Hard-hearted men! will you no mercy know?
Has the Queen brib'd you to distress her foe?
O weak deserters to Misfortune's part,
By false affection thus to pierce her heart!
When she had soar'd, to let your arrows fly,
And fetch her bleeding from the middle sky.
And can her virtue, springing from the ground,
Her flight recover, and disdain the wound,
When cleaving love, and human int'rest, bind
The broken force of her aspiring mind!
As round the gen'rous eagle, which in vain
Exerts her strength, the serpent wreaths his train,
Her struggling wings entangles, curling plies
His pois'nous tail, and stings her as she flies.

230

While yet the blow's first dreadful weight she feels, And with its force her resolution reels,

Large doors, unfolding with a mournful sound,
To view discover, welt'ring on the ground,

231

Three headless trunks of those whose arms maintain'd, And in her wars immortal glory gain'd:

The lifted axe assur'd her ready doom,

And silent mourners sadden'd all the room,
Shall I proceed, or here break off my tale,
Nor truths to stagger human faith reveal?

She met this utmost malice of her fate
With Christian dignity and pious state;
The beating storm's propitious rage she bless'd,
And all the martyr triumph'd in her breast.

240

Young.1

Fij

Her lord and father, for a moment's space,
She strictly folded in her soft embrace!
Then thus she spoke, while angels heard on high,
And sudden gladness smil'd along the sky.

"Your over-fondness has not mov'd my hate;
"I am well pleas'd you make my death so great:
"I joy I cannot save you; and have giv'n
"Two lives much dearer than my own to Heav'n,
"If so the Queen decrees, *----But I have cause
"To hope my blood will satisfy the laws;
"And there is mercy still for you in store:
"With me the bitterness of Death is o'er;
"He shot his sting in that farewell embrace,
"And all that is to come is joy and peace.
"" Then let mistaken sorrow be supprest,
"Nor seem to envy my approaching rest."
Then, turning to the ministers of Fate,
She, smiling, says, "My victory 's complete;
"And tell your Queen I thank her for the blow,
And grieve my gratitude I cannot show.
"A poor return I leave in England's crown,
For everlasting pleasure and renown:
"Her guilt alone allays this happy hour;

"Her guilt,--the only vengeance in her pow'r."

250

260

Not Rome, untouch'd with sorrow, heard her fate,

And fierce Maria pity'd her too late.

End of Book Second.

*Here she embraces them.

269

THESE Satires have been favourably received at home and abroad. I am not conscious of the least malevolence to any particular person through all the characters, though some persons may be so selfish as to engross a general application to themselves. A writer in polite letters should be content with reputation, the private amusement he finds in bis compositions, the good influence they have on his severer studies, that admission they give him to his superiors, and the possible good effect they may have on the public, or else he should join to his politeness some more lucrative qualification.

But it is possible that satire may not do much good. Men may rise in their affections to their follies, as they do to their It is much to be friends, when they are abused by others. feared that misconduct will never be chased out of the world by

by salire; all therefore that is to be said for it is, that misconduct will certainly be never chased out of the world by satire, if no satires are written. Nor is that term unapplicable graver compositions: ethics, Heathen and Christian, and the Scriptures themselves, are in a great measure a satire on the weakness and iniquity of men; and some part of that satire is in verse too: nay, in the first ages, philosophy and poetry were the same thing; wisdom wore no other dress: I hope these Satires will be the more easily pardoned that misfortune by the severe. Nay, historians themselves may be considered as satirists, and satirists most severe; since such are most buman actions, that to relate is to expose them.

so that

No man can converse much in the world, but at what be meets wi.b, be must either be insensible, or grieve, or be angry, or smile. Some passion (if we are not impassive) must be moved; for the general conduct of mankind is by no means a thing indifferent to a reasonable and virtuous man. Now, to smile at it, and turn it to ridicule, think most elegible, as it bur's ourselves least, and gives vice and folly the greatest offence: and that for this reason, because, what men aim at them is generally public opinion and esteem; which truth is the subject of the following Satires; and joins them together, as several branches from the same root: an unity of design which has not, I think, in a set of satires, been attempted before.

Laughing at the misconduct of the world will, in a great

measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. One passion is more effectualty driven out by another than by reason, whatever some may teach; for to reason we owe our passions. Had we not reason, we should not be offended at what we find amiss: and the cause seems not to be the natural cure of any effect.

The

Moreover, laughing satire bids the fairest for success. world is too proud to be fond of a serious tutor; and when an author is in a passion, the laugh generally, as in conversation, turns against bim. This kind of satire only bas any delicacy in it Of this delicacy Horace is the best master: he appears in good humour while be censures; and therefore bis censure bas the more weight, as supposed to proceed from judgment, not from passion. Juvenal is ever in a passion: he has but little valuable but his eloquence and morality; the last of which I bave had in my eye, but rather for emulation than imitation, through my whole work.

But though I comparatively condemn Juvenal, in part of the Sixth Satire, (where the occasion most required it) I endeavoured to touch on his manner, but was forced to quit it soon as disagreeable to the writer and reader too. Boileau bas joined" both the Roman satirists with great success, but has too much of Juvenal in bis very serious Satire on Woman, which should bave been the gayest of all. An excellent critic of our own conmends Boileau's closeness, or, as be calls it, Pressness, particularly; whereas it appears to me that repetition is his fault, if any fault should be imputed to him.