SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733. I. FLUTT'RING spread thy purple pinions, Gentle Cupid, o'er my Heart; I a Slave in thy dominions; II. Mild Arcadians, ever blooming, III. Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping, Him the Boar, in Silence creeping, IV. Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers ; V. Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors, VI. Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow, Gilding my Aurelia's brows, Morpheus, hov'ring o'er my pillow, Hear me pay my dying vows. VII. Melancholy, smooth Meander, Swiftly purling in a round, On thy margin Lovers wander, With thy flow'ry chaplets crown'd. VIII. Thus when Philomela, drooping, It is remarkable, that this song imposed upon one of Pope's professed Commentators, the late learned Gilbert Wakefield, who took it for a serious composition: "It appears," he says, "disjointed and obscure," and asks, in reference to the fourth verse, "what is the propriety of this observation? and what its application to the present subject?" On this occasion Mr. Toulmin, a friend of Mr. Wakefield's, addressed to him a copy of verses, which Mr. Wakefield, with a good-humoured confession of his mistake, has printed in the subsequent volume of his Observations on Pope, 8vo. 1769, conceiving that " they will form an agreeable termination of his Preface." "Watchful Wakefield, late and early Slumbering o'er the page of Pope, But perhaps the most solemn and successful imposition that ever was practised on an inconsiderate reader, is the Ode on Science; printed (as is also the Love Song by a person of quality) in Pope and Swift's Miscellanies; and which, like that, to judge from the style, is not unlikely to have been the work of Pope. ODE ON SCIENCE. O, Heavenly born! in deepest dells Beneath the mossy cave; For melancholy ever reigns With scientific light; Yet, Goddess, yet the way explore When Solon and Lycurgus taught To erring zeal they gave new laws, Bid bright Astræa gild the morn, Come, fairest princess of the throng, Bring sweet philosophy along In metaphysic dreams; While raptur'd bards no more behold A vernal age of purer gold, In Heliconian streams. Drive Thraldom with malignant hand, By Folly led astray; So when Amphion bade the lyre ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT. I 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, or gay through Folly, An equal Mixture of good Humour, " Has she no faults then, (Envy says,) Sir ?" When all the World conspires to praise her, NOTES. Ver. 1. I know the thing] Equal in elegance to any compliment that Waller has paid to Saccharissa, especially the last stanza, and the answer to Envy. The Lady addrest was Mrs. Howard, of Marble-hill, bed-chamber woman to Queen Caroline, and afterwards Countess of Suffolk. Warton. |