Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/50

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which indeed most branches do. But this is still excelled by our laureate:

Branches in branches twined compose the grove, And shoot and spread, and blossom into love. The trembling palms their mutual vows repeat, And bending poplars bending poplars meet. The distant plantains seem to press more nigh, And to the sighing alders, alders sigh.

His robe of state is form'd of light refin'd, An endless train of lustre spreads behind. His throne's of bright compacted glory made, With pearls celestial, and with gems inlaid: Whence floods of joy, and seas of splendour flow, On all the angelic gazing throng below.

This does in as peculiar a manner become the low in wit, as a pert air does the low in stature. Mr. Thomas Brown, the author of the London Spy, and all the spies and trips in general, are herein to be diligently studied; inverse, Mr. Cibber's prologues.

But the beauty and energy of it is never so conspicuous, as when it is employed in modernizing, and adapting to the taste of the times, the works of the ancients. This we rightly phrase, doing them into English, and making them English; two expressions of great propriety; the one, denoting our neglect of the manner how; the other, the force and compulsion with which it is brought about. It is by virtue of