and then upon Stars besides the single zeal of her one Soul is that which two Souls bear But first why did Mariamne find him out alone In the same Scene a Chariot that brought her thither is mention'd In her own Chariot to Morocco forc'd And sure she did not drive her Chariot her self and if the Chariot could have been brought upon the Stage no doubt the Poet would have lent her some attendants to appear with her But why upon Stars If the Stars had took her up on their backs to bring her thither the â—â—ars sure had long arms to let her down gently agen without letting her fall But why may not the Stars be supposed to have influence or power enough to bring her thither without the trouble of thy Trumpeter Hornets That slide on the back of a new falling Star. I must confess the Poet if he had thought on 't might have introduced her by a Machin and have had the opportunity of a song like Nakar and Damilcars with ne're a word of sense in it but 't is too late now and it must eâ—â—e pass without that Decoration But then why is the single zeal of her soul that which two souls bear Yes by Bays his reason If her Soul has the same zeal that all united Lovers souls have therefore her single Soul has all the zeal of those Lovers and those Lovers themselves have none I for your sake my wandring steps engage Devotion is the rise of Pilgrimage This Princess is no better then she should be to tell one whom she is not Married to that she adores him c. certainly Devotion and adoration are removed many Degrees Devotion amongst Lovers is as Piety between Fathers and Children or the like 't is no adoring nor deifying one another But if Mariamne be profane as he calls her for her Pilgrimage in leaving the Court to follow her Lover I wonder how much more profane is his Benzaida whose devotion to Ozmiâ— proceeds farther then being a Pilgrim for his sake she offers to dye for him and fall a Sacrifice for Ozmins safety Does she adore Sâ—lin or make him a God if she falls a sacrifice to appease his anger None of my Actions can sit Iudges be But they who 've soul enough to love like me He by they and soul which are of different numbers would infer that many men have but one soul. None of thy reasons can fit Iudges be But they who 're dull enough to prate like thee I 'm certain he that reads this Pamphlet and believes there went three head pieces towards the production of this Rarity will infer that one rational soul will o're stock twenty such Scriblers No Sir thou doest belye his Name He calls him Sir first and then gives him the lye and wrongfully For he does not holye his name when he calls him his Prophet As I take it there was something else said about the Prophet besides his name in which he belyed him But Notes is a Courtier and has found out that Sir is a compliment and the lye an affront and therefore this Line is faulty or the Character of Muly Hamet that Scharomaucio-like flatters and abuses in one breath Am is the Rhime to Name too it should â—e Nam But Hametalhaz takes no notice but goes on He was not so witty at observations as Bays or no doubt he had stopt to have taken notice of so great a fault Your Mistriss too must your misfortune find That could not be she could not loose a Mistriss This is almost as Politick a reason as Abdelmelechs page 25. of a Prince and a Rival If a Prince Court her whom I adore He is my Rival and a Prince no more Well here 's one excellency in Bays 't is a perfection in a Poet to keep constant to his style and I assure you this does for his Plays and his Notes are all of a piece Besides he says 't is his Fate and his Prophet has doom'd him into the Bargain yet calls it his misfortâ—e as if that happened by chance that were necessitated Hâ—w many hundred times has misfortune and Fate been indifferently used without relating to the chance of the one and the necessity of the other No Titles his eternal will confute Here he makes the will which is caeca facultas to be opinion for nothing can be confuted but opinion It had been nearer sense though it had not been sense if he had said confute understanding Because the Will in men subject to passions is caeca facultas therefore the eternal will of a Divinity is caeca facultas with Mr. Commentatour It had been more for his purpose to have affirm'd that the understanding that is if measured by his had been caeca facultas for his has not the best Opticks I have met wiâ—h She is a Beauty and that Name 's her guard Here he makes the Quality of a Woman to be her name If I should say thou art a wit as a complemâ—nt it might pass but for a name 't would be severe for 't is the greatest Nick-name that was ever put upon thee But then why nothing confuted but opinion I thought argument might be confuted and yet men may hold arguments quite contrary to their knowledge or opinions as I doubt not but thou hast done many or thy Pamphlet had never swel'd so big Good Fates as due should be to Beauty given Give a Debt is none of the best sense but give a man his due will be sense as long as thou writest Nonsense and art laught at for it Beauty which decks our Earth and props his Heaven Whose Heaven Mahomet is not spoke of in five Lines But I am satisfied he is spoke of and to what can his refer to but Mahomet then how Beauty props Heaven he must tell us for most think it sends more to Hell then Heaven If thy great reading in so many Years has not inform'd thee how Beauty props the Mahumetan Paradise Thou art too old now to learn. When Heaven to Beauty is propitious It pays those Favours it but lends to us Heaven pays savours to Beauties but lends them to men Favours are gifts He gave debts before and now he lends gifts Why must Favours be always gifts He might have gone on aâ—d said that the Poet pays gifts for he talks of paying favours as well as lending them But I perceive the modest Commentatour thought his argument had Nonsense enough before and therefore to have proceeded any further would have been superfluous With patience hear the Language of the Skie Heaven when on Earth it does some Change fore shew Does write above what we must read below Here for want of Philosophy he calls Heav'n the sky and the Language of the sky as he describes presently is Hail a fine white Language which Hail he thinks ingendred in the sky he has never heard of the middle Region If Hail because the Poet calls it the Language of Heav'n viz. An omen of â—ill in
of Poetry in which he has done Reason to himself and Honour to the World in being that Kind Great Master to the Minor Poets by what Rule Men are obliged to reflect on their past State before their present And how is it Non-sence to name what is before we mention what was How many Examples of this kind occurr in Common Discourse as we say Ered and Born Men and Angels Besides I think Muly Labas may say I am condemned to Fetters and am not was born to Scepters for Men say in the Present Tense they are born to such or such an Estate till they are in possession of it But I perceive Mr. Dryden is so little obliged to Birth-right and so weakly intitled to Patrimonies that 't is very pardonable in him to mistake in an expression of this kind Nay he 's so far from a Guilt in this that were he to discribe himself I doubt not but he 'd tell you what he has been before what he is viz. that he once could write an Indian Emperour and a Tyrannick Love But now by his own confession in his Epilogue to Granada When Forty comes if e're he Lives to see That wretched Fumbling Age of Poetry Where by the way you must know he was Eight and Thirty Years Old when he wrote that and 't is now Three Years since the writing you must then expect now no more of that Stamp his last fury being spent in his Love in a Nunnery And to convince you of this truth he is now grown as Ill-natur'd as Old Women in their decay of Beauty who make it their business to rail aganst all that 's young Thus the best Title he can allow this Stripling Poet is to call him Great Boy and indeed that is his Fault if it be one To be but a few Years past Twenty and to show how much he thinks him a Boy as one not able to answer for himself he quibbles upon his God-Fathers and at every pinch to make out a feeble Iest he cryes Oh Elkanah well said Elkanah read Philosophy Elkanah As if he supposed the Reader would be infinitely taken with the Novelty of such a Name as Elkanah But hold what have I done Indeed I was too much to blame to tell the World he is Old When Mr. Dryden as he has declared himself designes to please none but his fair Admirers the Female part of his Audienceâ— and for them to know he is in Years is very severe however in the same Epilogue he answers for himself and says But yet ho hopes he 's young enough to Love. 'T is in this Garb unhappy Princes mourn To pass by his Impertinent question are Fetters the Crape or the Purple that Princes mourn in here he says Muly Labas confesses himself a man of mean Courage and his reason is this because if a man mourns or complains he must be a Coward Now whether he takes mourning for blubbering or howling I cannot tell but certainly to make a Prince sad and concern'd for a King and Fathers unjust displeasure â— his being the cause of a Mistriss Imprisonment and the occasion of a War between her Father and his might be pardonable in any mans writings but he who dares reflect on Mr. Dryden But he is so far from being a Coward that others think the Poet in the whole Speech proves the quite contrary and wonder Mr. Dryden should be so ill a Judge Yet Fortune to great Courages is kind 'T is he wants Liberty whose Soul 's confin'd My thoughts out fly c Great Courages are here the same thing with unconfin'd Souls and the sense is Great Courages or unconfin'd Souls are unconfin'd by the kindness of Fortune that is Great Courages are valiant by chance or by good luck Now every man but our Commentator that is every Rational man and one that had but Brains enough to carry the Sence of two Lines in his head would have construed it thus yet Fortune that reduces Princes to Fetters is kind to those of Great Courages for as the following Lines express it gives e'm an occasion of manifesting their Courage To the short Walk of one poor Globe enslav'd A walk of a Globe Now by Mr. Settles Leave a Globe is a round thing and a thing improper to be walked upon for a woman on a Globe is the Emblem of Fortunes Inconstancy Well argued witty Mr. Dryden If he means such a kind of Globe Alexander was enslaved to Aristotle was very unkind to give his Pupil the trouble of Conquering a World when an Astronomers Library might have satisfied his Ambition But we must suppose Mr. Dryden to be of his Indians Belief that the World is no Globe and that the Earth is like a Trencher and the Heavens a Dish whelmed over it when he says My Eyes no Object met But distant Skies that in the Ocean set Or if he will allow the World to be round perhaps he may have the same opinion of Alexanders expedition as some Old Women have of Captain Drakes Navigation for I shrewdly suspect his Faith to be as Ridiculous as his Reason and having heard him call'd Alexander the Great supposes him to have been some huge heavy monstrous creature that the Earth shook under him and consequently 't was not a Globe fit or safe for him to walk on But to judge more favourably of him for this is most to his advantage it may be he tells us a Globe is a round thing to shew us his Skill in Mathematicks My Soul mounts higher and Faâ—es Pow'r disdains And makes me reign a Monarch in my Chains c. But then wherein do his thoughts out-fly Alexanders Alexanders thoughts were too big for a World and Muly Labas his for a Prison as if he should say he scornd the World but I scorn a Iayle I am a greater man than he because he was a greater man than I. This Argument is one of the best he has in all his Notes for the generality of them neither are nor look like Arguments But this is a little degree advanced above the Crowd for this looks like an argument though it be none For first he mistakes the whole design of the speech in mistaking what thoughts those are of Muly Labas and Alexander which the Poet makes his comparison upon Because desires of greatness and ambition are thoughts therefore there can be no other thoughts or at lest the Poet can mean no other But the whole speech proves that the Poet makes the comparison between the thoughts of their contentment and the satisfaction of their Souls not the extent of their wishes dominions or prisons which was the more satisfied not which was the greater Man. Alexander thought himself confined in a World and Muly Labas thought himself free in a Prison He was a Slave in Empires and this a Monarch in Chains Thy rage brave Prince mean Subjects does despise None but thy Son shall be thy Sacrifice Here his Old Emperour is a brave
it lay so shallow as he imagins the digging up of a Radish or a Daizy Root would be the harder piece of work of the two I am afraid the rich Bed as he has described it is little less Poetical then Parsly-beds for the conception of Children And the covering a Gold Mine with a warm Turf is much abouâ— the excellence of the Poetry upon the Two Children in the Wood and the Robin Râ—d breasts that covered them with Leaves You may see by our Authors Notions at what Age he began to write man But the perfection of so immense a wit like the production of Hercules required a longer time than ordinary And though upstart and illiterate Scriblers as his Preface says of Elkanah might Cruise upon the Coasts of Poetry at twenty pardon the Allegory for ever since Husk of Love Poetica licenâ—ia will make bold But such a prodigious Sun and Star in Poetry Husk agen ascended not so soon into his Orbe Wâ—b of thought as our friend has it Kindness will shew it self I could go on now Allegorically but shooting out and never stopping to bait at Heaven has been before c. Kings Bounties act like the Suns Courteous smiles Whose rays produce kind Flowers on fruitful Soyls But cast on baâ—ren Sands and baser Earth Only breed Poysons and give Monsters Birth Bounties are very like smiles c. and in his examination of the Epistle on the same Liâ—es he says the Poet calls a smile â—onâ—â—â—ous and says a Kings Bounty acts like a smile It had been more like sense to have said Kings in their Bounties act like smiles and yet it had been ridiculous enough to compare a King to a smile c. No man sure but one that had been drunk when he wrote it and never sober afterwards to peruse it between the time it was writ and the day it was publisht could have exposed himself to the world so senselesly malicious and so wilfully dull as this Farce of a man has done The Poet says Kings Bounties act like the Suns smiles Therefore says Notes a Kings Bounty acts like a smile Prethee take the Sun in and be not more unkind to him her than in your Annus mirabilis to shrink him into a Star was severe but to make a Cypher of him is a little too hard Then he says Bounties are very like smiles Nay now King and Sun are both lost and the dispute lyes between Bounties and smiles and they too are like one another not act like one another the comparison being in their resemblance not in their effects Did ever any man so chop and change and confound things and qualities actions and beings so dully and to so little purpose then his Epistle makes one more remark that those Sands are not properly barren that produce Monsters and poysons I cannot say they are strictly barren but I can say that this is not the first time they have been call'd so But I am certain Sands that produce nothing else can as improperly be call'd fruitful for the production of Monsters as a Dutch-woman can be so call'd for the Birth of a Sooteskin or Land so called that bears nothing but Weeds I am certain such Sands are more properly barren than Granada could be empty when Almanzor and Almahide were out of it Almanz. We leave the City empty when we go But you shall see what Mr. Dryden calls Barren In his first Page of the Indian Emperour he says of Mexico Corn Wine and Oyl are wanting to this Ground In which our Countries fruitfully abound And twelve Lines after he says No kindly showers fall on our Barren earth To hatch the seasons in a timely Birth Here he calls Spain a Barren Earth which in the first two Lines was a more fruitful Country than Mexico producing Corn Wine and Oyl which Mexico did not How much more barren then must Mexico be and yet he told you that was a happy Climate in the first Line On what new happy Climate are we thrown But a Barren Country fruitfully abounding with Corn Wine and Oyl shall and must be sense for 't is very unreasonable that our Grand master in Poetry should be less Authentick then Aristotle in Philosophy Why not Dixit Dryden as well as Dixit Aristoteles Perhaps you have mis-interpreted his Breast This Phrase is not very proper Proper enough for so modest a Poet. He who forced Favours both from Fate and Fame Made War a Sport and Conquest but a Game Forcing Fate is altering on 't which is ill Divinity in Morocco Pray what Religion was Zulema of when he said page 19. Would you so please Fate yet a way would find Man makes his Fate according to his mind Was not he a Mabumetan too And what says Abdelmedeck speaking of Almanzor page 17. Fate after him below with pain did move And Victory could scarce keep pace above Which last two Lines if he can show me any sense or thought in or any thing but bombast and noise he shall make me believe every word in his Observations on Morocco sense A nameless Lord would perswade the King that Crimalhaz has put a very honourable trick upon him with running away to Atlas with his Army which should defend Morocco against Taffalette as he says a while after and that honest Crimalhaz Has from the common rout Of the worlds Beauties singled honour out The common rout of Beauties is excellent sence If he that speaks it be of opinion that honour is the worlds greatest Beauty I think it pardonable in him to call inferiour Beautys the common rout of Beautys in comparison of that But now for the greater fault the Lords perswading the King that Crimalhaz c. I wonder where the fault lyes for the Lord to judge of the intentions of Crimalhaz which he gives you his reason for and tells you how he mâ—y possibly mean honestly You know that Crimalhaz his high Command Was formerly in Muly Hamets hand He who forced Favours both from Fate and Fame Made War a Sport and Conquest but a Game And therefore he perhaps to act some Deed Which Muly Hamets glory may exceed Has for his Mistress from the common Rout Of the worlds Beauties singled Honour out And that which makes him his Designs disguise He 'l make his flight of Honour a surprize as showers Luxurious grown The Luxury of showers I never understood but that Rain takes no pleasure in its Luxury I am certain Then he has heard Luxury in Men is their taking pleasure in such or such an excess which showers cannot do is Luxury used in no larger sense Has not he heard of Luxurious Branches of Trees and yet though Trees are as little Epicures in taking pleasure as Rain yet Luxurious Branches is not Nonsense As Mountains Bulwarks are at Land but Rocks at Sea. That is Mountains if any body should misplace 'em and whip 'em up and carry 'em into the Sea would turn Rocks ipso facto Why must these