ON THE BUSTS1 IN RICHMOND HERMITAGE.
"Sic siti lætantur docti."
WITH honour thus by Carolina placed,
How are these venerable bustoes graced!
O queen, with more than regal title crown'd,
For love of arts and piety renown'd!
How do the friends of virtue joy to see
Her darling sons exalted thus by thee!
Nought to their fame can now be added more,
Revered by her whom all mankind adore.2
LEWIS the living learned fed,
And raised the scientific head;
Our frugal queen to save her meat,
Exalts the heads that cannot eat.
1 Newton, Locke, Clarke, and Woolaston.-H.
2 Queen Caroline's regard for learned men was chiefly directed to those who had signalized themselves by philosophical research. Walpole alludes to this her peculiar taste, in his fable called the Funeral of the Lioness, where the royal shade is made to say,
Where Elysian waters glide,
With Clarke and Newton by her side,
She pores o'er metaphysic page.
DRAWN FROM THE ABOVE EPIGRAMS, AND SENT
SINCE Anna, whose bounty thy merits had fed,
Ere her own was laid low, had exalted thy head:
And since our good queen to the wise is so just,
To raise heads for such as are humbled in dust,
I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted;
Prithee go, and be dead, and be doubly exalted.
HER majesty never shall be my exalter;
And yet she would raise me, I know, by a halter!
TO THE REVEREND DR. SWIFT,
OF A PAPER-BOOK, FINELY
BOUND, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, NOV. 30, 1732.1
To thee, dear Swift, these spotless leaves I send ; Small is the present, but sincere the friend.
1 It was occasioned by an annual custom, which I found pursued among his friends, of making him a present on his birth-day.-Orrery.
Think not so poor a book below thy care;
Who knows the price that thou canst make it bear?
Though tawdry now, and, like Tyrilla's face,
The specious front shines out with borrow'd grace;
Though pasteboards, glittering like a tinsell'd coat,
A rasa tabula within denote:
Yet, if a venal and corrupted age,
And modern vices should provoke thy rage;
If, warn'd once more by their impending fate,
A sinking country and an injured state,
Thy great assistance should again demand,
And call forth reason to defend the land;
Then shall we view these sheets with glad surprise,
Inspired with thought, and speaking to our eyes;
Each vacant space shall then, enrich'd, dispense
True force of eloquence, and nervous sense;
Inform the judgment, animate the heart,
And sacred rules of policy impart.
The spangled covering, bright with splendid ore,
Shall cheat the sight with empty show no more;
But lead us inward to those golden mines,
Where all thy soul in native lustre shines.
So when the eye surveys some lovely fair,
With bloom of beauty graced, with shape and air;
How is the rapture heighten'd, when we find
Her form excell'd by her celestial mind!
LEFT WITH A SILVER STANDISH ON THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S DESK, ON HIS BIRTH
DAY. BY DR. DELANY.
HITHER from Mexico I came,
To serve a proud Iernian dame :
Was long submitted to her will;
At length she lost me at quadrille.
Through various shapes I often pass'd,
Still hoping to have rest at last;
And still ambitious to obtain
Admittance to the patriot Dean;
And sometimes got within his door,
But soon turn'd out to serve the poor:1
Not strolling Idleness to aid,
But honest Industry decay'd.
At length an artist purchased me,
And wrought me to the shape you see.
This done, to Hermes I applied:
"O Hermes! gratify my pride;
Be it my fate to serve a sage,
The greatest genius of his age;
That matchless pen let me supply,
Whose living lines will never die!"
"I grant your suit," the God replied,
And here he left me to reside.
1 Alluding to five hundred pounds lent by the Dean without interest, to poor tradesmen.-F.
OCCASIONED BY THE FOREGOING PRESENTS.
A PAPER BOOK is sent by Boyle,
Too neatly guilt for me to soil.
Delany sends a silver standish,
When I no more a pen can brandish,
Let both around my tomb be placed:
As trophies of a Muse deceased;
And let the friendly lines they writ,
In praise of long departed wit,
Be graved on either side in columns,
More to my praise than all my volumes,
To burst with envy, spite, and rage,
The Vandals of the present age.
SENT TO THE DEAN WITH AN EAGLE QUILL,
ON HEARING OF THE PRESENTS
BY THE EARL OF ORRERY AND DR. DELANY.
SHALL then my kindred all my glory claim,
And boldly rob me of eternal fame?
To every art my gen'rous aid I lend,
To music, painting, poetry, a friend.
'Tis I celestial harmony inspire,
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