Or on frail floats to neighb'ring cities ride,
That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide

[The following couplet, which was intended to have been introduced in the poem on the Alliance of Education and Government, is much too beautiful to be lost.-Mason.]

When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.

HOUE

(B)

STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY.

A FRAGMENT.

IN silent gaze the tuneful choir among,

Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire, While Bentley leads her sister-art along, And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.

See, in their course, each transitory thought
Fix'd by his touch a lasting essence take;
Each dream, in fancy's airy colouring wrought
To local symmetry and life awake!

The tardy rhymes that used to linger on,
To censure cold, and negligent of fame,

In swifter measures animated run,

And catch a lustre from his genuine flame.

Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy gråce,
His quick creation, his unerring line;
The energy of Pope they might efface,

And Dryden's harmony submit to mine.

But not to one in this benighted age
Is that diviner inspiration giv'n,

That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page,
The pomp and prodigality of heav'n.

As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze,
The meaner gems that singly charm the sight,
Together dart their intermingled rays,

And dazzle with a luxury of light.

Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy 'impart ;'
And as their pleasing influence 'flows confest,'
A sigh of soft reflection 'heaves the heart.'

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.

WRITTEN IN 1761, AND FOUND IN ONE OF HIS

POCKET-BOOKS.

TOO poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune He had not the method of making a fortune: Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat

odd;

No very great wit, he believed in a God :

A post or a pension he did not desire,

But left Church and State to Charles Townshend and

Squire.

AMATORY LINES.

WITH beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to lan

guish

To weep without knowing the cause of my anguish : To start from short slumbers, and wish for the morn

ing

To close my dull eyes when I see it returning;

Sighs sudden and frequent, looks ever dejected— Words that steal from my tongue, by no meaning connected!

Ah! say, fellow-swains, how these symptoms befell me?

They smile, but reply not-Sure Delia will tell me!

H