Volume IV Part 32 (1/2)

His poetical works are chiefly these.

On the Conquest of Namure; A Pindaric Ode, inscribed to his most sacred and victorious majesty, folio 1695.

The Temple of Fame; a Poem to the memory of the most ill.u.s.trious Prince, William Duke of Gloucester, folio 1700. On the late Queen's Accession to the Throne, a Poem.

aesop at Court, or State Fables.

An Essay on the Character on Sir Willoughby Ashton, a Poem. Fol. 1704.

On the Mines of Sir Carbery Price, a Poem; occasioned by the Mine-adventure Company.

On the Death of Mr. John Partridge, Professor in Leather, and Astrologer.

Advice to a Lover.

To Mr. Watson, on his Ephemeris on the Caelestial Motions, presented to Queen Anne.

Against Immoderate Grief.

The Force of Jealousy.

An Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, 1693, set to music by Dr. Purcel.

A Hymn to the Morning in Praise of Light.

We shall extract the following stanza from this Hymn, as a specimen of his poetry.

Parent of day! whose beauteous beams of light Spring from the darksome womb of night, And midst their native horrors mow Like gems adorning of the negro's brow.

Not Heaven's fair bow can equal thee, In all its gawdy drapery: Thou first essay of light, and pledge of day!

Rival of shade! eternal spring! still gay!

From thy bright unexhausted womb The beauteous race of days and seasons come.

Thy beauty ages cannot wrong, But 'spite of time, thou'rt ever young.

Thou art alone Heav'n's modest virgin light.

Whose face a veil of blushes hide from human sight.

At thy approach, nature erects her head; The smiling universe is glad; The drowsy earth and seas awake And from thy beams new life and vigour take.

When thy more chearful rays appear, Ev'n guilt and women cease to fear; Horror, despair, and all the sons of night Retire before thy beams, and take their hasty flight.

Thou risest in the fragrant east, Like the fair Phoenix from her balmy nest; But yet thy fading glories soon decay, Thine's but a momentary stay; Too soon thou'rt ravish'd from our fight, Borne down the stream of day, and overwhelm'd with night.

Thy beams to thy own ruin haste, They're fram'd too exquisite to last: Thine is a glorious, but a short-liv'd state: Pity so fair a birth should yield so soon to fate;

Besides these pieces, this reverend gentleman has translated the second book of Ovid's Art of Love, with several other occasional poems and translations published in the third and fourth volumes of Tonson's Miscellanies.