Graceful in form, and winning in address,
While well you think, what aptly you exprefs,
With health, with honour, with a fair estate,
A table free, and eloquently neat,

What can be added more to mortal blifs?
What can he want who stands poffeft of this?
What can the fondest wishing mother more
Of heaven attentive for her fon implore?
And yet a happiness remains unknown,
Or to philofophy reveal'd alone;

A precept, which unpractis'd renders vain
Thy flowing hopes, and pleafure turns to pain.
Should Hope and Fear thy heart alternate tear,
Or Love, or Hate, or Rage, or anxious Care,
Whatever paffions may thy mind infcft,
(Where is that mind which paffions ne'er moleft?)
Amidft the pangs of fuch inteftine strife,

Still think the prefent day, the last of life;
Defer not till to-morrow to be wife,
To-morrow's fun to thee may never rise.

Or fhould to-morrow chance to cheer thy fight,
With her enlivening and unlook'd-for light,
How grateful will appear her dawning rays!
As favours unexpected doubly please.

Who thus can think, and who fuch thoughts pursues,
Content may keep his life, or calmly lose;
All proofs of this thou may'st thyself receive,
When leifure from affairs will give thee leave,
Come, see thy friend, retir'd without regret,
Forgetting care, or ftriving to forget;

In eafy contemplation foothing time

With morals much, and now and then with rhyme,
Not fo robuft in body, as in mind,

And always undejected, though declin'd;
Not wondering at the world's new wicked ways,
Compar'd with those of our fore-fathers days,
For virtue now is neither more or lefs,
And vice is only varied in the drefs;
Believe it, men have ever been the fame,
And all the golden age, is but a dream.

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,
The beau, in fpite of box and dice,
Acknowledge, all excels.

Ceafe, ceafe, to ask her name,
The crowned Mufe's nobleft theme,

Whofe glory by immortal fame,

Shall only founded be.

But if you long to know,

Then look round yonder dazzling row,
Who most does like an angel show,
You may be fure 'tis fhe.

See near those facred springs,
Which cure to fell difeafes brings,
(As ancient fame of Ida fings)
Three goddeffes appear!
Wealth, glory, two poffeft;

The third with charming beauty blest,
So fair, that heaven and earth confeft
She conquer'd every where.

Like her, this charmer now

Makes every love-fick gazer bow;
Nay, even old age her power allow,
And banish'd flames recall.

Wealth can no trophy rear,
Nor glory now the garland wear:
To beauty every Paris here
Devotes the golden ball.

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,

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