Still liftening to his tuneful tongue,
The truths, which angels might have fung,
Divine, imprest their gentle sway,
And sweetly stole my foul away.
My guide, inftructor, lover, friend,
(Dear names!) in one idea blend;
Oh! still conjoin'd, your incense rife,
And waft sweet odours to the skies!
ODE TO WISDOM.
BY THE SAME.
OH, Pallas! I invoke thy aid!
Vouchsafe to hear a wretched maid,
By tender love depreft;
'Tis just that thou should'st heal the fmart
Inflicted by thy fubtle art,
And calm my troubled breaft.
No random-shot from Cupid's bow,
But by thy guidance, soft and flow,
It funk within my heart;
Thus, Love being arm'd with Wisdom's force,
In vain I try to stop its course,
In vain repel the dart.
O goddess! break the fatal league,
Let Love, with Folly and Intrigue,
More fit associates find!
And thou alone within my breast,
O! deign to foothe my griefs to reft,
And heal my tortur'd mind.
who his mistress deny'd, y'd,
And let the firft of it be only apply'd
To join with the prophet + who David did chide;
Then fay what a horfe is that runs very faft ‡;
And that which deserves to be first put the laft;
Spell all then, and put them together, to find
The Name and the Virtues of him I design'd.
Like the Patriarch in Egypt, he 's vers'd in the state;
Like the Prophet in Jewry, he 's free with the great;
Like a racer he flies, to fuccour with fpeed,
When his friends want his aid, or defert is in need.
nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,
Which thus the will venture profufely to throw
On fo mean a defign, and a fubject so low.
For mean 's her design, and her fubject as mean,
The first but a Rebus, the last but a Dean.
A Dean 's but a parfon and what is a Rebus?
A thing never known to the Mufes or Phœbus.
The corruption of verse; for, when all is done,
It is but a paraphrafe made on a pun.
But a genius like her's no fubject can stifle,
It shews and difcovers itfelf through a trifle.
* Jo-feph.
By reading this trifle, I quickly began
To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man.
Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff,
Which others for mantuas would think fine enough:
So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here
Might furnish a second-rate poet a year.
Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next,
Where the Nymph has entirely forsaken her text:
Her fine panegyricks are quite out of feafon,
And what she defcribes to be merit is treason :
The changes, which faction has made in the ftate,
Have put the dean's politicks quite out of date :
Now no one regards what he utters with freedom,
And, should he write pamphlets, no great man would
And should want or defert stand in need of his aid,
This racer would prove but a dull-founder'd jade.
HORACE, B. II. ODE I. PARAPHRASED.
Addressed to RICHARD STEELE, Efq. 1714.
" En qui promittit cives, urbem fibi curæ,
" Imperium fore, & Italiam, & delubra deorum.”
HOR. 1 Sat. vi. 34.
Some ftrange arcana to unfold,
And, with the help of Buckley's pen,
To vamp the good old cause again,
Which thou (fuch Burnet's shrewd advice is)
Must furbish up, and nickname Crifis.
Thou pompously wilt let us know
What all the world knew long ago,
(E'er fince Sir William Gore was mayor,
And Harley fill'd the Commons' chair)
That we a German Prince muft own
When Anne for heaven resigns her throne.
But, more than that, thou'lt keep a rout
With-who is in-and who is out,
Thou 'lt rail devoutly at the peace,
And all its fecret causes trace,
The bucket-play 'twixt Whigs and Tories,
Their ups and downs, with fifty stories
Of tricks the lord of Oxford knows,
And errors of our Plenipoes.
Thou 'lt tell of leagues among the great,
Portending ruin to our state;
And of that dreadful coup d'eclat,
Which has afforded thee much chat.
The Queen, forsooth (despotic) gave
Twelve coronets without thy leave !
A breach of liberty, 'tis own'd,
For which no heads have yet aton'd!
Believe me, what thou'st undertaken
May bring in jeopardy thy bacon;
For madmen, children, w.es, and fools,
Should never meddle with edg'd tools.
But, fince thou 'rt got into the fire,
And canst not eafily retire,
Thou must no longer deal in farce,
Nor pump to cobble wicked verse;
Until thou shalt have eas'd thy confcience,
Of fpleen, of politicks, and nonsense;
And, when thou 'st bid adieu to cares,
And fettled Europe's grand affairs,
Twill then, perhaps, be worth thy while
For Drury-Lane to shape thy style:
" To make a pair of jolly fellows,
"The fon and father, join to tell us,
"How fons may fafely difobey,
" And fathers never should fay nay,
" By which wife conduct they grow friends
"At last-and so the story ends *."
When first I knew thee, Dick, thou wert
Renown'd for skill in Fauftus' art †,
Which made thy clofet much frequented
By buxom laffes-fome repented
Their lucklefs choice of husbands-others,
Impatient to be like their mothers,
Receiv'd from thee profound directions
How beft to fettle their affections.
Thus thou, a friend to the distress'd,
Didst in thy calling do thy beft.
But now the Senate (if things bit
And thou at Stockbridge wert not bit)
* This is faid to be a plot of a comedy with which
Mr. Steele has long threatened the town.
In fome particulars it would apply to "The Confcious
† There were fome tolerable grounds for this re
flection. Mr. Steele had actually a laboratory at Poplar..
|