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Our ifle has younger titles ftill in ftore,
And when th'exhaufted land can yield no more,
Your line can force them from a foreign fhore.

The name of great your martial mind will fuit; But juftice is your darling attribute :

Of all the Greeks, 'twas but one hero's due,
And, in him, Plutarch prophefy'd of you.
A prince's favors but on few can fall,
But juftice is a virtue fhar'd by all.

Some kings the name of conqu'rors have affum'd,

Some to be great, fome to be Gods prefum'd;
But boundless power, and arbitrary lust
Made tyrants still abhor the name of just;
They fhun'd the praise this godlike virtue gives,
And fear'd a title that reproach'd their lives.

The power, from which all kings derive their
ftate,

Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,
Is equal both to punish and reward;

For few would love their God, unless they fear'd.
Refistless force and immortality

Make but a lame, imperfect, deity:
Tempests have force unbounded to destroy,
And deathless being even the damn'd enjoy;

And yet heaven's attributes, both last and first,
One without life, and one with life accurft :
But justice is heaven's felf, so strictly he,
That could it fail, the Godhead could not be.
This virtue is your own; but life and state
Are one to fortune fubject, one to fate :
Equal to all, you justly frown or smile;

Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;
Yourself our balance hold, the world's our ifle.

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1

MAC FLECK NO E.

A

LL human things are fubject to decay,

And when fate fummons, monarchs must

obey.

This Flecknoe found, who, like Auguftus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long;
In profe and verse, was own'd, without dispute,
Thro all the realms of Nonfenfe, abfolute.
This aged prince, now flourishing in peace,
And bleft with iffue of a large increase;
Worn out with bufinefs, did at length debate
To fettle the fucceffion of the ftate:

And, pond'ring, which of all his fons was fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit,
Cry'd, 'tis refolv'd; for nature pleads, that he
Should only rule, who most resembles me.
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullnefs from his tender years:
Shadwell alone, of all my fons, is he,
Who ftands confirm'd in full ftupidity.
The reft to fome faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into fenfe.
Some beams of wit on other fouls may fall,
Strike thro, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rifing fogs prevail upon the day.
Befides, his goodly fabric fills the eye,
And feems defign'd for thoughtless majesty :
Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
And fpread in folemn ftate fupinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
Thou laft great prophet of tautology.
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
Was fent before but to prepare thy way;
And, coarfely clad in Norwich drugget, came
To teach the nations in thy greater name.
My warbling lute, the lute I whilom ftrung,
When to king John of Portugal I fung,

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