prayer: And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, But, hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall : The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew, to wash your face. Is this a dinner? this a genial room? No, 'tis a temple and a hecatomb. A solemn sacrifice perform'd in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there. Between each act the trembling salvers ring, From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the King, In plenty starving, tantalized in state, And complaisantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave, Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve; I curse such lavish cost and little skill, And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill. Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his infants bread, The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies, His charitable vanity supplies. Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre, Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil?- from sense. His father's acres who enjoys in peace, Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase; Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil, Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil; Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed The milky heifer and deserving steed; Whose rising forests, not for pride or show, But future buildings, future navies, grow: Let his plantations stretch from down to down, First shade a country, and then raise a town. You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair; Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before: Till kings call forth the ideas of your mind, (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) Bid harbours open, public ways extend, Bid temples worthier of the God ascend, Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main; Back to his bounds their subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land: These honours peace to happy Britain brings; These are imperial works, and worthy kings. EPISTLE V. OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS. SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years! Ambition sigh'd: she found it vain to trust The faithless column and the crumbling bust; Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to shore, Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more! A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, The medal, faithful to its charge of fame, Through climes and ages bears each form and name: In one short view subjected to our eye, Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie. With sharpen'd sight pale antiquaries pore, The' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears, The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years! To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes, One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams. Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd, Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd; And Curio, restless by the fair-one's side, Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride. Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine: Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine; Her gods and godlike heroes rise to view, And all her faded garlands bloom anew. Nor blush these studies thy regard engage; These pleased the fathers of poetic rage; The verse and sculpture bore an equal part, And art reflected images to art. Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? In living medals see her wars enroll❜d, And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold? Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face; There, warriors frowning in historic brass : Then future ages with delight shall see How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree; Or in fair series laurell'd bards be shown, A Virgil there, and here an Addison: Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine) ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY. 1708. DESCEND, ye Nine! descend and sing; In a sadly pleasing strain While, in more lengthen'd notes and slow, And fill with spreading sounds the skies: Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes, In broken air trembling, the wild music floats; |