475

But Europe mortify'd his pride,
And fwore the fawning rafcals ly'd.
Yet what the world refus'd to Lewis,
Apply'd to George, exactly true is.
Exactly true! invidious poet !

Tis fifty thousand times below it.

Tranflate me now fome lines, if you can,

480

From Virgil, Martial, Ovid, Lucan.

They could all power in Heaven divide,
And do no wrong on either fide;

They teach you how to split a hair,

485

Give George and Jove an equal fhare.
Yet why should we be lac'd so strait'?
I'll give my monarch butter-weight.
And reafon good; for many a year
Jove never intermeddled here :
Nor, though his priests be duly paid,
Did ever we defire his aid:

We now can better do without him,
Since Woolfton

gave us arms to rout him.

Cætera defiderantur.

490

HORACE, BOOK IV. ODE XIX. IMITATED.

TO HUMPHRY FRENCH, ESQ.*.

ATRON of the tuneful throng,

PATRON

O too nice, and too fevere !

1733.

Think not, that my country song

Shall difplease thy honeft ear.

*Lord mayor of Dublin. N.

Chofen

Chofen ftrains I proudly bring;

Which the Mufes' facred choir,

When they gods and heroes fing,

Dictate to th' harmonious lyre.

Ancient Homer, princely bard!
Juft precedence ftill maintains ;
With facred rapture ftill are heard
Theban Pindar's lofty strains.

Still the old triumphant fong,
Which, when hated tyrants fell,
Great Alcæus boldly fung,

Warns, inftructs, and pleafes well.
'Nor has Time's all-darkening fhade
In obfcure oblivion prefs'd
What Anacreon laugh'd and play'd;
Gay Anacreon, drunken prieft!

Gentle Sappho, love-fick Muse,
Warms the heart with amorous fire;

Still her tendereft notes infufe
Melting rapture, foft defire.

Beauteous Helen, young and gay,
By a painted fopling won,
Went not firft, fair nymph, aftray,
Fondly pleas'd to be undone.

Nor young Teucer's flaughtering bow,
Nor bold Hector's dreadful fword,

Alone the terrors of the foe,

Sow'd the field with hoftile bload.

Many valiant chiefs of old

Greatly liy'd and died, before Agamemnon, Grecian bold,

Wag'd the ten years famous war.

But their names, unfung, unwept,
Unrecorded, loft and gone,

Long in endless night have flept,
And fhall now no more be known.

Virtue, which the poet's care

Has not well confign'd to fame, Lies, as in the fepulchre

Some old king without a name.

But, O Humphry, great and free,
While my tuneful fongs are read,
Old forgetful Time on thee

Dark oblivion ne'er shall spread.
When the deep-cut notes fhall fade
On the mouldering Parian stone,
On the brafs no more be read
The perishing infcription;

Forgotten all the enemies,

Envious G-n's curfed fpite,
And Pl's derogating lies,
Loft and funk in Stygian night:

Still thy labour and thy care,

What for.Dublin thou haft done,

In full luftre fhall appear,

And outfhine th' unclouded fun.

Large

Large thy mind, and not untried,

For Hibernia now doth stand;
Through the calm, or raging tide,
Safe conducts the ship to land.

Falfely we call the rich man great;
He is only fo that knows
His plentiful or small eftate
Wifely to enjoy and use.

He, in wealth or poverty,
Fortune's power alike defies;

And falfehood and dishonesty

More than death abhors and flies:

When the fuffering so severe
May from dreadful bondage fave
Clients, friends, or country dear.

This the fovereign man, compleat;
Hero; patriot; glorious; free;
Rich and wife; and good and great;
Generous Humphry, thou art He.

A NEW SIMILE FOR THE LADIES.

BY DR.

SHERIDAN. 1733.

"To make a writer mifs his end,

"You 've nothing else to do but mend.

I

OFTEN try'd in vain to find

A fimile for woman-kind,

A fimile

A fimile I mean to fit 'em,
In every circumstance to hit 'em.
Through every beast and bird I went,
I ranfack'd every element;

And, after peeping through all nature
To find fo whimsical a creature,
A-cloud prefented to my view,
And ftrait this parallel I drew:

Clouds turn with every wind about, *They keep us in fufpence and doubt, >Yet oft' perverfe, like woman-kind, Are feen to fcud against the wind: And are not women juft the fame ? For, who can tell at what they aim?

Clouds keep the ftouteft mortals under, When bellowing they discharge their thunder: So when th' alarum-bell is rung

Of Xanti's everlasting tongue,

The husband dreads its loudness more
Than lightning's flash, or thunder's roar.
Clouds weep, as they do, without pain;
And what are tears but womens' rain ?
The clouds about the welkin roam;

And ladies never stay at home.

The clouds build caftles in the air,

A thing peculiar to the fair;
For all the fchemes of their forecafting
Are not more folid, nor more lafting.
A cloud is light by turns, and dark,
Such is a lady with her fpark;

Now