Graceful in form, and winning in address, What can be added more to mortal blifs? A precept, which unpractis'd renders vain Still think the prefent day, the last of life; Or fhould to-morrow chance to cheer thy fight, Who thus can think, and who fuch thoughts pursues, In eafy contemplation foothing time With morals much, and now and then with rhyme, And always undejected, though declin'd; WRITTEN AT TUNBRIDGE WELLS, O N MISS TEMPLE, Afterwards Lady of Sir THOMAS LYTTELTON. LEAVE, leave the drawing-room, Where flowers of beauty us'd to bloom; The nymph that's fated to o'ercome, Now triumphs at the wells. Her fhape, and air, and eyes Her face, the gay, the grave, the wife, Ceafe, ceafe, to ask her name, Whofe glory by immortal fame, Shall only founded be. But if you long to know, Then look round yonder dazzling row, See near those facred springs, The third with charming beauty blest, Like her, this charmer now Makes every love-fick gazer bow; Wealth can no trophy rear, A PIN On the Victorious Progrefs of Her MAJESTY'S Arms under the Conduct of the Duke of MARLBOROUGH. THE following Ode is an attempt towards refforing the regularity of the antient Lyric Poetry, which feems to be altogether forgotten or unknown by our English writers. There is nothing more frequent among us, than a fort of poems intituled Pindaric Odes; pretending to be written in imitation of the manner and ftile of Pindar, and yet I do not know that there is to this day extant in our language, one Ode contrived after his model. What idea can an English reader have of Pindar (to whofe mouth, when a child, the bees brought their honey, in omen of the future fweetness and melody of his fongs) when he fhall fee fuch rumbling and grating papers of verfes, pretending to be copies of his works? The character of thefe late Pindarics is, a bundle of rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like parcel of irregular ftanzas, which alfo confift of fuch another complication of difproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhymes. And I appeal to any reader, if this is not the condition in which these titular Odes appear. On the contrary, there is nothing more regular than the Odes of Pindar, both as to the exact obfervation of the measures and numbers of his ftanzas and verses, and the perpetual coherence of his thoughts. For though his digreffions are frequent, and his tranfitions sudden, yet is there ever fome fecret connection, which though not always appearing to the eye, never fails to communicate itself to the understanding of the reader. The liberty which he took in his numbers, and which has been fo misunderstood and mifapplied by his pretended imitators, was only in varying the ftanzas in different Odes; but in each particular Ode they are ever correfpondent one to another in their turns, and according to the order of the Ode. All the Odes of Pindar which remain to us, are fongs of triumph, victory or fuccefs in the Grecian games : they were fung by a chorus, and adapted to the lyre, and fometimes to the lyre and pipe; they confifted ofteneft of three ftanzas; the firft was called the Strophe, from |