But who the Bowl, or ratt'ling Dice compares SMILINDA. Soft SIMPLICETTA doats upon a Beau; LOVET. Cease your contention, which has been too long; 105 ΠΙΟ TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. [Originally published in a Miscellany of the year 1720.] Impertinent schools, With musty dull rules, Have reading to females denied ; So Papists refuse The Bible to use, III. 'Twas a woman at first In knowledge that tasted delight, The laws should decree To the first possessor the right. IV. Then bravely, fair dame, Which to your whole sex does belong; And let men receive, From a second bright Eve, Lest flocks should be wise as their guide. The knowledge of right and of wrong. V. But if the first Eve Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she, What a punishment new Shall be found out for you, Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree? EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES, ON THE PICTURE OF LADY MARY W. MONTAGU, BY KNELLER. [Bowles, from Dallaway's Life of Lady M. W. M.] THE HE playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, So would I draw (but oh! 'tis vain to try, And the whole princess in my work should shine. IMITATION OF TIBULLUS. POPE, in his letters to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the East, expresses a desire, real or fanciful, to meet her. 'But if my fate be such,' he says, 'that this body of mine (which is as ill matched to my mind as any wife to her husband) be left behind in the journey, let the epitaph of Tibullus be set over it.' Carruthers. [The letter is in Bowles, Vol. VIII. The original is Tibull. Lib. 1. Eleg. IV. 55-6.] HERE, stopt by hasty death, Alexis lies, Who crossed half Europe, led by Wortley's eyes. EPITAPHS ON JOHN HUGHES AND SARAH DREW. [POPE, in a letter to Lady M. W. Montagu, Sept. 1st, 1718, written from Stanton-Harcourt, Lord Harcourt's seat in Oxfordshire, relates the anecdote of the death of two lovers 'as constant as ever were found in romance,' by name John Hewet and Sarah Drew, who were simultaneously struck by lightning at a harvesthome; and sends her two epitaphs composed by him, of which the critics have chosen the godly one.' (See Lord Wharncliffe's Letters, &c. II. 100.) Lady Mary (Nov. 1st, ejusd. ann.) returned a decidedly cynical answer, with an epitaph of her own, commencing, 'Here lie John Hughes and Sarah Drew; Perhaps you'll say, What's that to you?' and concluding, after a doubt whether perchance ''twas not kindly done,' considering the chances of married life, 'Now they are happy in their doom, For Pope has wrote upon their tomb.' According to Gay's letter to Mr F— (Aug. 9th, 1718), Lord Harcourt, appre 5 hensive that the country people would not understand even the godly epitaph, determined to substitute one 'with something of Scripture in it, and with as little of poetry as Hopkins and Sternhold.' This prose epitaph was also written by Pope.] HEN Eastern lovers feed the fun'ral fire, W On the same pile the faithful fair expire: I. THINK not, by rig'rous judgment seiz'd, Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd, II. LIVE well, and fear no sudden fate; Mercy alike to kill or save. Virtue unmov'd can hear the call, And face the flash that melts the ball. ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING PAPER. [THE lady of Pope's friend, to whom Ep. IV. of the Moral Essays is addressed. Her maiden name was Lady Dorothy Saville.] PALLAS grew vapourish once, and odd, She would not do the least right thing, Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing. "those eyes So skilful, and those hands so taper; She bow'd, obey'd him,-and cut paper. Thought by all heaven a burning shame; Pallas, you give yourself strange airs; But sure you'll find it hard to spoil Alas! one bad example shown; How quickly all the sex pursue! 5 IO 15 20 1 Dr Gilbert. Hoadley.] ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE, DRAWN BY LADY BURLINGTON. EACE, flattering Bishop1! lying Dean! PE THE LOOKING-GLASS. ON MRS PULTENEY3. TH scornful mien, and various toss of air, WITH Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain, -y's wife. She looks ambition, and she moves disdain. ON WHEN CERTAIN LADIES. HEN other fair ones to the shades go down, Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside, Carruthers. [Or it might be Gumley of Isleworth, who had gained his fortune 2 Dr Alured Clarke. Id. 3 [Anna Maria Gumley, daughter of John by a glass manufactory, was married to Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath.] EPIGRA M. ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS I AM his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? LINES SUNG BY DURASTANTI G WHEN SHE TOOK LEAVE OF THE ENGLISH STAGE. THE WORDS WERE IN HASTE PUT TOGETHER BY MR POPE, At the requEST OF EN'ROUS, gay, and gallant nation, All but Cupid's gentle darts! Let old charmers yield to new; In arms, in arts, be still more shining; But let old charmers yield to new. ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM, COMPOSED OF Marbles, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals3. THOU HOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill, Approach! Great NATURE studiously behold; 5 Approach; but awful! Lo! th' Egerian Grot, Where, nobly-pensive, ST JOHN sate and thought; Where British sighs from dying WYNDHAM stole1, ΤΟ And the bright flame was shot thro' MARCHMONT'S Soul. 1 [Frederick, Prince of Wales. Roscoe traces the idea of this epigram to Sir W. Temple's Heads designed for an Essay on Conversation.] [Margherita Durastanti was brought out at the English Opera-house by Handel, and sang in his operas and those of Bononisni from 1719 to 1723. She then retired, finding herself unable to contend with the superior powers of Cuzzoni. She took a formal leave of the English stage, for which occasion the above lines were composed Arbuthnot by Pope, at her patron's desire. 3 [As to Pope's grotto, see Introductory Memoir, p. xxxiv.] 4 [See Epil. to Satires. Dial. II. v. 88.] 5 [The Earl of Marchmont, afterwards one of Pope's executors.] |