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Our genius brought you here, to inlarge our

fame;

For your good stars are every where the same. Thy matchlefs hand, of every region free, Adopts our climate, not our climate thee.

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Great Rome and Venice early did impart To thee the examples of their wond'rous art. Those masters then, but feen, not understood, With generous emulation fir'd thy blood: For what in nature's dawn the child admir'd, The youth endeavor'd, and the man acquir'd. If yet thou haft not reach'd their high de

gree,

"Tis only wanting to this age, not thee:
Thy genius, bounded by the times, like mine,
Drudges on petty draughts, nor dare defign
A more exalted work, and more divine.
For what a fong, or fenfelefs opera

Is to the living labor of a play;

Or what a play to Virgil's work would be,
Such is a fingle piece to history.

136

140

But we, who life beftow, ourselves must live; Kings cannot reign, unless their fubjects give; And they, who pay the taxes, bear the rule: Thus thou, fometimes, art forc'd to draw a fool: But fo his follies in thy posture fink,

The fenfelefs idiot feems at last to think.

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Good heaven! that fots and knaves should be.

fo vain,

To wish their vile refemblance may remain!

And ftand recorded, at their own request,
To future days, a libel or a jeft!

Elfe should we fee your noble pencil trace Our unities of action, time, and place:

150

A whole compos'd of parts, and those the best, With every various character exprest:

155

160

Heroes at large, and at a nearer view ;
Lefs, and at distance, an ignobler crew.
While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main design.
More cannot be by mortal art expreft ;
But venerable age fhall add the reft.
For Time fhall with his ready pencil stand;
Retouch your figures with his ripening hand;
Mellow your colors, and imbrown the teint;
Add every grace, which time alone can grant;
To future ages fhall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away,

165

ELEGIES

AND

EPITAPHS.

TO THE

MEMORY OF MR. OLDHAM.

FAREWELL, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own:
For fure our fouls were near allied, and thine
Caft in the fame poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did ftrike, 5
And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike.
To the fame goal did both our studies drive ;
The laft fet out, the fooneft did arrive.

Thus Nifus fell upon the flippery place,
Whilft his

young friend perform'd, and won the

race.

O early ripe! to thy abundant ftore
What could advancing age have added more?

10

Ver. 1. Farewell, too little,] This fhort elegy is finished with the most exquifite art and fkill. Not an epithet or expreffion can be changed for a better. It is also the most harmonious in its numbers of all that this great maiter of harmony has produced. Oldham's Satire on the Jefuits is written with vigour and energy. It is remarkable that Dryden calls Oldham his brother in fatire, hinting that this was the characteristical turn of both their geniutes.

To the fame goal did both our ftudies drive. Ver. 7.
Dr. J. WARTON,

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