Some steal a page of fenfe from Tillotson,
And then conclude divinely with their own;
Like oil on water mounts the prelate up,
His grace is always fure to be at top;
That vein of mercury its beams will spread,
And shine more ftrongly through a mine of lead.
With fuch low arts your hearers never bilk,
For who can bear a fuftian lin'd with filk?
Sooner than preach such stuff, I'd walk the town,
Without my fcarf, in Whifton's draggled gown;
Ply at the Chapter, and at Child's, to read
For pence, and bury for a groat a head.
Some eafy fubject chufe, within your power,
Or you
will ne'er hold out for half an hour.
Still to your hearers all your fermons sort ;
Who'd preach against corruption at a court?
Against church power at vifitations bawl?
Or talk about damnation at Whitehall?
Harangue the Horfe-guards on a cure of fouls?
Condemn the quirks of Chancery at the Rolls?
Or rail at hoods and organs at St. Pauls ?
Or be, like David Jones, so indiscreet,
To rave at ufurers in Lombard-street ?
Begin with care, nov, like that curate vile,
Set out in this high prancing ftumbling ftyle:
"Whoever with a piercing eye can fee
"Through the past records of futurity?”
All gape, no meaning the puft orator ·
Talks much, and fays juft nothing for an hour.
Truth and the text he labours to display,
Till both are quite interpreted away:
So frugal dames infipid water pour,
Till green, bohea, or coffee, are no more.
His arguments in giddy circles run
Still round and round, and end where they begun
So the poor turnfpit, as the wheel runs round,
The more he gains, the more he lofes ground.
No parts diftinct, or general fcheme we find,
But one wild shapeless monster of the mind;
So when old Bruin teems, her children fail
Of limbs, form, figure, features, head, or tail
Nay, though the licks the ruins, all her cares
Scarce mend the lumps, and bring them but to bears.
Ye country vicars, when you preach in town
A turn at Paul's, to pay your journey down,
If you would fhun the sneer of every prig,
Lay by the little band, and rusty wig:
But yet be fure, your proper language know,
Nor talk as born within the found of Bow.
Speak not the phrase that Drury-lane affords,
Nor from Change-alley steal a cant of words.
Coachmen will criticife your ftyle; nay further,
Porters will bring it in for wilful murther:
The dregs of the canaille will look askew,
To hear the language of the town from you;
Nay, my lord mayor, with merriment poffeft,
Will break his nap, and laugh among the reft,
And jog the aldermen to hear the jeft.
Infcribed on a stone, that covers his Father, Mother,
E facred fpirits! while your friends diftrefs'd
Weep o'er your afhes, and lament the bless'd; O let the penfive Muse inscribe that stone,
And with the general forrows mix her own :
The penfive Mufe!-who, from this mournful hour,
Shall raise her voice, and wake the ftring no more!
Of love, of duty, this laft pledge receive;
'Tis all a brother, all a son can give.
A POEM on the DEATH of the late Earl STANHOP E. Humbly infcribed to the Countess of STANHOPE.
"At length, grim fate, thy dreadful triumphs cease: "Lock up the tomb, and feal the grave in peace."
WOW from thy riot of deftruction breathe,
Call in thy raging plagues, thou tyrant death: Too mean 's the conqueft which thy arms bestow, Too mean to fweep a nation at a blow.
No, thy unbounded triumphs higher run,
And feem to ftrike at all mankind in one;
Since Stanhope is thy prey, the great, the brave,
A nobler prey was never paid the grave.
We feem to feel from this thy daring crime,
A blank in nature, and a pause in time.
He stood fo high in reafon's towering sphere,
As high as man unglorify'd could bear.
In arms, and eloquence, like Cæfar, fhone
So bright, that each Minerva was his own.
How could fo vaft a fund of learning lie
Shut up in fuch a short mortality?
One world of science nobly travell'd o'er,
Like Philip's glorious fon, he wept for more.
And now, refign'd to tears, th' angelic choirs,
With drooping heads, unftring their golden lyres,
Wrapt in a cloud of grief, they figh to view
Their facred image laid by death fo low :
And deep in anguish funk, on Stanhope's fate,
Begin to doubt their own immortal state.
But hold, my Mufe, thy mournful transport errs,
Hold here, and liften to Lucinda's tears.
While thy vain forrows echo to his tomb,
Behold a fight that strikes all forrow dumb:
Behold the partner of his cares and life,
Bright in her tears, and beautiful in grief.
Shall then in vain thofe ftreams of forrow flow,
Dreft up in all the elegance of woe?
And fhall the kind officious Mufe forbear
To answer figh for figh, and tell out tear for tear?
Oh! no; at fuch a melancholy scene,
The Poet echoes back her woes again.
Each weeping Muse should minister relief,
From all the moving eloquence of grief.
Each, like a Niobe, his fate bemoan,
Melt into tears, or harden into stone..
From dark obfcurity his virtues fave,
And, like pale spectres, hover round his grave.
With them the marble fhould due measures keep,
Relent at every figh, at every accent weep.
Britannia mourn thy hero, nor refuse
To vent the fighs and forrows with the Mufe:
Oh let thy rifing groans load every wind,
Nor let one fluggish accent lag behind.
Thy heavy fate with justice to deplore,
Convey a gale of fighs from fhore to shore.
And thou, her guardian angel, widely fpread
Thy golden wings, and fhield the mighty dead.
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