vide,
Humility reward, and punish pride;
Ambition, interest, avarice, accuse:
These are the province of a tragic Muse. 30
These hast thou chosen; and the public voice
Has equall'd thy performance with thy choice.
Time, action, place, are so preserved by thee,
That even Corneille might with envy see
The alliance of his tripled Unity.
Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown;
But too much plenty is thy fault alone.
At least but two can that good crime commit,
Thou in design, and Wycherly in wit.
Let thy own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare; 40
Contented to be thinly regular:
Born there, but not for them, our fruitful soil
With more increase rewards thy happy toil.
Their tongue, enfeebled, is refined too much;
And, like pure gold, it bends at every touch:
Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey,
More fit for manly thought, and strengthen'd with allay.
But whence art thou inspired, and thou alone,
To flourish in an idiom not thy own?
It moves our wonder, that a foreign guest 50
Should over-match the most, and match the best.
In under-praising thy deserts, I wrong;
Here find the first deficience of our tongue:
Words, once my stock, are wanting, to commend
So great a poet, and so good a friend.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: 'Motteux:' an exiled Frenchman, translator of 'Don
Quixote,' and a play-wright. Dryden alludes here to Collier's attacks on
himself.]

* * * * *

EPISTLE XIII.

TO MY HONOURED KINSMAN, JOHN DRYDEN,[24] OF CHESTERTON, IN THE COUNTY OF
HUNTINGDON, ESQ.

How bless'd is he who leads a country life,
Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife!
Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage,
Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age:
All who deserve his love, he makes his own;
And, to be loved himself, needs only to be known.

Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come,
From your award to wait their final doom;
And, foes before, return in friendship home.
Without their cost, you terminate the cause; 10
And save the expense of long litigious laws:
Where suits are traversed; and so little won,
That he who conquers, is but last undone:
Such are not your decrees; but so design'd,
The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind;
Like y