Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dying, and what then fhall follow?

Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corfe attend;

With eyes averted light the folemn pyre, Till all around the doleful flames afcend,

Then, flowly finking, by degrees expire? To footh the hovering foul be thine the care, With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band. In fable weeds the golden vafe to bear,

And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand; Panchaia's odours be their coftly feast,

And all the pride of Afia's fragrant year, Give them the treasures of the farthest East,

And, what is still more precious, give thy tear.

Surely no blame can. fall upon the nymph who rejected a fwain of fo little meaning.

His

His verfes are not rugged, but they have no sweetness; they never glide in a ftream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten fyllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy is gentleness and tenuity; but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whofe knowledge of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords.

THE

THE following Elegy was acciden

tally omitted:

TO MISS DASHWOOD.

In the Manner of OVI D.

O fay, thou dear poffeffor of my breast, Where's now my boasted liberty and rest!

Where the gay moments which I once have

known!

O, where that heart I fondly thought my own! From place to place I folitary roam,

Abroad uneafy, not content at home.

I fcorn the beauties common eyes adore;

The more I view them, feel thy worth the more;
Unmov'd I hear them fpeak, or fee them fair,
And only think on thee, who art not there.
In vain would books their formal fuccour lend,
Nor wit nor wisdom can relieve their friend;

Wir

Wit can't deceive the pain I now endure,
And wisdom fhews the ill without the cure.

When from thy fight I waste the tedious day,
A thousand schemes I form, and things to fay;
But when thy prefence gives the time I feek,
My heart's fo full, I wish, but cannot speak.

And could I speak with eloquence and ease, Till now not ftudious of the art to please, Could I, at woman who so oft exclaim,

Expofe (nor blush) thy triumph and my shame,.
Abjure those maxims I fo lately priz’d,
And court that fex I foolishly defpis'd,

Own thou hast foften'd my obdurate mind,
And thus reveng'd the wrongs of womankind;
Loft were my words, and fruitless all my pain,
In vain to tell thee, all I write in vain ;
My humble fighs fhall only reach thy ears,
And all my eloquence fhall be my tears.
And now (for more I never must pretend)
Hear me not as thy lover, but thy friend;
Thousands

I

Thousands will fain thy little heart enfnare,
For without danger none like thee are fair;
But wifely choose who best deserves thy flame,
So fhall the choice itself become thy fame;
Nor yet defpife, though void of winning art,
The plain and honest courtship of the heart:
The skilful tongue in love's perfuafive lore,
Tho' lefs it feels, will pleafe and flatter more,
And, meanly learned in that guilty trade,
Can long abuse a fond, unthinking maid.
And fince their lips, fo knowing to deceive,
Thy unexperienc'd youth might foon believe;
And fince their tears, in false fubmiffion drest,
Might thaw the icy coldnefs of thy breaft;
O! fhut thine eyes to fuch deceitful woe:
Caught by the beauty of thy outward fhow,
Like me they do not love, whate'er they feem,
Like me with paffion founded on esteem.