But who the Bowl, or ratt'ling Dice compares
To Basset's heav'nly Joys, and pleasing Cares?

SMILINDA.

Soft SIMPLICETTA doats upon a Beau;
PRUDINA likes a Man, and laughs at Show.
Their several graces in my SHARPER meet;
Strong as the Footman, as the Master sweet.

LOVET.

Cease your contention, which has been too long;
I grow impatient, and the Tea's too strong.
Attend, and yield to what I now decide;
The Equipage shall grace SMILINDA'S Side:
The Snuff-Box to CARDELIA I decree,
Now leave complaining, and begin your Tea.

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
(Indeed she was curst)

In knowledge that tasted delight,
And sages agree

The laws should decree

To the first possessor the right.

IV.

Then bravely, fair dame,
Resume the old claim,

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,
That happy air of majesty and truth;

So would I draw (but oh! 'tis vain to try,
My narrow genius does the power deny ;)
The equal lustre of the heav'nly mind,
Where ev'ry grace with every virtue's join'd;
Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe,
With greatness easy, and with wit sincere;
With just description show the work divine,

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:
Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found,
And blasted both, that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere th' Almighty saw well pleas'd,
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seiz'd.

I.

THINK not, by rig'rous judgment seiz'd,
A pair so faithful could expire;

Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd,
And snatch'd them in celestial fire.

II.

LIVE well, and fear no sudden fate;
When God calls virtue to the grave,
Alike 'tis justice, soon or late,

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,
Either for goddess, or for god,

Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
Jove frown'd, and, "Use," he cried,

"those eyes

So skilful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise-"

She bow'd, obey'd him,-and cut paper.
This vexing him who gave her birth,

Thought by all heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,
Her Burlington do just the same.

Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;

But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one that bears
The name of Saville and of Boyle.

Alas! one bad example shown;

How quickly all the sex pursue!
See, madam, see the arts o'erthrown,
Between John Overton and you!

5

IO

15

20

1 Dr Gilbert.

Hoadley.]

ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE,

DRAWN BY LADY BURLINGTON.

EACE, flattering Bishop1! lying Dean!
This portrait only paints the Queen!

PE

THE LOOKING-GLASS.

ON MRS PULTENEY3.

TH scornful mien, and various toss of air,

WITH
Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,

Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,

-y's wife.

She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage grac'd her virgin life,
But charming G-y's lost in P-
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind:
O could the sire renown'd in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter's use!
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,
Be what she was, and charm mankind once more!

ON

WHEN

CERTAIN LADIES.

HEN other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavia, Delia, stay in town:

Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

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
ROYAL HIGHNESS1.

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
THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.

EN'ROUS, gay, and gallant nation,
Bold in arms, and bright in arts;
Land secure from all invasion,

All but Cupid's gentle darts!
From your charms, oh who would run?
Who would leave you for the sun?
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!

Let old charmers yield to new;

In arms, in arts, be still more shining;
All your joys be still increasing;
All your tastes be still refining;
All your jars for ever ceasing:

But let old charmers yield to new.
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED OF

Marbles, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals3.

THOU

HOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad Mirror thro' the shadowy Cave;

Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow:

Approach! Great NATURE studiously behold;
And eye the Mine without a wish for Gold.

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.
Let such, such only tread this sacred Floor,
Who dare to love their Country, and be poor.

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.
wrote a burlesque version of them, which is not
remarbably witty. See Hogarth's Memoirs of
the Musical Drama.]

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.]