No Courts he faw, no fuits would ever try, His life, tho' long, to fickness past unknown, O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die! 400 404 Who fprung from Kings shall know lefs joy than I. Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of repofing Age, With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath, 410 Make Langour fmile, and smooth the bed of Death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep a while one parent from the sky! On cares like these if length of days attend, May Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend, VARIATIONS. After 405. in the MS. And of myself, too, fomething must I say? And if it live, it lives but to commend The man whofe heart has ne'er forgot a Friend, And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write. Preferve him focial, chearful, and ferene, NOTES. 416 VER. 417. And just as rich as when he ferv'd a Queen.] An honeft compliment to his Friend's real and unaffected difinterestedness, when he was the favourite Phyfician of Queen Anne. VER. 418. A. Whether this bleffing, &c.] He makes his friend close the Dialogue with a fentiment very expreffive of that religious refignation, which was the Character both of his temper, and his piety. THE HE Occafion of publishing these Imitations was the Clamour rais'd on fome of my Epifiles. An Answer from Horace was both more full, and of more Dignity, than any I could have made in my own perfon; and the Example of much greater Freedom in fo eminent a Divine as Dr. Donne, seem'd a proof with what indignation and contempt a Chriftian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever fo low, or ever so high a Station. Both these Authors were acceptable to the Princes and Ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I verfifyed, at the defire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom look'd upon a Satire on Vicious Courts as any Reflection on those they ferv'd in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which Fools are fo apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirift nothing is fo odious as a Libeller, for the fame reason as to a man truly vir tuous nothing is fo hateful as a Hypocrite. Uni aequus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis. P. * D D 2 |