Ask of the British youth-Is silence there?
She dares to ask it of the British fair.

To night our home-spun author would be true, At once to nature, history, and you.

Well-pleased to give our neighbours due applause,
He owns their learning, but disdains their laws.
Not to his patient touch, or happy flame,
"Tis to his British heart he trusts for fame.
If France excel him in one free born thought,
The man, as well as poet, is in fault.

Nature! informer of the poet's art,
Whose force alone can raise or melt the heart,
Thou art his guide; each passion, every line,
Whate'er he draws to please, must all be thine.
Be thou his judge: in every candid breast,
Thy silent whisper is the sacred test.

MACER:-A CHARACTER.

WHEN simple Macer, now of high renown
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
"Twas all the ambition his high soul could feel;
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford;
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventured on the town,
And with a borrow'd play outdid poor Crown.
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little :
Like stunted hide bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.

So some coarse country-wench, almost decay'd,
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay,
She flatters her good lady twice a-day;
Thought wondrous honest, though of mean degree,
And strangely liked for her simplicity:
In a translated suit, then tries the town,
With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own:
But just endured the winter she began,
And in four months a batter'd harridan.
Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale, and shrunk,
To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

TO MR. JOHN MOORE,

Author of the celebrated Worm-Powder.

How much, egregious Moore, are we Deceived by shows and forms! Whate'er we think, whate'er we see, All human kind are worms.

Man is a very worm by birth,
Vile, reptile, weak, and vain!
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.

That woman is a worm, we find

E'er since our grandame's evil;

She first conversed with her own kind,

That ancient worm, the devil.

The learn'd themselves we book-worms name;
The blockhead is a slow-worm;

The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
Is aptly term'd a glow worm.

The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;

First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.

The flatterer an earwig grows;
Thus worms suit all conditions:
Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaus,
And death-watches physicians.

That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;

Their conscience is a worm within,
That gnaws them night and day

Ah, Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,

If thou couldst make the courtier void
The worm that never dies.

O learned friend of Abchurch-lane, Who sett'st our entrails free; Vain is thy art, thy powder vain, Since worms shall eat e'en thee.

Our fate thou only canst adjourn

Some few short years, no more! E'en Button's wits to worms shall turn, Who maggots were before.

SONG BY A PERSON OF QUALITY;

Written in the Year 1733.

FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,

All beneath you flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,

Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.

Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.

Melancholy smooth Meander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.

Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping:
Melody resigns to fate."

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon;

(Envy, be silent and attend !)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour,

Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly; An equal mixture of good-humour,

And sensible soft melancholy.

Has she no faults, then, Envy says, ' sir? Yes, she has one, I must aver:

When all the world conspires to praise her, The woman's deaf, and does not hear

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM, Composed of Marble, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals

THOU who shalt drop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,

Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow:
Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine, without a wish for gold.
Approach; but awful! lo! the Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,

And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's

sonl.

Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

TO MRS M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

On, be thou bless'd with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend!
Not with those toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and vanities that tire.
With added years, if life bring nothing new,
But like a sieve let every blessing through,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth-day? 'tis, alas! too clear,
"Tis but the funeral of the former year.

Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear;
Till death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstasy of joy.
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb
And wake to raptures in a life to come.

TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN,

On his Birthday, 1742.

RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin, but poetry,

This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild-goose and the larks!

The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden !
And for his judgment, lo a pudden!

Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.

May Tom, whom heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.

A modern Imitation.

Say, St. John, who alone peruse
With candid eye, the mimic muse,
What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws!
Is then a greater work in hand,
Than all the tomes of Haines's band?
'Or shoots he folly as it flies?
Or catches manners as they rise?t
Or, urged by unquench'd native heat,
§ Does St. John Greenwich sports repeat?
Where (emulous of Chartres' fame)
E'en Chartres' self is scarce a name,

To you (the all-envied gift of heaven)
The indulgent gods, unask'd, have given
A form complete in every part,
And, to enjoy that gift, the art.
**What could a tender mother's care

Wish better to her favourite heir,
Than wit, and fame, and lucky hours,
A stock of health, and golden showers,
And graceful fluency of speech,
Precepts before unknown to teach?

+ Amidst thy various ebbs of fear,
And gleaning hope, and black despair;
Yet let thy friend this truth impart;
A truth I tell with bleeding heart
(In justice for your labours past),

That every day shall be your last;
That every hour you life renew
Is to your injured country due.

*This satire on Lord Bolingbroke, and the praise bestowed on him in a letter to Mr. Richardson, where Mr. Pope says,

The sons shall blush their fathers were his foes: being so contradictory, probably occasioned the former to be suppressed. S.

A FRAGMENT.

WHAT are the falling rills, the pendent shades,
The morning bowers, the evening colonnades,
But soft recesses for the uneasy mind
fo sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to die (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,
Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away,

VERSES LEFT BY MR POPE

On his lying_in the same Bed which Wilmot the celebrated Earl of Rochester slept in, at Adderbury, then belonging to the Duke of Argyle, July 9th, 1739.

WITH no poetic ardour fired

I press'd the bed where Wilmot lay; That here he loved, or here expired, Begets no numbers grave or gay

But in thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie Stretch'd out in honour's noble bed, Beneath a nobler roof-the sky.

Such flames as high in patriots burn, Yet stoop to bless a child or wife; And such as wicked kings may mourn, When freedom is more dear than life.

ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBALL,

One of the principal Secretaries of State to King William the Third, who, having resigned his place, died in his Retirement at Easthamsted, in Berk shire, 1716.

A PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind;
Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd;
Honour unchanged, a principle profess'd,
Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest:
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too;
Just to his prince, and to his country true:
Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth:
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny:
A generous faith, from superstition free;
Such this man was; who now from earth removed,
At length enjoys that liberty he loved.

ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT

Only Son of the Lord Chancellor Harcourt, at the
Church of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near;
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear;
Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own!

!

VERSES TO MR. C.

St. James's Place, London, October 22

FEW words are best; I wish you well;
Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here:
Some morning-walks along the Mall,
And evening friends, will end the year.

If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost, You please to see, on Twit'nam green,

Your friend, your poet, and your host;

For three whole days you here may rest,
From office, business, news, and strife;
And (what most folks would think a jest)
Want nothing else, except your wife.

EPITAPHS.

ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

In Westminster Abbey.

JACOBUS CRAGGS,

REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SEC RETIS
ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS,

PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET
DELICIE

VIXIT, TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR,
ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, XXXV.
OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear!

Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,

Praised, wept, and honour'd, by the muse he loved.

ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET,

In the Church of Withyam, in Sussex.

DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As shew'd vice had his hate and pity too.

Bless'd courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Bless'd peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patrons still, or poets, deck the line.

INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE,
In Westminster Abbey.

THY reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust,
And, sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust:
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes,
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
Bless'd in thy genius, in thy love too bless'd!
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies
What a whole thankless land to his denies.

ON MRS. CORBET,

Who died of a Cancer in her Breast.

HERE rests a woman, good without pretence,
Bless'd with plain reason, and with sober sense;
No conquests she, but o'er herself, desired,
No arts essay'd, but not to be admired.
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinced that virtue only is our own.

N

So unaffected, so composed a mind;
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refined;
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried;
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

ON THE MONUMENT OF THE

HONOURABLE ROBERT DIGBY,

AND OF HIS SISTER MARY,

ON MR. GAY.

In Westminster Abbey, 1730.

Or manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation in a low estate,

And uncorrupted, e'en among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust;

Go! fair example of untainted youth,

Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth;

Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate,

Good without noise, without pretension great:

Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,

Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:

Of softest manners, unaffected mind,

Lover of peace, and friend of human-kind:

Go, live! for heaven's eternal year is thine,

Go, and exalt thy moral to divine!

And thou, bless'd maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,

Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet, take these tears, mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites, a stone, a verse, receive;
"Tis all a father, all a friend, can give!

ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

In Westminster Abbey, 1723.

KNELLER, by Heaven, and not a master, taught,
Whose art was nature, and whose pictures thought;
Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great.
Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.

Living, great nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die.

ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS.

In Westminster Abbey, 1729.

HERE, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,
Thy country's friend, but more of human-kind.
O born to arms! O worth in youth approved!
O soft humanity, in age beloved!

For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear,
And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere.
Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove
Thy martial spirit, or thy social love!
Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
Still leave some ancient virtues to our age:
Nor let us say (those English glories gone)
The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

Striking their pensive bosoms Here lies Gay?

ANOTHER.

WELL then! poor Gay lies under ground,

So there's an end of honest Jack:

So little justice here he found,

"Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON
In Westminster Abbey.

ISAACUS NEWTONUS:
Quem Immortalem

Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum :
Mortalem

Hoc Marmor Fatetur.

NATURE and nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be?' and all was light.

ON DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY. BISHOP OF ROCHESTER,

Who died in Exile in Paris, 1732.

[His only daughter having expired in his arms, imme diately after she arrived in France to see him.]

DIALOGUE.

She. YES, we have lived-one pang, and then we part;
May Heaven, dear father! now have all thy heart.
Yet, ah! how once we loved, remember still,
Till you are dust like me.

He.
Dear shade! I will:
Then mix this dust with thine-O spotless ghost!
O more than fortune, friends, or country lost!
Is there on earth one care, one wish beside?
Yes-Save my country, Heaven,'-He said, and died.

ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, Who died in the 19th year of his age, 1735.⚫ Ir modest youth with cool reflection crown'd, And every opening virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! The living virtue now had shone approved, The senate heard him, and his country loved. Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham: In whom a race, for courage famed and art, Ends in the milder merit of the heart; And, chiefs or sages long to Britain given, Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heaven.

FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

HEROES and kings! your distance keep;
In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flatter'd folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.