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ON

THE ART OF PREACHING.

A FRAGMENT.

In imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry.

Pendent opera interrupta.

SHOULD fome fam'd hand, in this fantastic age,
Draw Rich, as Rich appears upon the stage,
With all his postures, in one motley plan,

The god, the hound, the monkey, and the man;
Here o'er his head high brandishing a leg,
And there juft hatch'd, and breaking from his egg;
While monster crouds on monfter through the piece,
Who could help laughing at a fight like this?
Or as a drunkard's dream together brings

A court of coblers, and a mob of kings;
Such is a fermon, where, confus'dly dark,

Join Hoadly, Sharp, South, Sherlock, Wake, and
Clarke.

So

eggs

of different parifies will run
To batter, when you beat fix yolks to one;
So fix bright chemic liquors if you mix,
In one dark fhadow vanish all the fix.

This licence priefts and painters ever had,
To run bold lengths, but never to run mad;
For thofe can't reconcile God's grace to fin,
Nor thefe paint tigers in an afs's skin;
No common dauber in one piece would join,
A fox and goofe,-unlefs upon a fign.

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Ev'n now their navy cuts the Thuscan floods,
Charg'd with their exiles, and their vanquish'd Gods.
Add rage to all thy winds; o'erwhelm their ships,
Difperfe or drown the wetches in the deeps.
Twice feven bright nymphs of beauteous fhape are
mine,

For thy reward the fairest I'll refign,

And make the charming Deiopeia thine,
She, on thy bed, long bleffings shall confer,

And make thee parent of a race like her.

'Tis yours, great queen, reply'd the power, to lay The task, and mine to listen and obey; By you I fit a guest with Gods above,

And share the graces and the smiles of Jove.
These realms by you, this fceptre I maintain,
And wear thefe honours of the stormy reign.

So fpoke th' obfequious God, and while he spoke,
Whirl'd his vaft fpear, and pierc'd the hollow rock.
Th' embattled tempefts, as the mountain rent,
Flew all at once impetuous through the vent.
Earth in their course with giddy whirls they sweep,
Then plow the feas, and bare the inmoft deep.
South, Eaft, and Weft, to fwell the tumult, roar,
And roll vaft billows to the diftant fhore.

The cordage cracks; with unavailing cries

The Trojans mourn,

with fudden clouds arife,

And ravish from their fight the fplendors of the skies.
Night hovers o'er the deeps; the day retires;
The heavens fhine thick with momentary fires;

Loud thunders shake the poles; from every place
Grim death appear'd, and glar'd in every face.

Congeal'd with fear, the Trojan hero ftands,
He groans, and spreads to heaven his lifted hands :
Thrice happy thofe, whofe fate it was to fall,
(Exclaims the chief) beneath the Trojan wall.
Oh! 'twas a noble fate to die in fight,
To die fo bravely in their parents fight.
Why funk I not beneath Tydides' hands,
The braveft hero of the Grecian bands?
Where Hector funk beneath Achilles' fpear,
And great Sarpedon the renown'd in war;
Where Simois' ftreams, encumber'd with the flain,
Roll'd fhields, and helms, and heroes, to the main.
Thus while he mourns, the northern blaft prevails,
Breaks all his oars, and rends his flying fails:
The prow turns round; the galley leaves her fide
Bare to the fury of the working tide;

While in huge heaps the gathering furges rife,
And lift a liquid mountain to the skies.

Some hang on waves; and some behold the ground
Low in the boiling deeps, and dark profound.
Three flatter'd galleys the strong southern blast
On hidden rocks, with dreadful fury, cast;
Th' Italians call them altars; for they stood
Sublime, and heav'd their backs above the flood.
Three more fierce Eurus on the Syrtes threw
From the main fea; and (terrible to view)
He dash'd, and left the veffels on the land,
Intrench'd with mountains of furrounding fand.

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Struck by a billow, in the hero's view,
From prow to ftern the broken galley flew,
Which bore Orontes, and the Lycian crew.
Swept off the deck, the pilot from the ship,
Stun'd by the stroke, shot headlong down the deep.
The vessel by the surge turn'd round and round,
Sunk by the whirling gulf devour'd and drown'd.
Some from the dark abyfs emerge again;
Arms, planks, and treasures floating on the main.
And now thy fhip, Ilioneus, gives way,
And brave Achates' veffel drinks the fea.
Nor old Alethes his ftrong galley faves,
And Abas yields to the victorious waves.
The ftorm diffolves their well-compacted fides,
Which drink at many a leak the rushing tides.
Mean time great Neptune from beneath the main
Heard the loud tumults in his watery reign,
And saw the furious tempeft wide around
Work up the waters from the vaft profound.
Then, for his liquid realms alarm'd, the God
Lifts his high head ferenely o'er the flood;
Where wide difperft the Trojan fleet he spies,
Preft by the forms and terrors of the skies :
Full well he knew his fifter's endless hate,
Her wiles and arts to fink the Trojan state.
To Eurus and the western blast he cry'd,
Does your high birth inspire this lawless pride?
Audacious winds! without a power
To raise at will fuch mountains on the sea :

from me,

Thus

Thus to confound heaven, earth, the air, and main,
Whom I—but first I'll calm the waves again.
But if you tempt my rage a second time,

Know, that fome heavier vengeance waits the crime.
Hence fly with speed; from me your tyrant tell,
That to my lot this watery empire fell.

Bid him his rocks, your gloomy dungeons, keep ;
But leave to me the trident of the deep:
There let him reign with undifputed power,
And hear within his bluftering subjects roar.
He spoke; and speaking chac'd the clouds away,
Hufh'd every billow, and reftor'd the day.
Cymothoe guards the vessels in the shock,
And Triton heaves them from the pointed rock.
He with his trident difengag'd the ships,
And clear'd the Syrtes, and compos'd the deeps.
Then mounted on the radiant car he rides
Swift o'er the feas, and fmoothly skims the tides:
As when fedition fires th' ignoble crowd,
And the wild rabble ftorms and thirfts for blood,
Of stones and brands a mingled tempeft flies,
And all the fudden arms that rage fupplies :
If some grave fire appears amidst the strife,
In morals ftrict, and innocence of life,
All fix'd in filence ftand; their fury cools;
While his refiftless eloquence controls

Their frantic rage, and gently calms their fouls.
So did the roaring deeps their rage compose,
When the great father of the floods arole.
Rapt by his fteeds, he flies in open day,
Throws up the reins, and skims the watery way.

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