Is there on earth one care, one wish beside?
Yes-Save my country, Heaven,
XIV.-ON EDMUND D. OF BUCKINGHAM,
Who died in the nineteenth year of his age, 1735.1
IF modest youth, with cool reflection crowned,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a sinking state;
This weeping marble had not asked thy tear,
Or sadly told, how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had shone approved,
The senate heard him, and his country loved.
Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame
Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham:
In whom a race, for courage famed and art,
Ends in the milder merit of the heart;
And chiefs or sages long to Britain given,
Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven.
XV. FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.2
HEROES, and kings! your distance keep:
In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flattered folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.
ANOTHER, ON THE SAME.
UNDER this marble, or under this sill,
Or under this turf, or e'en what they will;
Only son of John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, by Katharine Darnley, natural daughter of James II.-Roscoe.
2 These lines were placed by Warburton on the monument erected by him to Pope in Twickenham Church.
Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,
Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head,
Lies one who ne'er cared, and still cares not a pin
What they said, or may say of the mortal within :
But, who living and dying, serene still and free,
Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be.
TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED
SUCCESSIO.
BEGONE, ye critics, and restrain your spite,
Codrus writes on, and will for ever write.
The heaviest muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on;
What though no bees around your cradle flew,
Nor on your lips distilled their golden dew;
Yet have we oft discovered in their stead
A swarm of drones that buzzed about your head.
When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,
Attentive blocks stand round you and admire.
Wit passed through thee no longer is the same,
As meat digested takes a different name;
But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,
Since no reprisals can be made on thee.
Thus thou mayst rise, and in thy daring flight
(Though ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height.
So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs move nimbly through the sky.
Sure Bavius copied Mævius to the full,
And Chærilus taught Codrus to be dull;
1 Perhaps by Chærilus, the juvenile satirist designed Flecknoe or Shadwell, who had received their immortality of dulness from his master Catholic in poetry and opinions, Dryden.-D'Israeli, cited by Roscoe.
Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er
This needless labour; and contend no more
To prove a dull succession to be true,
Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.
"Homer's account of Ulysses's dog Argus is the most pathetic imaginable, all the circumstances considered, and an excellent proof of the old bard's good-nature. Ulysses had left him at Ithaca when he embarked for Troy, and found him at his return after twenty years (which by the way is not unnatural, as some critics have said, since I remember the dam of my dog was twenty-two years old when she died. May the omen of longevity proye fortunate to her successors!) You shall have it in verse."-Pope to H. Cromwell, Oct. 19, 1709.
WHEN wise Ulysses, from his native coast
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests tossed,
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,
To all his friends and even his Queen unknown;
Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrowed his reverend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forced to ask his bread,
Scorned by those slaves his former bounty fed,
Forgot of all his own domestic crew:
The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew!
Unfed, unhoused, neglected, on the clay,
Like an old servant, now cashiered, he lay;
Touched with resentment of ungrateful man,
And longing to behold his ancient lord again.
Him when he saw-he rose, and crawled to meet,
('Twas all he could) and fawned, and kissed his feet,
Seized with dumb joy-then falling by his side,
Owned his returning lord, looked up, and died!
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 Phœbus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.
A CELEBRATED OPERA-SINGER.
So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song.
As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along;
But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride,
That the beasts must have starved, and the poet have
EPIGRAM ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL AND
STRANGE! all this difference should be
'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee!
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come:
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.
WELL, then, poor G- lies under ground!
So there's an end of honest Jack.
So little justice here be found,
'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.
THE BALANCE OF EUROPE.
Now Europe's balanced, neither side prevails;
For nothing's left in either of the scales.
TO A LADY WITH "THE TEMPLE OF FAME,”
WHAT'S fame with men, by custom of the nation,
Is called in women only reputation;
About them both why keep we such a pother?
Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.
IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA.
OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN-WITS, IN 66 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK."
The four verses are apparently canto iv., vers. 59-62.
In vain you boast poetic names of yore,
And cite those Sapphos we admire no moré :
Fate doomed the fall of every female wit;
But doomed it then, when first Ardelia writ.
Of all examples by the world confessed,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her mistress on Britannia's throne,
Fights and subdues in quarrels not her own.
To write their praise you but in vain essay;
E'en while you write, you take that praise away:
Light to the stars the sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.
ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716.
WHENCE deathless Kit-Cat took its name,
Few critics can unriddle;
Some say from pastry-cook it came,
And some from cat and fiddle.
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