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RECOMMENDATORY POEMS.

TO MR. POPE,

ON HIS PASTORALS.

Is those more dull, as more censorious days,
When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A Muse sincere, that never flattery knew,
Pays what to friendship and desert is due.
Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found,
Art strengthening Nature, sense improv'd by sound.
Unlike those wits, whose numbers glide along
So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song;
Laboriously enervate they appear,

And write not to the head, but to the ear:
Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull,
And are at best most musically dull :
So purling streams with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into sleep.
As smoothest speech is most deceitful found,
The smoothest numbers oft are empty sound.
But wit and judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as youth, as age consummate too:
Your strains are regularly bold, and please
With unforc'd care, and unaffected case,
With proper thoughts, and lively images;
Such as by Nature to the ancients shown,
Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own :
For great men's fashions to be follow'd are,
Although disgraceful 'tis their cloaths to wear.
Some, in a polish'd style write pastoral;
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall.
Like some fair shepherdess, the sylvan Muse
Should wear those flowers her native fields produce;
And the true measure of the shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the country fit:
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common swain's be wrought;
So, with becoming art, the players dress
In silks the shepherd, and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely russet of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long-lost graces of simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With virgin charms, and native excellence :
Yet long her modesty those charms conceal'd,
Till by men's envy to the world reveal'd;
For wits industrious to their trouble seem,
And needs will envy what they must esteem.
Live, and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate,
Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait;
Whose Muse did once, like thine, in planis delight;
Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight:
So larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.

W. WYCHERLEY.

TO MR. POPE.

ON HIS WINDSOR-FOREST.

HAIL! sacred bard! a Muse unknown before
Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore.
To our dark world thy shining page is shown,
And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own.
The eastern pomp had just bespoke our care,
And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here:
A various spoil adorn'd our naked land,
The pride of Persia glitter'd on our strand,
And China's earth was cast on common sand:
Toss'd up and down the glossy fragments lay, [bay.
And dress'd the rocky shelves, and pav'd the painted
Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast
A nobler cargo on our barren coast:
From thy luxuriant forest we receive
More lasting glories than the East can give.
Where'er we dip in thy delightful page,
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage!
The pompous scenes in all their pride appear,
Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were:
Nor half so true the fair Lodona shows
The sylvan state that on her border grows,
While she the wondering shepherd entertains
With a new Windsor in her watery plains;
The juster lays the lucid wave surpass,
The living scene is in the Muse's glass.

Nor sweeter notes the echoing forests cheer,
When Philomela sits and warbles there,

Than when you sing the greens and opening glades,
And give us harmony as well as shades:

A Titian's hand might draw the
grove; but you
Can paint the grove, and add the music too.
With vast variety thy pages shine ;
How sulden trees rise to the reader's sight,
A new creation starts in every line.
And make a doubtful scene of shade and light,
And give at once the day, at once the night!
And here again what sweet confusion reigns,
In dreary deserts mix'd with painted plains!
And see the deserts cast a pleasing gloom,
And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom;
Whilst fruitful crops rise by their barren side,
And bearded groves display their annual pride.

Happy the man who strings his tuneful lyre Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields inThrice happy you! and worthy best to dwell [spire!, Amidst the rural joys you sing so well.

I in a cold, and in a barren clime,
Cold

Here on the Western beach attempt to chine.
as my thought, and barren as my rhyme,
O joyless flood! O rough tempestuous main !
Border'd with weeds, and solitudes obscene!

Snatch me, ye gods! from these Atlantic shores, And shelter me in Windsor's fragrant bowers ;

Or to my much-lov'd Isis' walk convey,
And on her flowery banks for ever lay.
Thence let me view the venerable scene,
The awful dome, the groves eternal green,
Where sacred Hough long found his fam'd retreat,
And brought the Muses to the sylvan seat;
Reform'd the wits, unlock'd the classic store,
And made that music which was noise before.
There with illustrious bards I spent my days,
Not free from censure, nor unknown to praise;
Enjoy'd the blessings that his reign bestow'd,
Nor envy'd Windsor in the soft abode.
The golden minutes oothly danc'd away,
And tuneful bards beguil'd the tedious day:
They sung, nor sung in vain, with numbers fir'd
That Maro taught, or Addison inspir`d,
Ev'n I essay'd to touch the trembling string:
Who could hear them, and not attempt to sing?
Rous d from these dreams by thy commanding
I rise and wander through the field or plain; [strain,
Led by thy Muse, from sport to sport I run,
Mark the stretch'd line, or hear the thundering gun.
Ah! how I melt with pity, when I spy
On the cold earth the fluttering pheasant lie!
His gaudy robes in dazzling lines appear,
And every feather shines and varies there,

Nor can I pass the generous courser by;
But while the prancing steed allures my eye,
He starts, he's gone! and now I see him fly
O'er hills and dales; and now I lose the course,
Nor can the rapid sight pursue the flying horse,
Oh, could thy Virgil from his orb look down,
He'd view a courser that might match his own!
Fir'd with the sport, and eager for the chase,
Lodona's murmurs stop me in the race.
Who can refuse Lodona's melting tale?
The soft complaint shall over Time prevail ;
The tale be told when shades forsake her shore,
The nymph be sung when she can flow no more.

Nor shall the song, old Thames! forbear to shine, At once the subject and the song divine, Peace, sung by thee, shall please ev'n Britons more Than all their shouts for victory before, Oh! could Pritannia imitate thy stream, The world should tremble at her awful name; From various springs divided waters glide, In differe t colours roll a different tide, Murmur along their crooked banks a while, At once they murmur and enrich the isle; A while distinct through many channels run, But meet at last, and sweetly flow in one; There joy to lose their long distinguish'd names, And make one glorious and immortal Thames. FR. KNAP.

TO MR. POPE,

BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

ANNE COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA, THE Muse, of every heavenly gift allow'd To be the chief, is public, though not proud. Widely extensive is the poet's aim, And in each verse he draws a bill on Fame. For none have wit (whatever they pretend) Singly to raise a patron or a friend; But whatsoe'er the theme or object be, Some commendations to themselves foresee.

Then let us find in your foregoing page,
The celebrating poems of the age;
Nor by injurious scruples think it fit,
To hide their judgments who applaud your wit!
But let their pens, to yours, the heralds prove,
Who strive for you, as Greece for Homer strove
Whilst he who best your poetry asserts,
Asserts his own, by sympathy of parts.
Me panegyric verse does not inspire,
Who never well can praise what I admire,
Nor in those lofty trials dare appear,
But gently drop this counsel in your ear:
Go on, to gain applauses by desert;
Inform the head, whilst you dissolve the heart ↑
Inflame the soldier with harmonious rage,
Elate the young, and gravely warin the sage:
Allure, with tender verse, the female race;
And give their darling passion, courtly grace
Describe the forest still in rural strains,
With vernal sweets fresh-breathing from the plains
Your tales be easy, natural, and gay,
Nor all the poet in that part display;
Nor let the critic there his skill unfold,
For Boccace thus and Chaucer tales have told
Sooth, as you only can, each different taste,
And for the future charm us in the past.
Then, should the verse of every artful hand
Before your numbers caninendly stand,
In you no vanity could thence be shown,
Unless, since short in beauty of your own,
Some envious scribbler might in spite declare,
That for comparison you plac'd them there.
But Envy could not against you succced:
"Tis not from friends that write, or foes that read
Censure or praise must from ourselves proceed,

TO MR, POPE.

BY MISS JUD, COWPER, AFTERWARDS MRS. MADAN,

O POPE! by what commanding wondrous art
Dost thou each passion to each breast impart?
Our beating hearts with sprightly measures move,
Or melt us with a tale of hapless love!
Th' elated mind's impetuous starts controul,
Or gently sooth to peace the troubled soul!
Graces till now that singly met our view,
And singly charm'd, unite at once in you:
A style polite, from affectation free,
Virgil's correctness, Homer's majesty!
Soft Waller's ease, with Milton's vigour wrought,
And Spencer's bold luxuriancy of thought.
In each bright page, strength, beauty, genius shine,
While nervous judgment guides each flowing line.
No borrow'd tinsel glitters o'er these lays,
And to the mind a false delight conveys:
Throughout the whole ith blended power is found,
The weight of sense, and elegance of sound:
A lavish fancy, wit, and force, and fire,
Graces cach motion of th' immortal lyre.
The matchless strains our ravish'd senses charm!
How great the thought! the images how warm!
How beautifully just the turns appear!
The language how majestically clear!
With energy divine each period swells,
And all the bard th' inspiring god reveals.
Lost in delights, my dazzled eyes I turn,
Where Thames leans hoary o'er his ample urn 3

Where his rich waves fair Windsor's towers sur

round,

And bounteous rush amid poetic ground.
O Windsor! sacred to thy blissful seats,

Thy sylvan shades, the Muses' lov'd retreats;
Thy rising hills, low vales, and waving woods,
Thy sunny glades, and celebrated floods!
But chief Lodona's silver tides, that flow
Cold and unsullied as the mountain snow;
Whose virgin name no time nor change can hide,
Though ev'n her spotless waves should cease to
glide:

In mighty Pope's immortalizing strains,

Still shall she grace and range the verdant plains;
By him selected for the Muses' theme,
Still shine a blooming maid, and roll a limpid

stream.

Go on, and, with thy rare resistless art,
Rule each emotion of the various heart;
The spring and test of verse unrivall'd reign,
And the full honours of thy youth maintain;
Sooth, with thy wonted ease and power divine,
Our souls, and our degenerate tastes refine :
In judgement o'er our favourite follies sit,
And soften Wisdom's harsh reproofs to Wit.

Now war and arms thy mighty aid demand,
And Homer wakes beneath thy powerful hand;
His vigour, genuine heat, and manly force,
In thee rise worthy of their sacred source;
His spirit heighten'd, yet his sense entire,
As gold runs purer from the trying fire.
O, for a Muse like thine, while I rehearse
Th' immortal beauties of thy various verse!
Now light as air th' enlivening numbers move,
Soft as the downy plumes of fabled Love,
Gay as the streaks that stain the gaudy bow,
Smooth as Meander's crystal mirrors flow.

But, when Achilles, panting for the war,
Joins the fleet coursers to the whirling car;
When the warm hero, with celestial might,
Augments the terrour of the raging fight,
From his fierce eyes refulgent lightnings stream
(As Sol emerging darts a golden gleam);
In rough hoarse verse we see th' embattled foes;
In each loud strain the fiery onset glows;
With strength redoubled here Achilles shines,
And all the battle thunders in thy lines.

So the bright magic of the painter's hand Can cities, streams, tall towers, and far stretch'd plains command;

Here spreading woods embrown the beauteous

scene,

There the wide landscape smiles with livelier

green;

The floating glass reflects the distant sky,
And o'er the whole the glancing sun-beams fly;
Buds open, and disclose the inmost shade;
The ripen'd harvest crowns the level glade.
But when the artist does a work design,
Where bolder rage informs each breathing line;
When the stretch'd cloth a rougher stroke re-
ceives,

And Cæsar awful in the canvas lives;
When Art like lavish'd Nature's self supplies
Grace to the limbs, and spirit to the eyes;
When ev'n the passions of the mind are seen,
And the soul speaks in the exalted mien;
When all is just, and regular, and great,
We own the mighty master's skill, as boundless as
complete.

LORD MIDDLESEX TO MR. POPE.

ON READING MR. ADDISON'S ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH

POETS.

Ir all who e'er invok'd the tuneful Nine,
In Addison's majestic numbers shine,
Why then should Pope, ye bards, ye crities, tell,
emain unsung, who sings himself so well?
Hear then, great bard, who can alike inspire
With Waller's softness, or with Milton's fire;
Whilst I, the meanest of the Muscs' throng,
To thy just praises tune th' advent'rous song.

How am I fill'd with rapture and delight,
When gods and mortals, mix'd, sustain the fight!
Like Milton, then, though in more polish'd strains,
Thy chariots rattle o'er the smoking plains.
What though archangel 'gainst archangel arms,
And highest Heaven resounds with dire alarıns!
Doth not the reader with like dread survey
The wounded gods repuls'd with foul dismay?

But when some fair-one guides your softer verse, Her charms, her godlike features, to rehearse; See how her eyes with quicker lightnings arm. And Waller's thoughts in smoother numbers charm! When fools provoke, and dunees urge thy rage, Flecknoe improv'd bites keener in each page. Give o'er, great bard, your fruitless toil give o'er, For still king Tibbald scribbles as before; Poor Shakespeare suffers by his pen each day, While Grub-street alleys own his lawful sway.

Now turn, my Muse, thy quick, poetic eyes, And view gay scenes and opening prospects rise. Hark! how his rustic numbers charm around, While groves to groves, and hills to bills resound! The listening beasts stand fearless as he sings, And birds attentive close their useless wings. The swains and satyrs trip it o'er the plain, And think old Spencer is reviv'd again. But when once more the godlike man begun In words smooth flowing from his tuneful tongue Ravish'd they gaze, and struck with wonder say, Sure Spenser's self ne'er sung so sweet a lay: Sure once again Eliza glads the Isle,

That the kind Muses thus propitious smileWhy gaze ye thus? Why all this wonder, swains?'Tis Pope that sings, and Carolina reigns.

But hold, my Muse! whose aukward vesse betrays, Thy want of skill, nor shows the poet's praise; Cease then, and leave some fitter bard to tell How Pope in every strain can write, in every strain excel,

TO MR. POPE,

ON THE PUBLISHING HIS WORKS.

He comes, he comes! bid every bard prepare
The song of triumph, and attend his car.
Great Sheffield's Muse the long procession heads,
And throws a lustre o'er the pomp she leads;
First gives the plan she fir'd him to obtain,
Crowns his gay brow, and shows him how to reign.
Thus young Alcides, by old Chiron taught,
Was form'd for all the miracles he wrought:
Thus Chiron did the youth he taught applaud,
Pleas'd to behold the earnest of a God. Ljoice!
But hark! what shouts, what gathering crouds re-
Unstain'd their praise by any venal voice,

Such as th' ambitious vainly think their due,
When prostitutes, or needy flatterers sue.
And see the chief! before himn laurels borne ;
Trophies from undeserving temples torn :
Here Rage enchain'd reluctant raves; and there
Pale Envy dumb, and sick'ning with despair,
Prone to the Earth she bends her loathing eye,
Weak to support the blaze of majesty.

But what are they that turn the sacred page?
Three lovely virgins, and of equal age;
Intent they read, and all enamour'd seem,
As he that met his likeness in the stream:
The Graces these; and see how they contend,
Who most shall praise, who best shall recommend.
The chariot now the painful steep ascends,
The peans cease; thy glorious labour ends.
Here fix'd, the bright eternal temple stands,
Its prospect an unbounded view commands:
Say, wondrous youth, what column wilt thou chuse,
What laurel'd arch for thy triumphant Muse?
Though each great ancient court thee to his shrine,
Though every laurel through the dome be thine,
(From the proud epic, down to those that shade
The gentler brow of the soft Lesbian maid)
Go to the good and just, and awful train,
Thy soul's delight, and glory of the fane:
While through the Earth thy dear remembrance flies,
"Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies."

TO MR. POPE.

BY MR. HARTE.

To move the springs of nature as we please;
To think with spirit, but to write with case;
With living words to warm the conscious heart,
Or please the soul with nicer charms of art;
For this the Grecian soar'd in epic strains,
And softer Maro left the Mantuan plains:
Melodious Spenser felt the lover's fire,
And awful Milton strung his heavenly lyre.

'Tis yours, like these, with curious toil to trace
The powers of language, harmony, and grace;
How Nature's self with living lustre shines,
How judgment strengthens, and how art refines;
How to grow bold with conscious sense of fame,
And force a pleasure which we dare not blame;
To charm us more through negligence than pains,
And give ev'n life and actions to the strains:
Led by some law, whose powerful impulse guides
Fach happy stroke, and in the soul presides;
Some fairer image of perfection given

T' inspire mankind, itself deriv'd from Heaven.
O ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise,
Blest in thy life, and blest in all thy lays!
Add that the Sisters every thought retine,
Or ev'n thy life be faultless as thy line;

Yet Envy still with fiercer rage pursnes,
Obscures the virtue, and defames the Muse.
A soul like thine, in pains, in grief resign'd,
Views with vain scorn the malice of mankind:
Not critics, but their planets, prove unjust;
And are they blam'd who sin because they must?
Yet sure not so must all peruse thy lays :

I cannot rival-and yet dare to praise.

A thousand charms at once my thoughts engage;
Sappho's soft sweetness, Pindar's warmer rage,
Statius' free vigour, Virgil's studious care,
And Homer's force, and Ovid's easier air.

So seems some picture, where exact design, And curious pains, and strength, and sweetness join; Where the free thought its pleasing grace bestows, And each warm stroke with living colour glows; Soft without weakness, without labour fair, Wrought up at once with happiness and care!

How blest the man that from the world removes, To joys that Mordaunt', or his Pope, approves; Whose taste exact cach author can explore, And live the present and past ages o'er ; Who, free from pride, from penitence, or strife, Moves calmly forward to the verge of life: Such be my days, and such my fortunes be, To live by reason, and to write by thee!

Nor deem this verse, though humble, a disgrace: All are not born the glory of their race: Yet all are born t' adore the great man's name, And trace his footsteps in the paths to Fame. The Muse, who now this early homage pays, First learn'd from thee to animate her lays : A Muse as yet unhonour'd, but unstain'd, Who prais'd no vices, no preferment gain'd; Unbiass'd or to censure or commend, Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend; Perhaps too fond to make those virtues known, And fix her fame immortal on thy own.

THE TRIUMVIRATE OF POETS.

BY MRS. TOLLET 2.

BRITAIN with Rome and Greece contended long
For lofty genius and poetic song,

Till this Augustan age with Three was blest,
To fix the prize, and finish the contest.
In Addison, immortal Virgil reigns;
So pure his numbers, so refin'd his strains :
Of nature full, with more impetuous heat,
In Prior Horace shines, sublimely great.
Thy country, Homer! we dispute no more,
For Pope has fix'd it to his native shore.

Earl of Peterborough, conqueror of Valencia. D. 2 Of whom see in Congreve's Poems, vol. x.

THE

POEMS

OF

ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ.

WITH HIS LAST

CORRECTIONS, ADDITIONS, AND IMPROVEMENTS;

PRINTED VERBATIM FROM THE OCTAVO EDITION OF

MR. WARBURTON.

Horace avec Boileau;

Vous y cherchiez le vrai, vous y goûtiez le beau ;
Quelques traits échappés d'une utile morale,
Dans leurs piquans écrits brillent par intervalle.
Mais Pope approfondit ce qu'ils ont effleuré ;
D'un esprit plus hardi, d'un pas plus assuré,
Il porta le flambeau dans l'abîme de l'Etre,
Et l'homme avec lui seul apprit à se connoître.
L'art quelquefois frivole, & quelquefois divin,
L'art des vers est dans Pope utile au genre humain.

Voltaire, au Roi de Prusses

PREFACE.

I AM inclined to think, that both the writers of books and the readers of them are generally not a little unreasonable in their expectations. The first seem to fancy that the world must approve of whatever they produce, and the latter to imagine that authors are obliged to please them at any rate. Methinks, as, on the one hand, no single man is born with a right of controling the opinions of all the rest; so, on the other, the world has no title to demand, that the whole care and time of any particular person should be sacrificed to its entertainment. Therefore I cannot but believe, that writers and readers are under equal obligations, for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the other. Every one acknowledges, it would be a wild notion to expect perfection in any work of man: and yet one would think the contrary was taken for granted, by the judgment commonly passed upon poems. A critic supposes he has done his part, if he proves a writer to have failed in an expression, or erred in any particular point: and can it then be wondered at, if the poets, in general, seem resolved not to own themselves in any errour? For as long as one side will make no allowances, the other will be brought to no acknowlegements '.

In the former editions it was thus-" For as long as one side despises a well-meant endeavour, the other will not be satisfied with a moderate approbation.”—But the author altered it, as these words were rather a consequence from the conclusion he would draw, than the conclusion itself, which he has now inserted.

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