The Works of the English Poets: Prior

When Heaven had You and gracious Anna * made,
What more exalted beauty could it add ?
Having no nobler images in ftore,

It but kept up to these, nor could do more
Than copy well what it had fram❜d before.

If in dear Burghley's generous face we fee
Obliging truth and handsome honesty:

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With all that world of charms, which foon will move
Reverence in men, and in the fair-ones love :
His every grace, his fair defcent affures,
He has his mother's beauty, fhe has yours:
If every Cecil's face had every charm,

That thought can fancy, or that Heaven can form ;
Their beauties all become your beauty's due,
They are all fair, because they're all like you.
If every Ca'ndish great and charming look ;
From you that air, from you the charms they took.
In their each limb, your image is expreft;
But on their brow firm courage stands confest;
There, their great father, by a ftrong increase,
Adds ftrength to beauty, and compleats the piece :
Thus ffill your beauty, in your fons, we view,
Wieffen feven times one great perfection drew;
Whoever fat, the picture fill is you.

So when the parent-fun, with genial beams,
Has animated many goodly gems,

He fees himself improv'd, while every ftone,
With a resembling light, reflects a fun.

Eldeft daughter of the Countefs..

So when great Rhea many births had given,
Such as might govern earth, and people heaven;
Her glory grew diffus'd, and, fuller known,
She faw the Deity in every fon :

And to what God foe'er men altars rais'd,

Honouring the offspring, they the mother prais'd.

In fhort-liv'd charms let others place their joys.
Which fickness blafts, and certain age destroys:
Your stronger beauty Time can ne'er deface,
'Tis ftill renew'd, and stamp'd in all your race.
Ah! Wieffen, had thy art been so refin'd,
As with their beauty to have drawn their mind:
Through circling years thy labours would furvive,
And living rules to fairest virtue give,

To men unborn and ages yet to live:

"Twould ftill be wonderful, and still be new,
Against what time, or fpite, or fate, could do;
Till thine confus'd with Nature's pieces lie,
And Cavendifh's name and Cecil's honour die.

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A FABLE, from PHÆDRUS.
To the Author of the MEDLEY, 1710.

HE Fox an actor's vizard found,

THE

And peer'd, and felt, and turn'd it round; Then threw it in contempt away, And thus old Phædrus heard him fay: "What noble part canft thou sustain, "Thou fpecious head without a brain?"

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