• Athenian queen! and sober charms !

I tell ye, fool! there's nothing in't: "Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms ;

In Dryden's Virgil see the print. « Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither truth nor lies, I'll list you in the harmless roll

Of those that sing of these poor eyes.'

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE".

In beauty or wit,

No mortal as yet
To question your empire has dared;

But men of discerning

Have thought that, in learning, To yield to a lady was hard.

Impertinent schools,

With musty dull rules, Have reading to females denied :

So papists refuse

The Bible to use,
Lest flocks should be wise as their guide.

'Twas a woman at first,

(Indeed she was cursed) In knowledge that tasted delight,

And sages agree

The laws should decree
To the first of possessors the right.

Then bravely, fair dame,

Resume the old claim,
Which to your whole sex does belong;

And let men receive,

From a second bright Eve,
The knowledge of right, and of wrong.

But if the first Eve

Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she,

What a punishment now

Shall be found out for you,
Who, tasting, have robb’d the whole tree?

TO THE AUTHOR

OF A PANEGYRIC ON MRS. GRACE BUTLER,

WHO DIED, AGED 86.

[The Spirit of Mrs. Butler is supposed to speak.] STRIPP'D to the naked soul, escaped from clay, From doubts unfetter’d, and dissolved in day; Unarm’d by vanity; unreach'd by strife; And all my hopes and fears thrown off by life; Why am I charm’d by friendship’s fond essays, And, though unbodied, conscious of thy praise? Has pride a portion in the parted soul ? Does passion still the formless mind control ?

Can gratitude outpant the silent breath?
Or a friend's sorrow pierce the glooms of death?
No,-'tis a spirit's nobler taste of bliss !
That feels the worth it left, in proofs like this ;
That not its own applause, but thine, approves ;
Whose practice praises, and whose virtue loves !
Who livest, to crown departed friends with fame!
Then, dying late, shalt all thou gavest reclaim.

INSCRIPTION
ON A GROTTO OF SHELLS AT CRUX-EASTON, THE

WORK OF NINE YOUNG LADIES.
HERE, shunning idleness at once and praise,
This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;
The glittering emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul, and shining as her frame;
Beauty which Nature only can impart,
And such a polish as disgraces art;
But fate disposed them in this humble sort,
And hid in deserts what would charm'a court.

A DIALOGUE.
POPE. SINCE my old friend is grown so great,

As to be minister of state,
I'm told (but 'tis not true I hope)

That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope. CRAGGs. Alas! If I am such a creature,

To grow the worse for growing greater;
Why faith, in spite of all my brags,
"Tis Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.

VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE,

ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT, EARL OF

ROCHESTER, USED AT ATTERBURY, A SEAT OF THE DUKE OF ARGYLE'S IN OXFORDSHIRE, JULY 9, 1739.

With no poetic ardóur fired,

I press the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he loved, or here expired,

Begets no numbers grave or gay.
But in thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie, Stretch'd out in Honour's nobler bed,

Beneath a nobler roof-the sky. Such flames as high in patriots burn,

Yet stoop to bless a child, or wife; And such as wicked kings may mourn,

When freedom is more dear than life.

TO HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF ARGYLE,

UPON READING THE PREAMBLE TO THE PATENT

CREATING HIM DUKE OF GREENWICH.

MINDLESS of Fate, in these low vile abodes,
Tyrants have oft usurp'd the style of gods:
But that the mortal may be thought divine,
The herald straight new-model'd all his line;
And venal priest, with well-dissembled lie,
Preambled to the crowd the mimic deity.
Not so great Saturn's son, imperial Jove,
He reigns, unquestion’d, in his realms above;
No title from descent he need infer,
His red right arm proclaims the thunderer.

This, Campbell, be thy pride, illustrious peer,
Alike to shine distinguish'd in thy sphere.
All merit but thine own thou may'st disdain,
And kings have been thine ancestors in vain.

EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS, A HANDSOME WOMAN WITH A FINE VOJCE, BUT VERY

COVETOUS AND PROUD'. So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus

along; But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, That the beasts must have starved, and the poet

have died.

EPIGRAM
ON ONE WHO MADE LONG EPITAPHS2.
FREIND, for your Epitaphs I'm grieved,

Where still so much is said; · One half will never be believed,