THIS elegy was first published in 1717, but doubtless written earlier. The unfortunate lady was apparently a Mrs. Weston (by birth a Miss Gage, the sister of the first Viscount Gage, and of the modest Gage of Moral Essays, Ep. iii., v. 128), who was soon after her marriage separated from her husband. Her case was warmly taken up by Pope, by whose aid the quarrel was adjusted, though with small thanks to him for interposing. "Buckingham's lines," says Carruthers, who discusses the question at length in his Life of Pope, ch. ii., "suggested the outline of the picture, Mrs. Weston's misfortunes and the poet's admiration of her gave it life and warmth, and imagination did the rest."

WHAT beckoning ghost, along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis she-but why that bleeding bosom gored,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?

Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,

1 See the Duke of Buckingham's verses to a lady designing to retire into a monastery compared with Mr. Pope's letters to several ladies, p. 206. She seems to be the same person whose unfortunate death is the subject of this poem.

If this note was written by Pope (of which we have strong doubts), it must have been written purely for mystification and deception. The duke's verses were first published in Tonson's Miscellany for 1709, when he was in his sixtieth year, and married to his third wife. They were, most likely, a much earlier production, and this renders it in the highest degree improbable that the same lady should have also been commemorated by Pope, who was thirty-seven years younger than his friend.-Carruthers.

Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye powers! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,

And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen prisoners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And, close confined to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die)
Fate snatched her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

And separate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,

Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death:
Cold is that breast which warmed the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.

Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,

Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,

And frequent hearses shail besiege your gates.

ΙΟ

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There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long funerals blacken all the way)

Lo these were they, whose soul the furies steeled,
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learned to glow
For others good, or melt at others woe.

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What can atone (oh ever-injured shade!)
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rights unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier. 50
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned !«
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polished marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not,

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To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays;
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart,
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,
The muse forgot, and thou be loved no

more

80

PROLOGUE

TO MR. ADDISON'S TRAGEDY OF CATO.

To wake the soul by tenaer strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wondered how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying love, we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause,
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws :
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,

And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.

10

Virtue confessed in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate.
And greatly falling, with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Even when proud Cæsar 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain and impotently great,

Showed Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead father's reverend image past,
The pomp was darkened, and the day o'ercast;
The triumph ceased, tears gushed from every eye;
The world's great victor passed unheeded by;
Her last good man dejected Rome adored,
And honoured Cæsar less than Cato's sword.
Britons, attend: be worth like this approved,
And show, you have the virtue to be moved.
With honest scorn the first famed Cato viewed

Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued; Your scene precariously subsists too long.

On French translation, and Italian song.

Be justly warmed with your own native rage:

Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage,

Such plays alone should win a British ear,

As Cato's self had not disdained to hear.1

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4I

1 This alludes to the famous story of his going into the theatre, and immediately coming out again, related by Martial.-Warbur

ton.