-The Birth of Bacchus,
The Transformation of Tirefias,
The Transformation of Echo,
The Story of Narciffus,

-The Story of Pentheus,

239

-The Mariners transform'd to Dolphins,
-The Death of Pentheus,

245

The Story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, from the Fourth Book of Ovid's Metamorphofes,

247

Notes on fome of the foregoing Stories in Ovid's Meta

morphofes,

An Efay on Virgil's Georgics,.

page 223

227

228

231

236

253 274

POEMS

POE M S

ON

SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

3

To Mr. DRYDEN.

Ho

OW long, great Poet, fhall thy facred lays Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise ? Can neither injuries of time, or age,

Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?

Not fo thy Ovid in his exile wrote,

Grief chill'd his breast, and check'd his rifing thought:
Penfive and fad, his drooping mufe betrays
The Roman genius in its laft decays.

Prevailing warmth has ftill thy mind poffeft,
And second youth is kindled in thy breast:
Thou mak'ft the beauties of the Romans known,
And England boasts of riches not her own;
Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majefty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee.
Thou teacheft Perfius to inform our isle
In fmoother numbers, and a clearer ftile;
And Juvenal, inftructed in thy page,
Edges his fatire, and improves his rage.
Thy copy cafts a fairer light on all,
And still out-shines the bright original.

Now

Now Ovid boafts th' advantage of thy fong,
And tells his ftory in the British tongue;
Thy charming verse, and fair translation, show
How thy own laurel first began to grow:

How wild Lycaon chang'd by angry gods,

And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods. O may'st thou ftill the noble task prolong,

Nor age, nor fickness interrupt thy fong:
Then may we wond'ring read, how human limbs
Have water'd kingdoms, and diffolv'd in streams;
Of thofe rich fruits that on the fertile mold

Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold:
How fome in feathers, or a ragged hide,

Have liv'd a fecond life, and diff'rent natures try'd,
Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal
A nobler change than he himself can tell.

Magd. College, Oxon.
June 2, 1693.
The Author's age 22.

EXI

A POEM