They blindly and implicitly run on,
Nor see those dangers which the others shun:
Who slow to act, cach business duly weigh,
Advise with freedom, and with carc obey ;
With wisdom fatal to their interest, strive
To make their monarch lov'd, and nation thrive.
Such have no place where priests and women reign,
Who love fierce drivers, and a looser rein.

VERSES,

WRITTEN FOR THE TOASTING-GLASSES OF THE

KIT-CAT CLUB, 1703.

Follow'd by a more glorious splendid host, Than any age, or any realm can boast : So great their fame, so numerous their train, To name were endless, and to praise in vain ; But Herbert and great Oxford merit more ; Bold is their flight, and more sublime they soar ; So high their virtue as yet wants a name, Exceeding wonder, and surpassing fame. Rise, glorious church, erect thy radiant head ; The storm is past, th’ impending tempest fled ; Had fate decreed thy ruin or disgrace, It had not given such sons, so brave a race. When for destruction Heaven a realm designs, The symptoms first appear in slavish minds. These men would prop a sinking nation's weight, Stop falling vengeance, and reverse ev'n fate. Let other nations boast their fruitful soil, Their fragrant spices, their rich wine and oil ; In breathing colours and in living paint Let them excel, their mastery we grant ; But to instruct the mind, to arm the soul With virtue which no dangers can control, Exalt the thought, a speedy courage lend, That horror cannot shake, or pleasure bend : These are the English arts, these we profess, To be the same in misery and success; To teach oppressors law, assist the good, Relieve the wretched, and subdue the proud. Such are our souls ; but what doth worth avail When kings commit to hungry priests the scale ? Al merit's light when they dispose the weight, Who either would embroil or rule the state ; Defame those heroes who their yoke refuse, And blast that honesty they cannot use; The strength and safety of the crown destroy, And the king's power against himself employ ; Affront his friends, deprive him of the brave; Bereft of these, he must become their slave. Men, like our money, come the most in play, For being base, and of a coarse allay. The richest medals, and the purest gold, Of native value, and exactest mould, By worth conceal'd, in private closets shine, For vulgar use too precious and too fine ; Whilst tin and copper, with new stamping bright, Coin of base metal, counterfeit and light, Do all the business of the nation's turn, Rais'd in contempt, us'd and employ'd in scorn. So shining virtues are for courts too bright, Whose guilty actions fly the searching light: Rich in themselves, disdaining to aspire, Great without pomp, they willingly retire ; Give place to fools, whose rash misjudging sense Increases the weak measures of their prince ;

Duchess of St. Alban's.'
The line of Verc, so long renown'd in arms,
Concludes with lustre in St. Alban's charms.
Her conquering eyes have made their race complete;
They rose in valour, and in beauty set.

Duchess of Beaufort.
Offspring of a tuneful sire,
Blest with more than mortal fire ;
Likeness of a mother's face,
Blest with more than mortal grace;
You with double charms surprise,
With his wit, and with her eyes.

Lady Mary Churchill.
Fairest and latest of the beauteous race, [face;
Blest with your parents' wit, and her first blooming
Born with our liberties in William's reign,
Your eyes alone that liberty restrain.

Duchess of Richmond.
Of two fair Richmonds different ages boast,
Theirs was the first, and ours the brightest toast ;
Th’ adorers' offerings prove who's most divine,
They sacrific'd in water, we in wine.

Lady Sunderland.
All Nature's charms in Sunderland appear,
Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear :
Yet still their force, to men not safely known,
Seems undiscover'd to herself alone.

Mademoiselle Spanheime.
Admir'd in Germany, ador'd in France,
Your charms to brighter glory here advance ;
The stubborn Britons own your beauty's claim,
And with their native toasts enrol your name.

THE BOOK-WORM.

COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day
The book-worm, ravening beast of prey !
Produc'd by parent earth, at odds,
As fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives :
Through all the fields of wit he flies,
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat :
We'll rouse him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give ?
'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws his tadpole form along;
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up! he scuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse.
(Nay never offer to deny,
I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage ;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies ;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.

Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred altar here ;
Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ;
You reach'd me Phillips' rustic strain;
Pray take your mortal bards again.

Come, bind the victim,--there he lies, And here between his numerous eyes This venerable dust I lay, From manuscripts just swept away.

The goblet in my hand i take, (For the libation's yet to make):

A health to poets ! all their days
May they have bread, as well as praise ;
Sense may they seek, and less engage
In papers fillid with party-rage :
But if their riches spoil their vein,
Ye Muses make them poor again.

Now bring the weapon, yonder blade,
With which my tuneful pens are made.
I strike the scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the wound;
The sacred altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he's dead.

How like the son of Jove I stand,
This hydra stretch'd beneath my hand :
Lay bare the monster's entrails here,
To see what dangers threat the year :
Ye gods ! what sonnets on a wench !
What lean translations out of French !
"Tis plain this lobe is so unsound,
S- prints, before the months go round.

But hold, before I close the scene,
The sacred altar should be clean.
Oh, had I Shadwell's second bays,
Or Tate! thy pert and humble lays !
(Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never miss'd your works till now)
I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine,
(That only way you please the Nine);
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the songs of Durfey do.

Rent from the corpse, on yonder pin,
I hang the scales that braced it in ;
I hang my studious morning-gown,
And write my own inscription down:

*“ This trophy from the Python won,
This robe, in which the deed was done,
These, Parnell, glorying in the feat,
Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat.
Here ignorance and hunger found
Large realms of wit to ravage round :
Here ignorance and hunger fell ;
Two foes in one I sent to hell.
Ye poets, who my labours see,
Come share the triumph all with me!
Ye critics ! born to vex the Muse,
Go mourn the grand ally you lose."

AN ALLEGORY ON MAN. A THOUGHTFUL being, long and spare, Our race of mortals call him Care (Were Homer living, well he knew What name the gods had call'd him too), With fine mechanic genius wrought, And lov'd to work, though no one bought.

Then leaning heard the nice debate, And thus pronounc'd the words of fate :

Since body from the parent earth, And soul from Jove receiv'd a birth, Return they where they first began; But since their union makes the man, Till Jove and earth shall part these two, To Care who join'd them, man is due.

He said, and sprang with swift career To trace a circle for the year; Where ever since the seasons wheel, And tread on one another's heel.

"Tis well, said Jove, and for consent Thund'ring he shook the firmament. Our umpire Time shall have his way, With Care I let the creature stay : Let business vex him, avarice blind, Let doubt and knowledge rack his mind, Let error act, opinion speak, And want afflict, and sickness break, And anger burn, dejection chill, And joy distract, and sorrow kill, Till arm'd by Care, and taught to mow, Time draws the long destructive blow; And wasted man, whose quick decay Comes hurrying on before his day, Shall only find by this decree, The soul flies sooner back to me.

This being, by a model bred
In Jove's eternal sable head,
Contriv'd a shape empower'd to breathe,
And be the worldling here beneath.

The man rose staring like a snake,
Wondering to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The business he was made to do ;
That pleas'd to see with what a grace
He gravely show'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-something of the sky.

But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a poet's god
(For which his curls ambrosial shake,
And mother earth's oblig'd to quake),
He saw old mother earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his eyes ;
But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before,
Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her, like commodes :
As yet with wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a landskip-painted vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said,
And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honours made, great Jove, she cry'd,
This thing was fashion'd from my side :
His hands, his heart, his head, are mine ;
Then what hast thou to call him thine ?
Nay rather ask, the monarch said,
What boots his hand, his heart, his head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?
Thy part's an idle shape of clay.

Halves, more than halves ! cry'd honest Care,
Your pleas would make your titles fair ;
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.

Thus with the Gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause, as man.
And can celestial tempers rage ?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age.

As thus they wrangled, Time came by ;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the fabling ancients sung
Makes Saturn old, when time was young.)
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honours on his head ;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old sire, Eternity.
A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth, before ;
By which our almanacks are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carry'd, where on high
A glass was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.
His vest, for day and night, was py'd;
A bending sickle arm'd his side ;
And spring's new months his train adorn!
The other seasons were unborn.

Known by the Gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause,
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where since his hours a dial made;

THE HERMIT.

Far in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew;
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well :
Remote from men, with God he pass'd his days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.

A life so sacred, such serene repose,
Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rose ;
That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey,
This sprung some doubt of Providence's sway :
His hopes no more a certain prospect boast,
And all the tenour of his soul is lost :
So when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm nature's image on it's watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow,
And skies beneath with answering colours glow :
But if a stone the gentle sea divide,
Swift ruffling circles curl on every side,
And glimmering fragments of a broken sun,
Banks, trees, and skies, in thick disorder run.

To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight, To find if books, or swains, report it right, (For yet by swains alone the world he knew, Whose feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew) He quits his cell ; the pilgrim staff he bore, And fix'd the scallop in his hat before; Then with the sun a rising journey went, Sedate to think, and watching each event.

The morn was wasted in the pathless grass, And long and lonesome was the wild to pass ; But when the southern sun had warm'd the day, A youth came posting o'er a crossing way ;