TO Mr J. N. on his Translations out of French and Italian.

WHile others toil our Country to supply
With what we need only for Luxury,
Spices, and Silk, in the rich East provide,
To glut our Avarice and feed our pride
You forreign learning prosperously transmit,
To raise our Virtue; and provoke our Wit.
You …orreign learning prosperously transmit,
To raise our Vertue, and provoke our Wit.
Such brave designs your gen'rous soul inflame
To be a bold Adventurer for Fame;
How much oblig'd are Italy and France,
While with your voice their Musick you advance?
Your growing Fame with Envy can oppose,
Who sing with no less art then they compose;
In these attempts so few have had success,
Their Beauties suffer in our English dress:
By artless hands spoil'd of their native air,
They seldom pass from moderately fair:
As if you meant these injuries to atone,
You give them charms more conqu'ring then their own
Not like the dull laborious Flatterer,
With secret art those graces you confer.
The skilful Painters with slight stroaks impart,
That subtil beauty which affects the heart.
There are who publickly profess they hate
Translations, and yet all they write translate:
So proud, they scorn to drive a lawfull trade,
Yet by their wants are shameless P…rates made▪
These you incense, while you their thefts reveal
Or else prevent in what they meant to steal
From all besides; you are secure of praise,
But you so high our expectation raise,
A gen…ral discontent we shall declare,
If such a workman only shou'd repair.
You to the dead your Piety have shewn,
Adorn'd their monuments, now build your own:
Drawn in the East, we in your lines may trace
That Genius which of old inspir'd the place:
The banish'd Muses back to Greece you bring,
Where their best airs you so divinely sing;
The world must own they are by you restor'd
To sacred shades, where they were first ador'd.