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OF THE

Later English Poets,

WITH PRELIMINARY NOTICES;

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME,

PATER-NOSTER ROW.

LENOX

NEW YORK

Printed by S. Hollingsworth, Crane-Court, Fleet-Street.

1749.

It would certainly be more agreeable to give credit to the praise of Dr. Middleton, than to the abuse of Pope, who vented his spite without restraint or decency upon this nobleman. The former celebrated him as "distinguished for his parts and eloquence, and bearing a principal share in the great affairs of the nation;" as one who was

not content with inheriting, but resolved to import new dignities into his family." He praises him for his "extreme temperance, which shews a firmness of mind that sub. jects every gratification of sense to the rule of right reason." Pope calls him,

"That thing of silk,

Sporus that mere white curd of asses's milk;"

and perhaps by the bitterness of his invective, vindicates the very character he would blast. Pope was the aggressor in a quarrel with Lord Harvey, and Lady M. W. Montague, for his expressions towards whom he would have been well rewarded with a horsewhip.

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Lord Harvey held the office of keeper of the Privy Seal.

EPISTLES,

In the Manner of Ovid.

MONIMIA TO PHILOCLES.

SINCE language never can describe my pain,

How can I hope to move when I complain?

VOL. II.

But such is woman's frenzy in distress,
We love to plead, tho' hopeless of redress.

Perhaps, affecting ignorance, thou'lt say,

From whence these lines? whose message to

convey?

Mock not my grief with that feign'd cold demand,
Too well you know the hapless writer's hand:

But if you force me to avow my shame,
Behold it prefaced with Monimia's name.

Lost to the world, abandon'd and forlorn,
Exposed to infamy, reproach and scorn,
To mirth and comfort lost, and all for you,
Yet lost, perhaps, to your remembrance too,
How hard my lot! what refuge can I try,
Weary of life, and yet afraid to die!
Of hope, the wretch's last resort, bereft,
By friends, by kindred, by my lover, left.
Oh! frail dependence of confiding fools
On lovers' oaths, or friendship's sacred rules!
How weak in modern hearts, too late I find!
Monimia's false, and Philocles unkind.
To these reflections each slow wearing day,"
And each revolving night a constant prey,
Think what I suffer, nor ungentle hear
What madness dictates in my fond despair;

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