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Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, Fir'd with ideas of fair Italy.

With thee on Raphael's monument I mourn,
Or wait inspiring dreams at Maro's urn:
With thee repose, where Tully once was laid,
Or seek some ruin's formidable shade:
While Fancy brings the vanish'd piles to view,
And builds imaginary Rome anew.
Here thy well-studied marbles fix our eye;
A fading fresco here demands a sigh:
Each heavenly piece unwearied we compare,
Match Raphael's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air,
Carracci's strength, Correggio's softer line,
Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divine.
How finish'd with illustrious toil appears
This small, well-polish'd gem, the work of years!
Yet still how faint by precept is express'd
The living image in the painter's breast!
Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow,
Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow;
Thence Beauty, waking all her forms, supplies
An angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes.

Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed,
Those tears eternal that embalm the dead;
Call round her tomb each object of desire,
Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire:
Bid her be all that cheers or softens life,
The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife:
Bid her be all that makes mankind adore;
Then view this marble, and be vain no more!
Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage;
Her modest cheek shall warm a future age.
Beauty, frail flower that every season fears,
Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts surprise,
And other beauties envy Worsley's eyes;
Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow,
And soft Belinda's blush for ever glow.

Oh, lasting as those colours may they shine, Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line; New graces yearly like thy works display, Soft without weakness, without glaring gay; Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains; And finish'd more through happiness than pains! The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire, One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breathe an air divine on every face; Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie, And these be sung till Granville's Myra die: Alas! how little from the grave we claim ! Thou but preserv'st a face, and I a name,

EPISTLE TO

MISS BLOUNT.

WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE.

His heart, his mistress and his friend did share;
His time, the Muse, the witty and the fair.
Thus wisely careless, innocently gay,
Cheerful he play'd the trifle, life, away;
Till Fate, scarce felt, his gentle breath supprest,
As smiling infants sport themselves to rest.
Ev'n rival wits did Voiture's death deplore,
And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before;
The truest hearts for Voiture heav'd with sighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes:
The Smiles and Loves had died in Voiture's death,
But that for ever in his lines they breathe.
Let the strict life of graver mortal be
A long, exact, and serious comedy;
In every scene some moral let it teach,
And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Let mine, an innocent gay farce appear,
And more diverting still than regular,
Have humour, wit, a native ease and grace,
Though not too strictly bound to time and place t
Crities in wit, or life, are hard to please;

Few write to those, and none can live to these.

Too much your sex are by their forms confin'd, Severe to all, but most to womankind; Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide; Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride; By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame; Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame, Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase, But sets up one, a greater, in their place. Well might you wish for change by those accurst, But the last tyrant ever proves the worst. Still in constraint your suffering sex remains, Or bound in formal, or in real chains: Whole years neglected, for some months ador'd The fawning servant turns a haughty lord. Ah, quit not the free innocence of life, For the dull glory of a virtuous wife; Nor let false shows, nor empty titles please: Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease.

The gods, to curse Pamela with her prayers, Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares, The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state, And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate. She glares in balls, front boxes, and the ring, A vain, unquiet, glittering, wretched thing! Pride, pomp, and state, but reach her outward part; She sighs, and is no dutchess at her heart.

But, madam, if the Fates withstand, and you
Are destin'd Hymen's willing victim too;
Trust not too much your now resistless charms,
Those, age or sickness, soon or late disarms:
Good-humour only teaches charms to last,

Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past;
Love, rais'd on beauty, will like that decay,
Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day;
As flowery bands in wantonness are worn,
A morning's pleasure, and at evening torn;
This binds in ties more casy, yet more strong,
The willing heart, and only holds it long.
Thus Voiture's early care still shone the same,
And Monthausier was only chang'd in name;

In these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine, By this, ev'n now they live, ev'n now they charm,

And all the writer lives in every line:

His easy art may happy nature seem,
Trifles themselves are elegant in him,
Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,

Who without flattery pleas'd the fair and great;
Still with esteem no less convers'd than read;
With wit well-natur'd, and with books well-bred:

Their wit still sparkling, and their flames still warm.
Now crown'd with myrtle, on th' Elysian coast,
Amid those lovers, joys his gentle ghost:
Pleas'd, while with smiles his happy lines you view
And finds a fairer Rambouillet in you,

! Mademoiselle Paulet

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ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN AFTER THE CORONATION, 1715.

As some fond virgin, whom her mother's care
Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
Not that their pleasures caus'd her discontent,
She sigh'd, not that they stay'd, but that she

went.

She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks, Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:

She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning-walks, and prayers three hours a-day;

To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea;
Or o'er cold coffee tritle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the 'squire ;
Up to her godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray, for that's the way to Heaven.
Some 'squire, perhaps, you take delight to

rack;

Whose game is whist, whose treat a toast in sack: Who visits with a gun, presents you birds, words!" Then gives a snacking buss, and cries,-" No Or with his hounds comes hallooing from the stable,

Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table; Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are

coarse,

And loves you best of all things-but his horse.
In some fair evening, on your elbow laid,
You dream of triumphs in the rural shade ;
In pensive thought recall the fancy'd scene,
See coronations rise on every green;
Before you pass th' imaginary sights

Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter'd knights,
While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!

So when your slave, at some dear idle time,
Not plagu'd with head-achs, or the want of rhyme
Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you:
Just when his fancy points your sprightly eyes,
Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs, rush upon my
sight;

Vex'd to be still in town, I knit my brow,

Look sour, and hum a tune, as you may now.

CARDELIA.

THE basset table spread, the tallier come;
Why stays Smilinda in the dressing-room?
Rise, pensive nymph; the tallier waits for you.

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CARDELIA.

Alas! far lesser losses than I bear, Have made a soldier sigh, a lover swear. And oh what makes the disappointment hard, 'Twas my own lord that drew the fatal card. In complaisance I took the queen he gave; Though my own secret wish was for the knave. The knave won sonica, which I had chose; And the next pull, my septleva I lose.

SMILINDA.

But ah! what aggravates the killing smart, The cruel thought, that stabs me to the heart; This curs'd Ombrelia, this undoing fair, By whose vile arts this heavy grief I bear; She, at whose name I shed these spiteful tears, She owes to me the very charms she wears. An aukward thing when first she came to town; Her shape unfashion'd, and her face unknown: She was my friend; I taught her first to spread Upon her sallow cheeks enlivening red : I introduc'd her to the park and plays; And by my interest, Cozens made her stays. Ungrateful wretch, with mimic airs grown pert, She dares to steal my favourite lover's heart!

CARDELIA.

Wretch that I was! how often have I swore, When Winnall tally'd, I would punt no more! I know the bite, yet to my ruin run; And see the folly, which I cannot shun.

SMILINDA.

How many maids have Sharper's vows deceiv'd! How many curs'd the moment they believ'd!

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Yet his known falsehoods could no warning prove: WHAT is Prudery? Ah! what is warning to a maid in love?

CARDELIA.

But of what marble must that breast be form'd,
To gaze on Basset, and remain unwarm'd ?
When kings, queens, knaves, are set in decent rank;
Expos'd in glorions heaps the tempting bank,
Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train;
The winner's pleasure, and the loser's pain:
In bright confusion open rouleaus lie,

They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye.
Fir'd by the sight, all reason I disdain ;
My passions rise, and will not bear the rein.
Look upon Basset, you who reason boast;
And see if reason must not there be lost.

SMILINDA.

What more than marble must that heart compose, Can hearken coldly to my Sharper's vows? Then, when he trembles when his blushes rise! When awful love seems melting in his eyes! With eager beats his Mechlin cravat moves: He loves,-I whisper to myself, he loves! Such unfeign'd passion in his looks appears, I lose my memory of my former fears; My panting heart confesses all his charms, I yield at once, and sink into his arms. Think of that moment; you who prudence boast, For such a moment, prudence well were lost.

CARDELIA.

At the Groom-porter's, batter'd bullies play, Some dukes at Marybone bowl time away. But who the bowl, or rattling dice compares To Basset's heavenly joys, and pleasing cares?

SMILINDA.

Soft Simplicetta doats upon a beau ; Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show.

'Tis a beldam,

Seen with wit and beauty seldom. "Tis a fear that starts at shadows. 'Tis (no, 'tis n't) like miss Meadows. "Tis a virgin hard of feature, Old, and void of all good-nature; Lean and fretful; would seem wise; Yet plays the fool before she dies. 'Tis an ugly, envious shrew, That rails at dear Lepell and you.

OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

MUSE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends, Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,

Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail: This more than pays whole years of thankless pain, Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends, And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

PROLOGUE

BY MR. POPE,

TO A PLAY FOR MR. DENNIS'S BENEFIT, IN 1733, WHEN HE WAS OLD, BLIND, AND IN GREAT DISTRESS, A LITTLE BEFORE HIS DEATH.

As when that hero, who in each campaign Had brav'd the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,

Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!
Wept by each friend, forgiv'n by every foe:
Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,
But pitied Belisarius old and blind?
Was there a chief but melted at the sight?
A common soldier, but who clubb'd his mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
When press'd by want and weakness Dennis lies;
Dennis, who long had warr'd with modern Huns,
Their quibbles routed, and defy'd their puns;
A desperate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce,
Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse:

How chang'd from him who made the boxes groan,

And shook the stage with thunder all his own!
Stood up to dash each vain pretender's hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the pope !
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn;
If there's a critic of distinguish'd rage;
If there's a senior, who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend,
And be the critic's, Briton's, old man's friend.

PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA.

BY POPE AND MALLET1.

WHEN learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose:
The tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes.
With her th' Italian scene first learn'd to glow;
And the first tears for her were taught to flow.
Her charms the Gallic Muses next inspir'd:
Corneille himself saw, wonder'd, and was fir'd.

What foreign theatres with pride have shown,
Britain, by juster title, makes her own.
When freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight;
And hers, when freedom is the theme, to write.
For this a British author bids again

The heroine rise, to grace the British scene.
Here, as in life, she breathes her genuine flame:
She asks, what bosom has not felt the same?
Asks of the British youth-Is silence there?
She dares to ask it of the British fair.

To-night our home-spun author would be true,
At once, to nature, history, and you.
Well-pleas'd to give our neighbours due ap-
plause,

He owns their learning, but disdains their laws.
Not to his patient touch, or happy flame,
'Tis to his British heart he trusts for fame.
If France excel him in one free-born thought,
The man, as well as poet, is in fault.

Nature informer of the poet's art,
Whose force alone can raise or melt the heart,
Thou art his guide; each passion, every line,
Whate'er he draws to please, must all be thine.
Be thou his judge: in every candid breast,
Thy silent whisper is the sacred test.

1 I have been told by Savage, that of the Prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were written by Mallet. Dr. Johnson.

MACER:

A CHARACTER.

WHEN Simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all th' ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steel.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford;
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventur'd on the town,
And with a borrow'd play out-did poor Crown.
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little :
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.

Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.

So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd, Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid; Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay, She flatters her good lady twice a-day; Thought wonderous honest, though of mean degree, And strangely lik'd for her simplicity: In a translated suit, then tries the town, With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own : But just endur'd the winter she began, And in four months a batter'd harridan. Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale and shrunk, To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

TO MR. JOHN MOORE,

AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER.

How much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceiv'd by shows and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All human kind are worms.
Man is a very worm by birth,

Vile, reptile, weak, and vain ?
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.
That woman is a worm, we find

E'er since our grandame's evil;
She first convers'd with her own kind,
That ancient worm, the Devil.

The learn'd themselves we book-worms name,
The blockhead is a slow-worm;
The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
Is aptly term'd a glow-worm:

The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;

First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.

The flatterer an earwig grows;

Thus worms suit all conditions;
Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaus,
And death-watches physicians.
That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;
Their conscience is a worm within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
If thou could'st make the courtier void
And greater gain would rise,
The worm that never dies!

O learned friend of Abchurch-lane,
Who sett'st our entrails free;
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall cat ev'n thee.
Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
Ev'n Button's wits to worms shall turn,
Who maggots were before.

SONG,

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733,

FLUTTERING Spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions;

Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,

All beneath yon flowery rocks. Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping, Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth; Him the boar, in silence creeping,

Gor'd with unrelenting tooth. Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers; Fair Dizcretion, string the lyre; Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:

Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrours,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrours,

Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Maander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,

With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to Fate.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM. COMPOSED OF MARBLE, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS.

THOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent

wave

Shines a broad mirrour through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
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.
Approach: but awful! Lo! the Egerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Windham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, [soul.
Who dare to love their couutry, and be poor.

TO MRS, M, B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY,
Он, be thou blest with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend!
Not with those toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and vanities that tire.
With added years, if life bring nothing new,
But like a sieve let every blessing through,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth day; 'tis alas! too clear,
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.

Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear;
Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstasy of joy,
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb,
Aud wake to raptures in a life to come,

15

I

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

KNOW the thing that's most uncommon; (Envy, be silent and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warp'd by passion, aw'd by rumour:

Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly; An equal mixture of good-humour,

And sensible soft melancholy.

"Has she no faults then, (Envy says) sir?"
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.

TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, 1742, RESIGN'D to live, prepar'd to die, With not one sin, but poetry, This day Tom's fair account has run (Without a blot) to eighty-one. Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays A table, with a cloth of bays; And Ireland, mother of sweet singers, Presents her harp still to his fingers, The feast, his towering genius marks In yonder wild-goose and the larks! The mushrooms show his wit was sudden ! And for his judgment, lo a pudden !

VARIATION.

Ver. 15. Originally thus in the MS.

And oh, since Death must that fair frame destroy,
Die, by some sudden ecstasy of joy ;
In some soft dream may thy mild soul remove,
And be thy latest gasp a sigh of love.

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