done on This. Since Your Departure, Affairs have had a surprizing Turn
every where, and particularly in_ Italy; _which Success of our Armies
and Allies abroad, have given a manifest Proof of our wise Counsels at
home.--Parties still run between_ High _and_ Low. _I shall make no
Remarks on either; thinking it always more prudent, as well as more
safe, to live peaceably under the Government in which I was born, rather
than peevishly to quarrel with it._

_But You will cry,_ Who expects any thing from the Politicks of a Poet?
How goes the State of _Parnassus_? What has the Battle of _Ramillies_
produc'd? _What Battles generally do; bad Poets, and worse Criticks. I
could not perswade my self to attempt any thing above six Lines, which
had not been made, were it not at the Request of a Musical Gentleman.
You will look upon them with the same Countenance you us'd to do on
things of a larger Size._

Born to surprize the World, and teach the Great
The slippery Danger of exalted State,
Victorious _Marlbrô_ to _Ramilly_ flies;
Arm'd with new Lightning from bright _ANNA's_ Eyes.
Wonders like These, no former Age has seen;
Subjects are _Heroes_, where a Saint's the _QUEEN_.

_Mr._ Congreve _has given the World an Ode, and prefix'd to it a
Discourse on the_ Pindaric Verse, _of which more, when I come to speak
on the same Argument: There are several others on that Subject, and some
which will bear the Test; one particularly, written in imitation of the
Style of_ Spencer; _and goes under the Name of Mr._ Prior; _I have not
read it through, but_ ex pede Herculem. _He is a Gentleman who cannot
write ill. Yet some of our_ Criticks _have fell upon it, as the Viper