1MITATIONS OF HORACE.

EPISTLE VII

Imitated in the Manner of Dr. Swift.

"Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic ?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores :
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W* and H** both in town!

The dog-days are no more the case.
"Tis true, but winter comes apace :
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire
And you shall see the first warm weather,
Me and the buttterflies together.

My lord, your favours well I know:
"Tis with distinction you bestow;
And not to every one that comes,
Just as a Scotsman does his plums.

Pray take them, sir-Enough's a feast:
Eat some, and pocket up the rest'-
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
'No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs.'
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye
Contriving never to oblige ye.
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude's the certain crop ;

And 'tis but just, I'll tell you wherefore,
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is or should
Be mighty ready to do good;
But makes a difference in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.

Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
A safe companion and a free;
But if you'd have me always near-
A word, pray, in your honour's ear:
I hope it is your resolution
To give me back my constitution!
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
The engaging smile, the gaiety,

That laugh'd down many a summer sun
And kept you up so oft till one!
And all that voluntary vein,
As when Belinda raised my strain.

A weazel once made shift to slink
In at a corn loft through a chink;
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in;
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, You 'scape not so,
Lean as you came, sir, you must go.'
Sir, you may spare your application,
I'm no such beast, nor his relation;
Not one that temperance advance,
Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans;
Extremely ready to resign

All that may make me none of mine,
South-sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.

"Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who praised my modesty, and smiled.
'Give me,' I cried (enough for me),
'My bread, and independency!'
So bought an annual-rent or two,
And lived just as you see I do ;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund, my life,
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low.
There died my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
'Harley, the nation's great support-
But you may read it, I stop short.

THE LATTER PART OF SATIRE VI. B. II.*
O CHARMING noons! and nights divine!
Or when I sup, or when I dine,
My friends above, my folks below,
Chatting and laughing all a-row,
The beans and bacon set before 'em,
The grace-cup served with all decorum:
Each willing to be pleased, and please,
And e'er the very dogs at ease!
Here no man prates of idle things,
How this or that Italian sings,

A neighbour's madness, or his spouse's,
Or what's in either of the houses:
But something much more our concern,
And quite a scandal not to learn:
Which is the happier, or the wiser,

A man of merit, or a miser?

Whether we ought to choose our friends,
For their own worth, or our own ends?
What good, or better, we may call,
And what the very best of all?

Our friend Dan Prior, told (you know)
A tale extremely à-propos:
Name a town life, and in a trice
He had a story of two mice.
Once on a time (so runs the fable)
A country mouse, right hospitable,
Received a town mouse at his board,
Just as a farmer might a lord.
A frugal mouse upon the whole,
Yet loved his friend, and had a soul,
Knew what was handsome, and would do't,
On just occasion, coûte qui coûte.'
He brought him bacon (nothing lean);
Pudding that might have pleased a dean;
Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,
But wish'd it Stilton for his sake;
Yet, to his guest though no way sparing,
He ate himself the rind and paring.
Our courtier scarce could touch a bit,
But show'd his breeding and his wit;
He did his best to seem to eat,
And cried, I vow you're mighty neat.
But, lord, my friend, this savage scene!
For God's sake come, and live with men:
Consider, mice, like men, must die,
Both small and great, both you and I :
Then spend your life in joy and sport;
(This doctrine, friend, I learn'd at court).'
The veriest hermit in the nation

May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.
Away they came, through thick and thin
To a tall house near Lincoln's-inn:
('Twas on the night of a debate,
When all their lordships had sat late).

Behold the place, where if a poet
Shined in description, he might shew it:
Tell how the moon-beam trembling falls,
And tips with silver all the walls;
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors:
But let it (in a word) be said,
The moon was up, and men a-bed,
The napkins white, the carpet red;
The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
And down the mice sat, 'tête à tête.'

Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law:
Que ça est bon ! Ah goûtez ça !
That jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,
Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in,'
Was ever such a happy swain?

He stuffs, and swills, and stuffs again.
'I'm quite ashamed-'tis mighty rude
To eat so much-but all's so good.
I have a thousand thanks to give-
My lord alone knows how to live.'
No sooner said, but from the hall
Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all:
"A rat, a rat! clap to the door'-
The cat comes bouncing on the floor.
O for the heart of Homer's mice,
Or gods to save them in a trice!
(It was by Providence they think,
For your damn'd stucco has no chink).

An't please your honour,' quoth the peasant:
This same desert is not so pleasant:
Give me again my hollow tree,

A crust of bread, and liberty l'

* See the first part in Swift's Poems.

M

BOOK IV. ODE I.

TO VENUS.

AGAIN? new tumults in my breast?

Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!

I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne. Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms!

Mother too fierce of dear desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires:

To number five direct your doves,

MISCELLANIES.

There spread round Murray all your blooming loves;

Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With every sprightly, every decent part;

Equal the injured to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend. He, with a hundred arts refined,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind: To him each rival shall submit,

Make but his riches equal to his wit. Then shall thy form the marble grace,

(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face; His house, embosom'd in the grove,

Sacred to social life and social love,
Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,
Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:
Thither the silver-sounding lyres

Shall call the smiling Loves and young Desires;
There, every grace and muse shall throng,

Exalt the dance, or animate the song; There youths and nymphs, in concert gay, Shall hail the rising, close the parting day. With me, alas! those joys are o'er;

For me the vernal garlands bloom no more. Adieu fond hope of mutual fire,

The still-believing, still renew'd desire: Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,

And all the kind deceivers of the soul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear!

Steals down my cheek the involuntary tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,

Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam,

Absent I follow through the extended dream; Now, now I cease, I clasp thy charms,

And now you burst (ah cruel) from my arms!

And swiftly shoot along the Mall,

Or softly glide by the canal ;
Now shewn by Cynthia's silver ray,
And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.

But, friend, take heed whom you attack; You'll bring a house, I mean of peers,

Red, blue, and green, nay, white and black,
L***** and all about your ears.

You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run on ivory so glib,

As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.

'Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell you, fool, there's nothing in't:
"Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.

Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,
That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll

Of those that sing of these poor eyes.

PART OF THE NINTH ODE

OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

A FRAGMENT.

LEST you should think that verse shall die, Which sounds the silver Thames along, Taught on the wings of truth to fly

Above the reach of vulgar song;

Though daring Milton sits sublime,
In Spenser native muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay-

Sages and chiefs long since had birth

Ere Cæsar was, or Newton named:
These raised new empires o'er the earth,
And those new heavens and systems framed.

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died;
In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.

EPISTLE TO ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD AND EARL MORTIMER.

Sent to the Earl of Oxford, with Dr. Parnell's Poems, published by our Author, after the said Earl's Imprisonment in the Tower and Retreat into the Country, in the Year 1721.

SUCH were the notes thy once-loved poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue,
Oh, just beheld, and lost: admired, and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!
Bless'd in each science, bless'd in every strain!
Dear to the muse! to Harley dear-in vain!
For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For Swift and him, despised the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dexterous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleased to escape from flattery to wit.
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear,
Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays,
Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great;
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And sure, if aught below the seats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine:
A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, and passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.
In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
The muse attends thee to thy silent shade:'

'Tis hers the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace.
When interest calls off all her sneaking train,
And all the obliged desert, and all the vain ;
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last lingering friend has bid farewell.
F'en now she shades thy evening-walk with bays
(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise);
E'en now, observant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm sun-set of thy various day,
Through fortune's cloud one truly great can see,
Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he.

EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

Secretary of State in the Year 1720.

A SOUL as full of worth, as void of pride,
Which nothing seeks to shew, or needs to hide :
Which nor to guilt nor fear its caution owes,
And boasts a warmth that from no passion flows:
A face untaught to feign; a judging eye
That darts severe upon a rising lie,
And strikes a blush through frontless flattery:
All this thou wert; and being this before,

Know, kings and fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a foe these virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere as you began,
Proceed-a minister, but still a man.
Be not (exalted to whate'er degree)
Ashamed of any friend, not e'en of me:

The patriot's plain, but untrod, path pursue;
If not, 'tis I must be ashamed of you.

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 hearts shall in their praise conspire,
One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre.
Yet should the Graces all thy figures place,
And breath 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 vic,
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 MR. JERVAS;

With Mr. Dryden's Translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting.

This Epistle, and the two following, were written some years before the rest, and originally printed in 1717.

THIS verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
This, from no venal or ungrateful muse.
Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
Where life awakes and dawns at every line;
Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass,
And from the canvass call the mimic face:
Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire
Fresnoy's close art, and Dryden's native fire:
And reading wish, like theirs our fate and fame,
So mix'd our studies, and so join'd our name;
Like them to shine through long succeeding age,
So just thy skill, so regular my rage.

Smit with the love of sister-arts we came,
And met congenial, mingling flame with flame;
Like friendly colours found them both unite,
And each from each contract new strength and light.
How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day,
While summer-suns roll unperceived away!
How oft our slowly-growing works impart,
While images reflect from art to art!

How oft review; each finding like a friend
Something to blame and something to commend!
What flattering scenes our wandering fancy wrought,
Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought!
Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,
Fired with ideas of fair Italy.

With thee on Raphael's monument 1 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 loved Guido's air,
Caracci's strength, Corregio'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;

EPISTLE TO MISS BLOUNT;

With the Works of Voiture.

IN these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,
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 pleased the fair and great;
Still with esteem no less conversed than read;
With wit well-natured, and with books well-bred :
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 suppress'd,
As smiling infants sport themselves to rest.
E'en rival wits did Voiture's death deplore,
And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before;
The truest hearts for Voiture heaved 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 mortals 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:
Critics 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 confined,
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 accursed,
But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.

I Still in constraint your suffering sex remains,

Or bound in formal, or in real chains:
Whole years neglected, for some months adored,
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 duchess at her heart.

But, madam, if the fates withstand, and you
Are destined 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 raised 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 easy, yet more strong,
The willing heart, and only holds it long.

Thus Voiture's early care still shone the same,
And Monthausier was only changed in name;
By this, e'en now they live, e'en now they charm,
Their wit still sparkling, and their flames still warm.
Now crown'd with myrtle on the Elysian coast,
Amid those lovers, joys his gentle ghost:

Pleased, while with smiles his happy lines you view,
And finds a fairer Rambouillet in you.

The brightest eyes in France inspired his muse;
The brightest eyes in Britain now peruse;
And dead, as living, 'tis our author's pride
Still to charm those who charm the world beside.

EPISTLE TO THE SAME,

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 molting 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 caused 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 ópera, 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 trifle 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,

Then gives a smacking buss, and cries,- No words!' 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 fancied scene,
See coronations rise on every green;
Before you pass the 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 plagued with head-aches, 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 paints 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.

Mademoiselle Paulet.