Small is the praise of beauty, when it flies Fair honour's laws, at beft but lovely vice. Charms it like Venus with celeftial air? Ev'n Venus is but fcandalously fair; But when strict honour with fair features joins, Like heat and light, at once it warms and fhines. * Then let her fate your kind attention raife, Whofe perfect charms were but her fecond praise : Beauty and virtue your protection claim ; Give tears to beauty, give to virtue fame.

TO MR. A. POPE,

WHO CORRECTED MY VERSES.

IF e'er my humble Mufe melodious fings,

'Tis when you animate and tune her ftrings; If e'er the mounts, 'tis when you prune her wings. You, like the fun, your glorious beams difplay, Deal to the darkeft orb a friendly ray, And cloath it with the luftre of the day.

Mean was the piece, unelegantly wrought, The colours faint, i regular the draught; But your commanding touch, your nicer art, Rais'd every stroke, and brighten'd every part. So, when Luke drew the rudiments of man, An angel finish'd what the faint began; His wondrous pencil, dipt in heavenly dyes,

}

And age my vital flame invades ;

Faint, and more faint, as it defcends, it fhines,
And haftes, alas! to fet in fhades.

Then fome kind power shall guide my ghost to glades.

Where, feated by Elyfian fprings, Fam'd Addifon atrun'd to patriot fhades

His lyre, and Albion's glory fings.

There round, majeftic fhades, and heroes' forms,
Will throng, to learn what pilot guides,
Watchful, Britannia's helm through tious storms,
And curbs the murmuring rebel tides.

I tell how Townshend treads the glorious path
That leads the great to dearhlefs fame,
And dwell at large on fpotlefs English faith,
While Walpole is the favourite theme.

by you;

Though like Prometheus I the image frame,
You give the life, and bring the heavenly flame.

Thus when the Nile diffus'd his watery train
In ftreams of plenty o'er the fruitful plain;
Unfhapen forms, the refufe of the flood,
Iffued imperfect from the teeming mud;
But the great fource and parent of the day.
Fashion'd the creature, and inform'd the clay.t

Weak of herself, my Mufe forbears her flight, Views her own lownefs, and Parnaffus' height; But when you you aid her fong, and deign to nod, She spreads a bolder wing, and feels the prefent God. So the Cumaan prophetess was dumb, Blind to the knowledge of events to come;

VARIATION.

Then let her fate your juft attention raife, Whole perfect graces were but fecond praije.

ADDITION.

To nobler themes thy Mufe triumphant fears, Mounts through the tracts of air, and heaven explores.

Say, has fome feraph tun'd thy facred lyre,
Or deign'd to touch thy hallow'd lips with fire
For fure fuch founds exalt th' immortal firing,

s heaven approves, and raptur'd angels fing

The stedfaft arbiters of right

Exalt the juft and good, to guard her laws,
And call forth merit into light.

A loud applaufe around the echoing coast
Of all the pleas'd Elyfium flies.-
But, friend, what place had you, replies fom
ghoft,

When merit was the way to rife?

What deanery, or prebend, thine, declare è
Good heavens! unable to reply,
How like a ftupid idiot I should stare
An answer, good my lord, fupply.

Ah! how I liften, while the mortal lay Lifts me from earth above the flar way! Ah! how I look with feorn on pompous crowns, And pity monarchs on their splendid thrones, While, theu my guide, I trace all nature's laws, By juft gradations, to the fovereign cauje! Pleas'd I furvey now varying jchemes un te, Worlds with the atoms, angets with the mite, And end in God, high thron'd above all height, Who fees, as Lord of all, with equal eye, Nov a proud tyrant perish, then a fly. M thinks I view the patriarch's ladder rise, Its bafe on earth, its jummit in the flies: Each wondrous fep by glorious angels trod, And heaven unfolding to the throne of God, Be this thy prafe! I haunt the lonely borer, Sport by the firing, or paint the blus:ning flower. Nor dares the Muje attempt en araucus height,

FROM peace, and focial joy, Medusa flies,

And loves to hear the form of anger rife ; Thus h gs and witches hate the fmiles of day, Sport in loud thunder, and intempefts play.

THE COQUETTE.

SILLIA, with uncontested sway,

Like Rome's fam'd tyrant reigns;

Beholds adoring crowds obey,

And heroes proud to wear her chains:
Yet ftoops, like him, to every prize,
Bufy to murder beaux and flies.

She aims at every trifling heart,
Attends each flatterer's vows,
And, like a picture drawn with art,
A look on all that gaze bestows.
O! may the power who lovers rules,
Grant rather fcorn, than hope with fools
Miftaken nymph! the crowds that gaze
Adore thee into fhame;
Unguarded beauty in difgrace,

And coxcombs, when they praife, defame.
O! fly fuch brutes in human flapes,
Nor, like th' Ægyptians, worship apes.

While hearts are offer'd by the dozen :
Oh! born above your fex to rife,
With youth, wealth, beauty, title-wife!
O Lady bright, did t'er you mark yet,
In country fair, or country market,
A beau, whofe eloquence might charm ye,
Enlifting foldiers for the army?

He flatters every well-built youth,
And tells him every thing but-truth.
He cries, Good friend, I'm glad I hap'd in
Your company, you'll make a captain!
He lifts-but finds thefe gaudy shows
Soon chang'a tofurly looks, and blows:
'Tis now, March, rafcal! what, d' ye grumble?
Thwick goes the cane! I'll make you Iramble.
Sach weddings are: and I refemble 'em,
Almoft in all points to this emblem.

While courtship lats, 'tis, Dear! 'tis, Madam !
The fweeteft creature fure fince Adam!

Had I the years of a Methufalem,

How in my charmer's praife 1'd ufe all 'em!
Oh! take me to thy arms, my beauty!

I do t, adore the very fhoe-tye!

They wed-but, fancy grown lefs warming,
Next morn, he thinks the bride lets charming:
He fays, nay fwears, My wife grows old in
One fingle month; then falls to fcolding,
What, madam, gadding every day!
Up to your room! there ftitch, or pray !

Such proves the marriage itate! but for all Thefe truths, you'll wed, and fcorn the moral.

THE WIDOW AND VIRGIN SISTERS.

Being a Letter to the WIDOW in LONDON. WHILE Delia fhines at Hurlothrumbo,

And darts her fprightly eye at fome beau; Then, clofe behind her fan retiring, Sees through the fticks whole crowds admiring: You fip your melancholy co-fly And at the name of man, cry, O phy! Or, when the noify rapper thunders, Say coldly-Sure the fellow blunders ! Unfeen! though peer on peer approaches: James, I'm abroad!--but learn the coaches. As fome young pleader, when his purfe is Unfill'd through want of controverfies, Attends, untill the chinks are fill'd all, Th'aflizes, Weltmifter, and Guildhall; While graves lawyers keep their houfe, and Colled the guineas by the thoufand: Or as fome tradesmen, through fhow-glaffes, Expofe their wares to each that paffes; Toys of no ufe! high-priz'd commodities Bought to no end! eftates in oddities ! Others, with like advantage drive at Their gain, from flore-houfes in private: Thus Delia hines in places general, Is never milling where the men are all ; Goes ev'a to church with godly airs, To meet good company at prayers; Where the devoutly plays her fan, Leeks up to heaven, but thinks on mar

AS when the King of Peace, and Lord of Love,
Sends down fome brighter angel from above,
Pleas'd with the beauties of the heavenly Guest,
Awhile we view him in full glory drest;
But he, impatient from his heaven to stay,
Soon difappears, and wings his airy way;
So didst thou vanish, eager to appear,
And fhine triumphant in thy native sphere.

Yet had'st thou all that virtue can bestow,
All, the good practife, and the learned know;
Such holy rapture, as not warms, but fires,
While the foul feems retiring, or retires;
Such tranfports as thofe faints in vision share,
Who know not whether they are rapt through air,
Or bring down heaven to meet them in a prayer.
Oh! early loft! yet stedfait to survey
Envy. difeafe, and death, without difmay;
Serene, the fting of pain thy thoughts beguile,
And make afflictions, objects of a smile

A POEM ON DEATH.

burns

O'er shrouds, and fable palls, and mouldering urns; While flowing ftoles, black plumes, and fcutcheons fpread

An idle pomp around the filent dead:

Unaw'd by power, in common heap fhe flings
The fcrips of beggars, and the crowns of kings:
Here gales of fighs, inftead of breezes, blow,
And ftreams of tears for ever murmuring flow:
The mournful yew with folemn horror waves
His baleful branches, faddening even the graves:
Around all birds obícene loud-icreaming fly,
Clang their black wings, and fhriek along the fky:
The ground perverfe, tho' bare and barien, breeds
All poifons, foes to life, and noxious weeds;
But, blated frequent by th' unwholesome sky,
Dead fall the birds, the very poisons die.

Full in the entrance of the dreadful doors,
Old-age, half vanish'd to a ghoft, deplores:
Propp'd on his crutch, he drags with many a groan
The load of life, yet dreads to lay it down

There, downward driving an unnumber'd band, Intemperance and Difeafe walk hand in hand: Thefe, Torment, whirling with remorteless fway A fcourge of iron, lathes on the way.

There frantic Anger, prone to wild extremes, Grafps an enfar guin'd fword, and heaven blafphemes. There heart fick Agony distorted stands, Writhes his convulfive limbs, and wrings his hands. There Sorrow droops his ever-penfive head, And Care ftill toffes on his iron bed: Or, muling, faftens on the ground his eye, With folded arms; with every breath a figh. Hydrops unwieldy wallows in a flood; And Murther rages, red with human blood, With Fever, Famine, and affictive Pain, Plague, Peftilence, and War, a dimal train! There, and a thousand more, the fiend furround, Shrieks pierce the air, and groans to groans refound.

Vain man! wouldst thou efcape the common
lot,

To live, to fuffer, die, and be forgot?
Look back on ancient times, primæval years,
All, all are paft! a mighty void appears!
Heroes, and kings, thofe gods of earth, whofe fame
Aw'd half the nations, now are but a name!
The great in arts or arms, the wife, the juft,
Mix with the meanest in congenial duft!
Ev'n Saints and Prophets the fame paths have trods
Ambaffadors of heaven, and friends of God!
And thou, would thou the general fentence fly?
Mofes is dead! thy Saviour deign'd to die!
Mortal, in all thy acts regard thy end;

Live well, the time thou liv'ft, and death's thy friend:

Then curb each rebel thought against the sky,
And die refign'd, O! Man ordain'd to die!

He added not, but fpread his wings in flight,
And vanith'd inftant in a blaze of light.

Abafh'd, afham'd, I cry, Eternal Power, I yield! I wait refign'd th' appointed hour! Min, foolish man, no more thy foul deceive! To die, is but the fureft way to live : When age we afk, we ask it in our wrong, And pray our time of fuffering may be long; The naufeous draught, and dregs of life to drain,

And feel infirmity, and length of pain! What art thou, üfe, that we should court thy ftay?

A breath, one fingle gafp muft away!

A fhort-liv'd flower, that, with the day muff fade!

A fleeting vapour, and an empty fhade!
A stream, that filently but swiftly glides
To meet eternity's immeafur'd tides !
A being, loft alike by pain or joy!
A fly can kill it, or a worm destroy !
Impair'd by labour, and by ease undone,
Commenc'd in tears, and ended in a groan!
Ev'n while I write, the tranfient Now is past,
And

death more near, this fentence than the laft! As fome weak ifthmus feas from feas divides, Beat by rude waves, and fapp'd by rushing tiders