Smit with the love of Sifter-Arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; Like friendly colours found them both unite, And each from each contract new ftrength and light.

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How oft in pleafing tasks we wear the day,
While fummer-funs roll unperceiv'd away?
How oft' our flowly-growing works impart,
While Images reflect from art to art?
How oft review; each finding like a friend
Something to blame, and fomething to commend?
What flatt'ring fcenes our wand'ring fancy
wrought,

Rome's pompous glories rifing to our thought!
Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,
Fir'd with Ideas of fair Italy.

With thee, on Raphael's Monument I mourn,
Or wait inspiring Dreams at Maro's Urn:
With thee repose, where Tully once was laid,
Or feek fome Ruin's formidable shade:
While fancy brings the vanish'd piles to view,
And builds imaginary Rome a-new,
Here thy well-ftudy'd marbles fix our eye;
A fading Fresco here demands a figh:

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Each heav'nly piece unwearied we compare,

35

Match Raphael's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air,

Caracci's frength, Correggio's fofter line,

Paulo's free ftroke, and Titian's warmth divine.

VOL. VI.

M

*

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How finish'd with illuftrious toil appears This fmall, well-polifh'd Gem, the work of years! Yet ftill how faint by precept is exprest The living image in the painter's breast? Thence endless streams of fair Ideas flow, Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow; Thence Beauty, waking all her forms, fupplies 45 An Angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes. Mufe! at that Name thy facred forrows fhed, Those tears eternal, that embalm the dead: Call round her Tomb each object of defire, Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire: Bid her be all that chears or softens life, The tender fifter, daughter, friend, and wife: Bid her be all that makes mankind adore; Then view this Marble, and be vain no more! Yet ftill her charms in breathing paint engage; 55 Her modeft cheek shall warm a future age. Beauty, frail flow'r that ev'ry feason fears, Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years. Thus Churchill's race fhall other hearts surprize, And other Beauties envy Worfley's eyes; Each pleafing Blount fhall endless fmiles bestow, And foft Belinda's blush for ever glow.

Oh lafting as those Colours may they shine, Free as thy ftroke, yet faultlefs as thy line;

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* Frefnoy employed above twenty years in finishing his Poem,

New graces yearly like thy works display,
Soft without weakness, without glaring gay;

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Led by fome rule, that guides, but not conftrains;
And finish'd more thro' happiness than pains.
The kindred Arts fhall in their praife confpire,
One dip the pencil, and one ftring the lyre.
Yet should the Graces all thy figures place,
And breathe an air divine on ev'ry face;
Yet fhould the Muses bid my numbers roll
Strong as their charms, and gentle as their foul;
With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie,
And these be sung 'till Granville's Myra dye:
Alas! how little from the grave we claim !
Thou but preferv'ft a Face, and I a Name.

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EPISTLE

To Mifs BLOUNT.

With the WORKS of VOITURE.

I

N these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,
And all the Writer lives in ev'ry line;

His eafy Art may happy Nature seem,
Trifles themselves are elegant in him.
Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,
Who without flatt'ry pleas'd the fair and great;
Still with esteem no lefs convers'd than read;
With wit well-natur'd, and with books well-bred:
His heart, his mistress, and his friend did share,
His time, the Muse, the witty, and the fair.
Thus wifely carelefs, innocently gay,
Chearful he play'd the trifle, Life, away;
"Till fate scarce felt his gentle breath fuppreft,
As fmiling Infants sport themselves to reft.
Ev'n rival Wits did Voiture's death deplore,

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And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before;
The trueft hearts for Voiture heav'd with fighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest Eyes :
The Smiles and Loves had dy'd in Voiture's death,
But that for ever in his lines they breathe.

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Let the ftrict life of graver mortals be
A long, exact, and ferious Comedy;
In ev'ry scene fome Moral let it teach,

And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Let mine, an innocent gay farce appear,
And more diverting ftill than regular,

Have Humour, Wit, a native Eafe and Grace,
Tho' not too strictly bound to Time and Place:
Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please,
Few write to those, and none can live to these.

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Too much your Sex is by their forms confin'd, Severe to all, but most to Womankind; Cuftom, grown blind with Age, must be your guide; Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride; By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame; Made Slaves by honour, and made Fools by fhame. Marriage may all those petty Tyrants chase, But fets up one, a greater in their place; Well might you wish for change by those accurft, But the last Tyrant ever proves the worst. Still in constraint your fuff'ring Sex remains, Or bound in formal, or in real chains:

Whole years neglected, for fome months ador'd, The fawning Servant turns a haughty Lord,

Ah quit not the free innocence of life,

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For the dull glory of a virtuous Wife ;

Nor let falfe Shews, nor empty Titles please:

Aim not at Joy, but reft content with Ease.