ро
Ρ ο Ε E

M S

BY

DR. THOMAS SPR A T,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

SIR, SEEIN EEING you are pleased to think fit that these

papers should come into the public, which were at first designed to live only in a desk, or some private friend's hands; I humbly take the boldness to commit them to the security, which your name and protection will give them with the most knowing part of the world. There are tivo things especially in which they stand in need of your defence : one is, thât they fall fo infinitely below the full and lofty genius of that excellent poet, who made this way of writing free of our nation : the other, that they are so little proportioned and equal to the renown of that prince, on whom they were written. Such great actions and lives deserving rather to be the subjects of the noblest pens and divine fancies, than of such small beginners and weak essayers in poetry as myself. Against these dangerous prejudices, there remains no other shield, than the universal eftecin and authority which your judgment and approbation carries with it. The right you have to them, Sir, is not only on the account of the relation

you

had to this great person, nor of the general favour which all arts receive from you; but more particu

larly

L 2

err,

Not only those I nam'd I there shall greet,
But my own gallart, virtuous Cato meet.
Nor did I weep, when I to ashes turn'd
His belov'd body, who should mine have burn'd.
I in my thoughts beheld his soul ascend,
Where his fixt hopes our interview attend :
Then cease to wonder that I feel no grief
From age, which is of my delights the chief.
My hopes, if this assurance hath deceiv'd,
(That I man's foul immortal have believ'd)
And if I

no power

shall dispossess
My thoughts of that expected happiness.
Though fome minute philosophers pretend,
That with our days our pains and pleasures end.
If it be so, I hold the safer side,
For none of them my error shall deride.
And if hereafter no rewards appear,
Yet virtue hath itself rewarded here,
If those, whọ this opinion have despis’d,
And their whole life to pleasure facrific’d,
Should feel their error, they, when undeceivid,
Too late will with, that me they had believ'd.
If fouls no immortality obtain,
'Tis fit our bodies should be out of pain.
The same uneasiness which every thing
Gives to our nature, life must also bring.
Good acts, if long, feem tedious ; fo is age,
Acting too long upon this caith her stage.
Thus much for age, to which when you arrive,
That joy to you, which it gives me, 'twill give.

CON

D E N H A M’S PO E M S.

Page 7

20

COOPER's Hill
The Destruction of Troy, an Essay on the second

Book of Virgil's Æneis
On the Earl of Strafford's Trial and Death

39 On my Lord Crofts and my Journey into Poland, from

whence we brought 10,000l. for his Majesty, by the

Decimation of his Scottish Subjects there .40 On Mr. Thomas Killigrew's Return from his Em

bassy from Venice, and Mr. William Murray's from Scotland

43 To Sir John Mennis, being invited from Calais to Bologne to eat a Pig

44 Natura Naturata Sarpedon's Speech to Glaucus in the 12th of Homer 47 Epigram from Martial

49 Friendship and single Life, against Love and Marriage

go On Mr. Abraham Cowley's Death and Burial amongst

46