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Men, so well read, who confidently wrote,
Their readers could have sworn, were men of note:
To pass upon the crowd for great or rare,
Aim not to make them knowing, make them stare.
For these blind votaries good Bentley griev'd,
Writ English notes-and mankind undeceiv'd:
In such clear light the serious folly plac'd,
Ev'n thou, Browne Willis, thou may'st see the jest.
But what can cure our vanity of mind,
Deaf to reproof, and to discovery blind?
Let Crooke, a brother scholiast Shakspeare call,
Tibbald, to Hesiod-Cooke returns the ball.
So runs the circle still: in this, we see
The lackies of the great and learn'd agree.
If Britain's nobles mix in high debate,
Whence Europe, in suspense, attends her fate;
In minic session their grave footmen meet,
Reduce an army, or equip a fleet:
And, rivalling the critic's lofty style,
Mere Tom and Dick are Stanhope and Argyll.
Yet those, whom pride and dulness join to blind,
To narrow cares in narrow space confin'd,
Though with big titles each his fellow greets,
Are but to wits, as scavengers to streets:
The humble black-guards of a Pope or Gay,
To brush off dust, and wipe their spots away.
Or, if not trivial, harmful is their art;
Fume to the head, or poison to the heart.
Where ancient authors hint at things obscene,
The scholiast speaks out broadly what they mean.
Disclosing each dark vice, well lost to fame,
And adding fuel to redundant flame,
He, sober pimp to Lechery, explains
What Caprea's Isle, or V-'s Alcove contains:
Why Paulus, for his sordid temper known,
Was lavish, to his father's wife alone:
Why those fond female visits duly paid
To tuneful Incuba; and what her trade:
How modern love has made so many martyrs,
And which keeps oftenest, lady C-, or Chartres.
But who their various follies can explain?
The tale is infinite, the task were vain.
"Twere to read new-year odes in search of thought;
To sum the libels Pryn or Withers wrote;
To guess, ere one epistle saw the light,
How many dunces met, and club'd their mite;
To vouch for truth what Welsted prints of Pope,
Or from the brother-boobies steal a trope.
That be the part of persevering Wass,
With pen of lead; or, Arnall, thine of brass;
A text for Henley, or a gloss for Hearne,
Who loves to teach, what no man cares to learn.
How little, knowledge reaps from toils like these!
Too doubtful to direct, too poor to please.
Yet, critics, would your tribe deserve a name,
And, fairly useful, rise to honest fame;
First, from the head, a load of lumber move,
And, from the volume, all yourselves approve :
For patch'd and pilfer'd fragments, give us sense,
Or learning, clear from learn'd impertinence,

5 See a poem published some time ago under that title, said to be the production of several ingenious and prolific heads; one contributing a simile, another a character, and a certain gentleman four shrewd lines wholly made up of asterisks.

See the preface to his edition of Sallust; and read, if you are able, the Scholia of sixteen annotators by him collected, besides his own.

Where moral meaning, or where taste presides,
And wit enlivens but what reason guides:
Great without swelling, without meanness plain,
Serious, not silly; sportive, but not vain;
On trifles slight, on things of use profound,
In quoting sober, and in judging sound.

VERSES

PRESENTED TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE, ON HIS VISITING
OXFORD, IN THE YEAR 1734.

RECEIVE, lov'd prince, the tribute of our praise,
This hasty welcome, in unfinish'd lays.

At best, the pomp of song, the paint of art,
Display the genius, but not speak the heart;
And oft, as ornament must truth supply,
Are but the splendid colouring of a lie.
These need not here; for to a soul like thine,
Truth, plain and simple, will more lovely shine.
The truly good but wish the verse sincere:
They court no flattery, who no censure fear.

Such Nassau is, the fairest, gentlest mind,
In blooming youth the Titus of mankind,
Crowds, who to hail thy wish'd appearance ran,
Forgot the prince, to praise and love the man.
Such sense with sweetness, grandeur mix'd with ease!
Our nobler youth will learn of thee to please:
Thy bright example shall our world adorn,
And charm, in gracious princes, yet unborn.

Nor deem this verse from venal art proceeds, That vice of courts, the soil for baneful weeds. Here Candour dwells; here honest truths are taught, To guide and govern, not disguise, the thought. See these enlighten'd sages, who preside O'er Learning's empire; see the youth they guide: Behold, all faces are in transport drest! But those most wonder, who discern thee best. At sight of thee, each free-born heart receives A joy, the sight of princes rarely gives; From tyrants sprung, and oft themselves design'd, By Fate, the future Neroes of their kind: But though thy blood, we know, transmitted, springs From laurell'd heroes, and from warrior-kings, Through that high series, we, delighted, trace The friends of liberty, and human race!

[hour,

Oh, born to glad and auimate our isle!
For thee, our heavens look pleas'd, our seasons smile:
For thee, late object of our tender fears,
When thy life droop'd, and Britain was in tears,
All-cheering Health, the goddess rosy-fair,
Attended by soft suns, and vernal air,
Sought those fam'd springs', where, each afflictive
Disease, and Age, and Pain, invoke her power:
She came; and, while to thee the current flows,
Pour'd all herself, and in thy cup arose.
Hence, to thy cheek, that instant bloom deriv'd:
Hence, with thy health, the weeping world reviv'd!
Proceed to emulate thy race divine:

A life of action, and of praise, be thine.
Assert the titles genuine to thy blood,
By nature, daring; but by reason, good.
So great, so glorious thy forefathers shone,
No son of theirs must hope to live unknown:
Their deeds will place thy virtue full in sight;
Thy vice, if vice thou hast, in stronger light.

Bath.

12

MALLET'S POEMS.

If to thy fair beginnings nobly true,
Think what the world may claim, and thou must do:
The honours, that already grace thy name,
Have fix'd thy choice, and force thee into fame.
Ev'n she, bright Anna, whom thy worth has won,
Inspires thee what to seek and what to shun:
Rich in all outward grace, th' exalted fair
Makes the soul's beauty her peculiar care.
O, be your nuptials crown'd with glad increase
Of sons, in war renown'd, and great in peace;
Of daughters, fair and faithful, to supply
The patriot-race, till Nature's self shall die!

These, thy best wealth, with curious choice combina,
Now treasur'd here, shall form the studious mind:
To wits unborn the wanted succours give,
And fire the bard, whom Genius means to live.
"But, teach thy sons the gentle laws of peace;
Let low Self-love and pedant Discord cease:
Their object truth, utility their aim,

One social spirit reign, in all the same.
Thus aided arts shall with fresh vigour shoot;
Their cultur'd blossoms ripen'd into fruit;
Thy faded star dispense a brighter ray,
And each glad Muse renew her noblest lay."

VERSES

OCCASIONED BY DR. FRAZER'S REBUILDING PART OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

In times long past, ere Wealth was Learning's foe,
And dar'd despise the worth he would not know;
Ere mitred Pride, which arts alone had rais'd,
Those very arts, in others saw, unprais'd;
Friend to mankind', a prelate, good and great,
The Muses courted to this safe retreat:
Fix'd each fair virgin, decent, in her cell,
With learned Leisure, and with Peace to dwell.
The fabric finish'd, to the sovereign's fame 2,
His own neglecting, he transferred his claim.
Here, by successive worthies, well was taught
Whate'er enlightens, or exalts the thought.
With labour planted, and improv'd with care,
The various tree of knowledge flourish'd fair:
Soft and serene the kindly seasons roll'd,
And Science long enjoy'd her age of gold.

Now, dire reverse! impair'd by lapse of years,
A falling waste the Muses' seat appears.
O'er her gray roofs, with baneful ivy bound,
Time, sure destroyer, walks his hostile round:
Silent, and slow, and ceaseless in his toil,
He mines each wall, he moulders every pile!
Ruin hangs hovering o'er the fated place:
And dumb Oblivion comes with mended pace.
Sad Learning's genius, with a father's fear,
Beheld the total desolation near:
Beheld the Muses stretch the wing to fly;
And fix'd on Heaven his sorrow-streaming eye!
From Heaven, in that dark hour, commission'd
Mild Charity, ev'n there the foremost name. [came
Swift Pity flew before her, softly bright;
At whose felt influence, Nature smil'd with light.
"Hear, and rejoice!"-the gracious power begun
"Already, fir'd by me, thy favourite son
This ruin'd scene remarks with filial eyes;
And, from its fall, bids fairer fabrics rise.
Ev'n now, behold! where crumbling fragments gray,
In dust deep-bury'd, lost to memory lay,
The column swells, the well-knit arches bend,
The round dome widens, and the roofs ascend!
"Nor ends the bounty thus: by him bestow'd,
Here, Science shall her richest stores unload.
Whate'er, long-hid, Philosophy has found;
Or the Muse sung, with living laurel crown'd;
Or History descry'd, far-looking sage,
In the dark doubtfulness of distant age;

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PROLOGUE

TO THE SIEGE OF DAMASCUS.

SPOKEN BY LORD SANDWICH.

WHEN arts and arms, beneath Eliza's smile,
Spread wide their influence o'er this happy isle;

A golden reign, uncurst with party rage,
That foe to taste, and tyrant of our age;
Ere all our learning in a libel lay,
And all our talk, in politics, or play :

The statesman oft would soothe his toils with wit,
What Spenser sung, and Nature's Shakspeare writ;
Or to the laurell'd grove, at times, retire,
There, woo the Muse, and wake the moving lyre.
As fair examples, like ascending morn,
The world at once enlighten and adorn;
From them diffus'd, the gentle arts of peace
Shot brightening o'er the land, with swift increase:
Rough Nature soften'd into grace and ease;
Sense grew polite, and Science sought to please.
Reliev'd from yon rude scene of party-din,
Where open Baseness vies with secret Sin,
And safe embower'd in Woburn's 3 airy groves,
Let us recall the times our taste approves;
Awaken to our aid the mourning Muse;
Through every bosom tender thought infuse;
Melt angry Faction into moral sense,
And to his guests a Bedford's soul dispense.

And now, while Spring extends her smiling reign,
Green on the mountain, flowery in the plain;
While genial Nature breathes, from hill and dale,
Health, fragrance, gladness, in the living gale;
Impressions sweetly social, will impart.
The various softness, stealing through the heart,
When sad Eudocia pours her hopeless woe,
The tear of pity will unbidden flow!
When erring Phocyas, whom wild passions blind,
Holds up himself, a mirror for mankind;
An equal eye on our own hearts we turn,
Where frailties lurk, where fond affections burn
And, conscious, Nature is in all the same,
We mourn the guilty, while the guilt we blame!

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Our bard, without-I wish he would appearUd! I would give it him-but you shall hear"Good sir!" quoth I-and curtsey'd as I spoke"Our pit, you know, expects and loves a joke'Twere fit to humour them: for, right or wrong, True Britons never like the same thing long. To day is fair-they strut, huff, swear, harangue:To morrow's foul-they sneak aside, and hang: Is there a war-peace! peace! is all their cry: The peace is made-then, blood! they'll fight and die."

Gallants, in talking thus, I meant no treason:
I would have brought, you see, the man to reason.
But with some folks, 'tis labour lost to strive:
A reasoning mule will neither lead nor drive.
He humm'd, and haw'd; then, waking from his
dream,

Cry'd, I must preach to you his moral scheme.
A scheme, forsooth! to benefit the nation!
Some queer, odd whim of pious propagation'!
Lord! talk so, here-the man must be a widgeon:-
Drury may propagate-but not Religion.

Yet, after all, to give the Devil his due,

Our author's scheme, though strange, is wholly new:
Well, shall the novelty then recommend it?
If not from liking, from caprice befriend it.

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For drums and routs, make him a while your passion, In modern as in ancient days,

A little while let virtue be the fashion:
And, spite of real or imagin'd blunders,

Ev'n let him live, nine days, like other wonders.

See what the Muses have to brag on:
The player in his own post-chaise;
The poet in a carrier's waggon!

PROLOGUE

TO MR. THOMSON'S AGAMEMNON 2.

WHEN this decisive night, at length, appears,
The night of every author's hopes and fears,
What shifts to bribe applause, poor poets try!
In all the forms of wit they court and lie:
These meanly beg it, as an alms; and those,
By boastful bluster dazzle and impose.

Nor poorly fearful, nor securely vain,
Ours would, by honest ways, that grace obtain ;
Would, as a free-born wit, be fairly try'd:
And then-let Candour, fairly too, decide.
He courts no friend, who blindly comes to praise;
He dreads no foe-but whom his faults may raise.
Indulge a generous pride, that bids him own,
He aims to please, by noble means alone;
By what may win the judgment, wake the heart,
Inspiring Nature, and directing Art;

By scenes, so wrought, as may applause command
More from the judging head, than thundering hand.
Important is the moral we would teach-
Oh may this island practise what we preach-
Vice in its first approach with care to shun;
The wretch, who once engages, is undone,
Crimes lead to greater crimes, and link so strait,
What first was accident, at last is fate:

some other persons of distinction, in the month of May, 1743.

The profits arising from this play were intended to be given, by the author, to the Society for propagating Christian Knowledge.

* See the prologue to Sophonisba, a joint production of Pope and Mallet's, in the twelfth volume of this collection,

EPIGRAM,

ON A CERTAIN LORD'S PASSION FOR A SINGER,

NERINA'S angel-voice delights;
Nerina's devil-face affrights:
How whimsical her Strephon's fate,
Condemn'd at once to like and hate!
But be she cruel, be she kind,

Love! strike her dumb, or make him blind.

A SIMILE IN PRIOR,

APPLIED TO THE SAME PERSON,

DEAR Thomas, didst thou never pop
Thy head into a tinman's shop?
There, Thomas, didst thou never see—
'Tis but by way of simile-

?

A squirrel spend its little rage,
In jumping round a rolling cage
Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks it climbs;
But here or there, turn wood or wire,
It never gets two inches higher.

So fares it with this little peer,
So busy and so bustling here;
For ever flirting up and down,
And frisking round his cage, the town.
A world of nothing in his chat,
Of who said this, and who did that:
With similies, that never hit;
Vivacity, that has no wit;

Schemes laid this hour, the next forsaken;
Advice oft ask'd, but never taken:

Still whirl'd, by every rising whim,
From that to this, from her to him;
And when he hath his circle run,
He ends--just where he first begun.

ON AN AMOROUS OLD MAN.
STILL hovering round the fair at sixty-four,
Unfit to love, unable to give o'er;

A flesh-fly, that just flutters on the wing,
Awake to buz, but not alive to sting;

Brisk where he cannot, backward where he can ;
The teazing ghost of the departed man.

ON I. H., ES2.

THE youth had wit himself, and could afford
A witty neighbour his good word.

Though scandal was his joy, he would not swear:
An oath had made the ladies stare;
At them he duly dress'd, but without passion:
His only mistress was the fashion.

His verse with fancy glitter'd, cold and faint;
His prose, with sense, correctly quaint.
Trifles he lov'd; he tasted arts:
At once a fribble, and a man of parts.

A FRAGMENT.

* * *

FAIR morn ascends: soft zephyr's wing
O'er hill and vale renews the spring:
Where, sown profusely, herb and flower,
Of balmy smell, of healing power,
Their souls in fragrant dews exhale,
And breathe fresh life in every gale.
Here, spreads a green expanse of plains,
Where, sweetly pensive, Silence reigns;
And there, at utmost stretch of eye,
A mountain fades into the sky;
While winding round, diffus'd and deep,
A river rolls with sounding sweep.
Of human art no traces near,

I seem alone with Nature here!

Here are thy walks, O sacred Health!

The monarch's bliss, the beggar's wealth; The seasoning of all good below! The sovereign friend in joy or woe! O thou, most courted, most despis'd, And but in absence duly priz'd! Power of the soft and rosy face! The vivid pulse, the vermil grace, The spirits when they gayest shine, Youth, beauty, pleasure, all are thine! O Sun of life! whose heavenly ray Lights up, and cheers, our various day, The turbulence of hopes and fears, The storm of Fate, the cloud of years, Till Nature, with thy parting light, Reposes late in Death's calm night: Fled from the trophy'd roofs of state, Abodes of splendid Pain and Hate;

Fled from the couch, where, in sweet sleep, Hot Riot would his anguish steep,

But tosses through the midnight shade,

Of death, of life, alike afraid;

For ever fled to shady cell,

Where Temperance, where the Muses dwell;
Thou oft art seen, at early dawn,
Slow-pacing o'er the breezy lawn:
Or on the brow" of mountain high,
In silence feasting ear and eye,

With song and prospect, which abound
From birds, and woods, and waters round.
But when the Sun, with noontide ray,
Flames forth intolerable day;
While Heat sits fervent on the plain,
With Thirst and Languor in his train;
All nature sickening in the blaze :
Thou, in the wild and woody maze,
That clouds the vale with umbrage deep,
Impendent from the neighbouring steep,
Will find betimes a calm retreat,
Where breathing Coolness has her seat.
There, plung'd amid the shadows brown,
Imagination lays him down;
Attentive, in his airy mood,
To every murmur of the wood:
The bee in yonder flowery nook;
The chidings of the headlong brook;
The green leaf shivering in the gale;
The warbling hill, the lowing vale;
The distant woodman's echoing stroke;
The thunder of the falling oak.
From thought to thought in vision led,
He holds high converse with the dead;
Sages, or poets. See they rise!
And shadowy skim before his eyes.
Hark! Orpheus strikes the lyre again,
That softens savages to men:
Lo! Socrates, the sent of Heaven,
To whom its moral will was given.
Fathers and friends of human kind,
They form'd the nations, or refin'd;
With all that mends the head and heart,
Enlightening truth, adorning art.

While thus I mus'd beneath the shade, At once the sounding breeze was laid: And Nature, by the unknown law, Shook deep with reverential awe. Dumb Silence grew upon the hour: A browner night involv'd the bower: When, issuing from the inmost wood, Appear'd fair Freedom's genius good. O Freedom! sovereign boon of Heaven; Great charter, with our being given; For which the patriot, and the sage, Have plann'd, have bled through every age! High privilege of human race, Beyond a mortal inonarch's grace: Who could not give, nor can reclaim, What but from God immediate came!

CUPID AND HYMEN; OR, THE

WEDDING-DAY.

THE rising morn, serenely still,
Had brightening spread o'er vale and hill,
Not those loose beams that wanton play,
To light the mirth of giddy May;

Nor such red heats as burn the plain,
In ardent Summer's feverish reign:
But rays, all equal, soft and sober,
To suit the second of October;
To suit the pair, whose wedding-day
This Sun now gilds with annual ray.

Just then, where our good-natur'd Thames is
Some four short miles above St. James's,
And deigns, with silver-streaming wave,
Th' abodes of earth-born Pride to lave,
Aloft in air two gods were soaring;
While Putney-cits beneath lay suoring,
Plung'd deep in dreams of ten per cent.
On sums to their dear country lent :
Two gods of no inferior fame,

Whom ancient wits with reverence name;
Though wiser moderns much disparage-
I mean the gods of love and marriage.
But Cupid first, his wit to show,
Assuming a mere modern beau,
Whose utmost aim is idle mirtb,
Look'd-just as coxcombs look on Earth:
Then rais'd his chin, then cock'd his hat,
To grace this common-place chit-chat.

"How ! on the wing, by break of dawn!
Dear brother"-there he forc'd a yawn-
"To tell men, sunk in sleep profound,
They must, ere night, be gag'd and bound!
Who, having once put on thy chain,
'Tis odds, may ne'er sleep sound again.
So say the wits: but wiser folks
Still marry, and contemn their jokes:
They know, each better bliss is thine,
Pure nectar, genuine from the vine!
And Love's own hand that nectar pours,
Which never fails, nor ever sours;
Well, be it so: yet there are fools,
Who dare demur to former rules;
Who laugh profanely at their betters,
And find no freedom plac'd in fetters
But, well or ill, jog on through life
Without that sovereign bliss, a wife.
Leave these at least, these sad dogs free,
To stroll with Bacchus and with me;
And sup, in Middlesex, or Surrey,
On coarse cold beef, and Fanny Murray."
Thus Cupid-and with such a leer,
You would have sworn 'twas Ligonier.
While Hymen soberly reply'd,
Yet with an air of conscious pride:

"Just come from yonder wretched scene,
Where all is venal, false, and mean,"
(Looking on London as he spoke)
"I marvel not at thy dull joke;
Nor, in such cant to hear thee vapour,
Thy quiver lin'd with South-sea paper;
Thine arrows feather'd, at the tail,
With India-bonds, for hearts on sale;
Their other ends too, as is meet,

Tipp'd with gold points from Lombard-street.
But could'st thou for a moment quit
These airs of fashionable wit,

And re-assume thy nobler name—

Look that way, where I turn my flame-"
He said, and held his torch inclin'd,
Which, pointed so, still brighter shin'd—
"Behold yon couple, arm in arm,

Whom I, eight years, have known to charm;
And, while they wear my willing chains,
A god dare swear that neither feigus.

This morn, that bound their mutual vow,
That blest them first, and blesses now,
They grateful hail! and, from the soul,
With thousands o'er both heads may roll;
Till, from life's banquet, either guest,
Embracing, may retire to rest.
Come then, all raillery laid aside,
Let this their day serenely glide:
With mine thy serious aim un te,
And both some proper guests invite;
That not one minute's running sand
May find their pleasures at a stand."
At this severe and sad rebuke,
Enough to make a coxcomb puke;
Poor Cupid, blushing, shrugg'd and wine'd,
Not yet consenting, though convinc'd:
For 'tis your witling's greatest terrour,
Ev'n when he feels, to own, his errour.
Yet, with a look of arch grimace,
He took his penitential face:

Said, "'twas, perhaps, the surer play,
To give your grave good souls their way:
That, as true humour was grown scarce,
He chose to see a sober farce;
For, of all cattle and all fowl,
Your solemn-looking ass and owl
Rais'd much more mirth, he durst aver it,
Than those jack-puddings, pug and parrot."

He said, and eastward spread his wing,
From London some few friends to bring.
His brother too, with sober cheer,
For the same end did westward steer:
But first, a pensive Love forlorn,
Who three long weeping years has borne
His torch revers'd, and all around,
Where once it flam'd, with cypress bound,
Sent off, to call a neighbouring friend,
On whom the mournful train attend:
And bid him, this one day, at least,
For such a pair, at such a feast,
Strip off the sable veil, and wear
His once-gay look and happier air.

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But Hymen, speeding forward still,
Observ'd a man on Richmond-hill,
Who now first tries a country life;
Perhaps, to fit him for a wife.

But, though not much on this he reckon'd,
The passing god look'd in and beckon'd:
He knows him rich in social merit,
With independent taste and spirit;
Though he will laugh with men of whim,
For fear such men should laugh at him.
But lo, already on his way,
In due observance of the day,
A friend and favourite of the Nine,
Who can, but seldom cares to shine,
And one sole virtue would arrive at-
To keep his many virtues private:
Who tends, well pleas'd, yet as by stealth,
His lov'd companion's ease and health:
Or in his garden, barring out
The noise of every neighbouring rout,
At pensive hour of eve and prime,
Marks how the various hand of Time
Now feeds and rears, now starves and slaughters,
His vegetable sons and daughters.

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