Miscellaneous Poems. j H

Nor is the Matter mended yet, if thusThey trust a Friend, only to till it us.

Th’ Occasion should as naturally fall,

As when -||. B e i, l a r i o confesses all.

Figures of Speech, which Poets think so sin^, ,

Art’s needless Varniih, to make Nature shine.

Are all but Paint upon a beauteous Face,

And in Description only claim a Place :

But to make Rage declaim, and ,Grief discourse,

From Lovers in Despair fine Things to force,

Must needs succeed ; for who can chule but pityA dying Hero miserably witty ?

But oh ! the Dialogues, where Jest and MockIs held up, like a Rest at Shittle-cock 1Or else, like Bells, eternally they chime ;

They Sigh in Simile, and die in Rhime,

What Things are these, who would b'e Poets thought,By Nature not inspir’d, nor Learning taught ?

Some Wit they have, and therefore rnay deserveA better Course than this, by which they starve.

But to write Plays ! why, ’tis a bold PretenceTo Judgment, Breeding, Wit, and Eloquence :

Nay more, for they must look within to findThose secret turns of Nature in the Mind.

Whithout this Part, in vain would be the Whole,.

And but a Body all without a Soul.

All this* together yet is but a Part,

Of Dialogue, that great and Pow’rful Art,

Now almost lost, which the old Græcians knew, TFrom whom the Romans fainter Copies drew, s

Scarce comprehended, since but by a few. J

Plato and L u c 1 a n are the bsst RemainsOf all the Wonders which this Art contains :

Yet to ourselves we J ustice must allow, ,

Shakespear and Fletcher aretheWonders now.Consider then, and read them o’er and o’er,

Go fee them play’d, then read them as before ; For

| In Philaster, a Play of Beaumont and Fletcher.