angels' wings,

* Gen., xxxviii.

John Evelyn, the author of Sylva, whose Diary is familiar to all readers. The translation to which these verses refer was published in 1656. It embraced only the First Book, and was entitled An Essay on the First Book of Titus Lucretius Carus, de rerum naturâ, interpreted, and made into English verse, by J. Evelyn, Esq. Mr. Evelyn was discouraged from proceeding any further with the translation, in consequence of the ill success of the work, arising from the gross errors committed by the printer, and the neglect of the gentleman who undertook to revise the proof sheets.

Had soared beyond our utmost sphere,
And other worlds discovered there;
For his immortal, boundless wit,
To Nature does no bounds permit,
But boldly has removed those bars
Of heaven, and earth, and seas, and stars,
By which they were before supposed,
By narrow wits, to be enclosed,

Till his free muse threw down the pale,
And did at once dispark them all.
So vast this argument did seem,

That the wise author did esteem
The Roman language (which was spread
O'er the whole world, in triumph led)
A tongue too narrow to unfold

The wonders which he would have told.
This speaks thy glory, noble friend!
And British language does commend;
For here Lucretius whole we find,
His words, his music, and his mind.
Thy art has to our country brought
All that he writ, and all he thought.
Ovid translated, Virgil too,

Showed long since what our tongue could do; Nor Lucan we, nor Horace spared;

Only Lucretius was too hard.

Lucretius, like a fort, did stand
Untouched, till your victorious hand
Did from his head this garland bear,
Which now upon your own you wear;
A garland! made of such new bays,
And sought in such untrodden ways,
As no man's temples e'er did crown,
Save this great author's, and your own!

TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND SIR THOS. HIGGONS,*

UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF THE VENETIAN TRIUMPH.'

THE winged lion's not so fierce in fight,

As Liberi's hand presents him to our sight;
Nor would his pencil make him half so fierce,
Or roar so loud, as Businello's verse;
But your translation does all three excel,
The fight, the piece, and lofty Businel.
As their small galleys may not hold compare
With our tall ships, whose sails employ more air;
So does the Italian to your genius vail,
Moved with a fuller and a nobler gale.

Thus, while your muse spreads the Venetian story,
You make all Europe emulate her glory;

You make them blush weak Venice should defend
The cause of heaven, while they for words contend;
Shed Christian blood, and populous cities raze,
Because they're taught to use some different phrase.
If, listening to your charms, we could our jars
Compose, and on the Turk discharge these wars,

* Sir Thomas Higgons was the son of Dr. Thomas Higgons, rector of Westburgh, in Shropshire, where he was born in 1624. He married the widow of the Earl of Essex; and when she died in 1656 he delivered a funeral oration over her grave. He afterwards married the daughter of Sir Bevil Greenvill, and sister of the Earl of Bath; was returned to Parliament in succession for Malmsbury and New Windsor; and subsequently knighted and rewarded with a pension of 5ool. a year, and large pecuniary gifts, for his services to the crown. In 1669, he was sent envoy extraordinary to invest the Duke of Saxony with the garter; and a few years later appointed envoy to Vienna. He died suddenly, in 1691, in the court of King's Bench, while he was attending there as a witness. His literary productions are slight, and of no great value, and not to be confounded with the larger and more important works of his son, Mr. Bevil Higgons. The Venetian Triumph was a poem written by Businello, addressed to Liberi, the painter, instructing him how to paint the sea fight that took place between the Turks and Venetians in 1656. Waller appears to have modelled upon this poem his Instructions to a Painter, in reference to the Duke of York's victory over the Dutch. Marvell also adopted the same form a little later, not for the purpose of panegyric, but as a vehicle of satire.

The arms of Venice.

Our British arms the sacred tomb might wrest From Pagan hands, and triumph o'er the East; And then you might our own high deeds recite, And with great Tasso celebrate the fight.

TO A LADY

SINGING A SONG OF HIS COMPOSING.

HLORIS! yourself you so excel,

CH

When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought, That, like a spirit, with this spell Of my own teaching, I am caught.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,

Which, on the shaft that made him die,

Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Had Echo, with so sweet a grace,
Narcissus' loud complaints returned,
Not for reflection of his face,
But of his voice, the boy had burned.

TO THE MUTABLE FAIR.

HERE, Cælia! for thy sake I part
With all that grew so near my heart;
The passion that I had for thee,
The faith, the love, the constancy!
And, that I may successful prove,
Transform myself to what you love.
Fool that I was! so much to prize
Those simple virtues you despise;
Fool! that with such dull arrows strove,
Or hoped to reach a flying dove;

For you, that are in motion still,
Decline our force, and mock our skill;
Who, like Don Quixote, do advance
Against a windmill our vain lance.
Now will I wander through the air,
Mount, make a stoop at every fair;
And, with a fancy unconfined,
(As lawless as the sea or wind)
Pursue you wheresoe'er you fly,
And with your various thoughts comply.
The formal stars do travel so,

As we their names and courses know;
And he that on their changes looks,
Would think them governed by our books;
But never were the clouds reduced
To any art; the motion used

By those free vapours are so light,
So frequent, that the conquered sight
Despairs to find the rules that guide
Those gilded shadows as they slide;
And therefore of the spacious air
Jove's royal consort had the care;
And by that power did once escape,
Declining bold Ixion's rape;

She, with her own resemblance, graced
A shining cloud, which he embraced.
Such was that image, so it smiled
With seeming kindness, which beguiled
Your Thyrsis lately, when he thought
He had his fleeting Calia caught.
"Twas shaped like her, but, for the fair,
He filled his arms with yielding air.

A fate for which he grieves the less,
Because the gods had like success ;
For in their story one, we see,
Pursues a nymph, and takes a tree;
A second, with a lover's haste,
Soon overtakes whom he had chased,