Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the infulting foe my fame pursue,
But fhade thofe laurels which defcend to you:
And take for tribute what these lines express: 76
You merit more; nor could my love do lefs.

EPISTLE THE ELEVENTH.

ΤΟ

Mr. GRANVILLE,

ON HIS

EXCELLENT TRAGEDY,

CALLED,

HEROIC LOVE.

AUSPICIOUS poet, wert thou not my

friend,

How could I envy, what I must commend! But fince 'tis nature's law, in love and wit, That youth should reign, and withering age fubmit,

With lefs regret thofe laurels I refign,

Which, dying on my brows, revive on thinę.

Ver. 1. Aufpicious poet,] Though amiable in his life and 'manners, Mr. George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, was a very indifferent poet. A faint copier of Waller. The tragedy fo much here extolled was acted in 1698, and is in all refpects the most un-Homerical of all compofitions.

Dr. J. WARTON.

10

With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long contended honors of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a caft,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obftinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rife:.
Old monarchs, though fuccessful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wifely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel then; thy blooming age 15
Can beft, if any can, fupport the stage;
Which fo declines, that fhortly we may fee
Players and plays reduc'd to fecond infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the town, 20
And, in despair their empty pit to fill,
Set up fome foreign monster in a bill.

Thus they jog on, ftill tricking, never thriving, And murdering plays, which they miscal reviving.

Our fenfe is nonfenfe, through their pipes con

vey'd;

25

Scarce can a poet know the play he made ;
"Tis fo difguis'd in death; nor thinks 'tis he
That fuffers in the mangled tragedy.
Thus Itys firft was kill'd, and after drefs'd
For his own fire, the chief invited guest.
I fay not this of thy fuccefsful fcenes,
Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains.

30

Not ill they acted, what they could not spoil. Their setting-fun ftill fhoots a glimmering ray, 35 Like ancient Rome, majeftic in decay :

And better gleanings their worn foil can boast, Than the crab-vintage of the neighbouring coaft.

This difference yet the judging world will fee; Thou copiest Homer, and they copy thee.

40

EPISTLE THE TWELFTH.

TO MY FRIEND

Mr. MOTTEUX*,

ON HIS TRAGEDY CALLED,

BEAUTY IN DISTRESS.

"TIS hard, my friend, to write in fuch an

age,

As damns, not only poets, but the stage.

* Peter Motteux, to whom this piece is addreffed, was born in Normandy, but fettled as a merchant in London very young, and lived in repute. He died in a houfe of ill fame near the Strand, and was fuppofed to have been murdered, in 1718. He produced eleven dramatic pieces, and his Beauty in Diftrefs is thought much the best of them: it was played in Lincoln's-innfields by Betterton's company in 1698. DERRICK.

Ver. 1. 'Tis hard, my friend,] No French refugee feems to have made himself fo perfect a mafter of the English language as Peter Motteux. He has given a very good tranflation of Don Quixote, which my friend, Mr. Bowle, preferred to more modern ones. By trading in a large Eaft India warehouse, and by a place in the poft-office, he gained a confiderable income. It was fuppofed he was murdered in a houfe of ill fame. He wrote fifteen plays; this of Beauty in Diftrefs was acted in 1698. Dryden feems to have felt a particular regard for him.

Dr. J. WARTON.