Yet fondly we ourselves deceive,
And empty hopes pursue:
Though false to others, we believe
They will to us prove true.

But oh! the torment to discern
A perjured lover gone;
And yet by sad experience learn
That we must still love on.

How strangely are we fool'd by fate,
Who tread the maze of love:
When most desirous to retreat,
We know not how to move.

ON DRYDEN'S HEROIC TRAGEDIES.

BUT of these ladies he despairs to-day
Who love a dull, romantic, whining play :
Where poor frail woman's made a deity,
With senseless, fond idolatry.

And love-sick heroes sigh and pine and cry,
Though singly they beat armies and huff kings,
Rant at the gods and do impossible things;

Though they can laugh at danger, blood and wounds,
Yet if the dame once chides, the milksop hero swoons.
-Epilogue to The Virtuoso.

SATIRICAL LINES ON DRYDEN.

How long shall I endure without reply,
To hear this Bayes, this hackney-rayler lie?
The fool uncudgelled for one libel, swells,

Where not his wit, but sauciness excells;

Whilst with foul words and names which he lets flie, He quite defiles the satyr's dignity.

For libel and true satyr different be,

This must have truth and salt with modesty.
Sparing the persons, this does tax the crimes,
Galls not great men, but vices of the times,

With witty and sharp—not blunt and bitter rhymes,
Methinks the ghost of Horace there I see,

Lashing this cherry-cheeked dunce of fifty-three.
Who, at that age, so boldly durst profane,
With base hir'd libel, the free satyr's vein.

An oyster wench is sure thy muse of late,
And all thy Helicon's at Billingsgate.

As far from satyr does thy talent lye,

As far from being cheerful, or good company;
For thou art Saturnine, thou dost confess
A civil word thy dulness to express.

Now farewell, wretched, mercenary Bayes,
Who the king libell'd, and did Cromwell praise;
Farewell, abandoned rascal, only fit

To be abused by thy own scurrilous wit.

-The Medal of John Bayes.

ON BEN JONSON.

He was incomparably the best dramatic poet that ever was, or, I believe, ever will be; and I had rather be the author of one scene in his best comedies than of any play this age has produced.

ON BEN JONSON.

THE mighty Prince of Poets, learned Ben,
Who alone dived into the minds of men,
Saw all their wanderings, all their follies knew,
And all their vain fantastic passions drew.
'Twas he alone true humours understood,

And with great wit and judgment made them good.

-Dedication to The Virtuoso.

"RETIRED FROM ANY MORTAL'S SIGHT, THE PENSIVE DAMON LAV. "-Page 68.

NAHUM TATE.

Born in Dublin in 1652. Made laureate in 1692. Died in 1715.

(Reigns of William III., Anne., and George I.)

NAHUM TATE belonged to a family of clergymen, but all his tastes were for a life radically different from theirs. He had considerable poetic ambition, though his soul longed the most intensely for political distinction. A son of Dr. Faithful Teat, who afterwards changed his name to Tate, he was born in Dublin, passed a happy childhood, and did well at school and managed to matriculate at Trinity College, but he did not distinguish himself for his scholarship, and it is not known whether he took his degree. Drawn to London by an irresistible magnet, he left his native city, and seldom visited it afterward. When he first began to try his fortunes in the field of literature he was fortunate in securing the friendship of the great Dryden, and through him he soon obtained the patronage of Lord Dorset. Tate's first volume of poems did not pay him very well, so he began to write for the stage. With the fulsome flattery so common among all the poets of the day, he dedicated his first tragedy to Lord Dorset. This was "Brutus of Alba, or the Enchanted Lovers." The plot was a curious blending of Virgil, of ancient legendary lore, and of ideas current in the reign of William and Mary. The dedication to Dorset and the prologue written by Dryden helped Tate to such an extent that his bark seemed well launched on a sea of glory. Tate's object was no higher than simply to entertain his audiences. There was no lofty moral motive to his work. He wished to get on in the world, he would therefore drift with the tide of public opinion; he aspired to the favour of the rich and the great, therefore he would not venture to satirise their weaknesses or vices. He would simply paint life as he saw it, and, by adding certain imaginative touches, he would make his picture as bright and charming as possible.

The most popular writers of the day did not scruple to take the plots of Shakespeare and Jonson and other old dramatists, and remodel them to suit their own convenience. It was an open secret that Tate borrowed right and left. He even