PO E M S р

M

BY THE

EARL OF ROSC O M M O N. .

Pt

HAPPY that author, whose correct * eflay.

Repairs so well our old Horatian way:
And happy you, who (by propitious fate)
On great Apollo's sacred standard wait,
And with strict discipline instructed right,
Have learn’d to use. your arms before you fight.
But since the press, the pulpit, and the stage,
Conspire to censure and expose our age :
Provokid too far, we resolutely must,
To the few virtues that we have, be juft.

* John Sheffield duke of Buckinghamshire,

P 3

For

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For who have long'd, or who have labour'd inore
To search the treasures of the Roman store ;
Or dig in Greciari mines for purer ore ?
The noblest fruits transplanted in our isle
With early hope and fragrant blossoms smile.
Familiar Ovid tender thoughts inspires,
And nature seconds all his soft desires :
Theocritus does now to us belong;
And Albion's rocks repeat his rural song.
Who has not heard how Italy was blest,
Above the Medes, above the wealthy East?
Or Gallus' song, fo tender and so true,
As ev'n Lycoris might with pity view !
When mourning nymphs attend their Daphnis' hearse,
Who does not weep that reads the moving verse !
But hear, oh hear, in what exalted strains
Sicilian Muses through these happy plains
Proclaim Saturnian times---our own Apollo reigns !

When France had breath'd, after intestine broils, And

peace and conquest crown'd her foreign toils, There (cultivated by a royal hand) Learning grew fast, and spread, and blest the land; The choicest books that Rome or Greece have known, Her excellent translators made her own : And Europe still considerably gains, Both by their good example and their pains. From hence our generous emulation came, We undertook, and we perform’d the same. But now, we shew the world a nobler way, And in translated verse do more than they ;

Serene

Serezt, ad ca. 2 With freezess Degraag és And herse ( hE: Scarce ce se z Vas za sme The sm 'TH ELE

Jar,

hty Lord.