TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY. Oн, be thou bless'd with all that Heaven can send, With added years, if life bring nothing new, Let joy or ease, let affluence or content, TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN, RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die, This day Tom's fair account has run Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout, May Tom, whom heaven sent down to raise 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:: 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 That laws should decree To the first of possessors the right. * This panegyric on Lady Mary Wortley Montague might have been suppressed by Mr. Pope, on account of her having satirized him in her verses to the imitator of Horace; which abuse he returned in the first satire of the second book of Horace. From furious Sappho, scarce a milder fate, Then bravely, fair dame, Resume the old claim, Which to your whole sex does belong; From a second bright Eve, The knowledge of right and of wrong. Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she, Shall be found out for you, Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree! EPISTLE IV, OF BOOK I, OF HORACE'S EPISTLES.* A modern Imitation. SAY,† St. John, who alone peruse *This satire on Lord Bolingbroke, and the praise bestowed on him in a letter to Mr. Richardson, where Mr. Pope says, The sons shall blush their fathers were his foes: being so contradictory, probably occasioned the former to be suppressed. S. t Ad Albium Tibullum. Albi, nostrorum sermonum, candide judex, Quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana? Scribere, quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat. The lines here quoted occur in the Essay on Man. § An tacitum silvas inter reptare salubres? Where (emulous of Chartres' fame) And, to enjoy that gift, the art. What could a tender mother's care In spite of tears, of mercy spite, Di tibi formam Di tibi divitias dederunt, artemque fruendi. † Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, Qui sapere, et fari possit quæ sentiat, et cui Gratia, fama, valetudo contingat abunde, non deficiente crumena? 1 Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras. Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. Me pinguem et nitidum bene curatâ cute visca, Cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum. EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS, A handsome Woman with a fine Voice, but very covetous and proud.* So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, EPIGRAM, On one who made long Epitaphs.† The other never read. TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER, WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move 'Twas Friendship-warm as Phoebus, kind as Love, And strong as Hercules. *This epigram, first printed anonymously in Steele's Collection, and copied in the Miscellanies of Swift and Pope, is ascribed to Pope by sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music-Mrs. Tofts, who was the daughter of a person in the family of Bishop Burnet, is celebrated as a singer little inferior, either for her voice or manner, . to the best Italian women. She lived at the introduction of the opera into this kingdom, and sung in company with Nicolini; but, being ignorant of Italian, chanted her recitative in English, in answer to his Italian; yet the charms of their voices overcame the absurdity. It is not generally known that the person here meant was Dr. Robert Friend, bead master of Westminater school, |