TO MRS. M. B.*

ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

OH
Ο

H be thou bleft with all that Heav'n can fend,

Long Health, long Youth, long Pleasure, and

a Friend:

Not with thofe Toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and Vanities that tire.
With added years if Life bring nothing new,
But like a Sieve let ev'ry bleffing through,
Some joy still loft, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, fome fad Reflection more;
Is that a Birth-day? 'tis alas! too clear,
'Tis but the Fun'ral of the former year.

Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content, And the gay Confcience of a life well spent,

5

10

*Martha Blount.

NOTES.

Calm

VER, 10. 'Tis but the Fun'ral] Immediately after this line

were thefe four following, in the original :

"If there's no hope, with kind, tho' fainter ray,

To gild the evening of our future day;

If every page of life's long volume tell

The fame dull ftory, Mordaunt, thou didst well!"

Colonel Mordaunt, who deftroyed himself, though not under the preffure of any ill or misfortune.

WARTON.

BB 2

Calm ev'ry thought, infpirit ev'ry grace,
Glow in thy heart, and fmile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a Pain, a Trouble, or a Fear;
Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In fome foft Dream, or Extafy of Joy,
Peaceful fleep out the Sabbath of the Tomb,
And wake to Raptures in a Life to come.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 15. Originally thus in the MS.

And oh fince Death must that fair frame destroy,
Die, by fome fudden extafy of Joy;

In fome foft dream may thy mild foul remove,
And be thy lateft gafp a figh of Love.

15

TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN,

ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, 1742.

RESIGN'D to live, prepar❜d to die,

With not one fin, but Poetry,
This day Toм's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;

And Ireland, mother of sweet fingers,

Prefents her Harp ftill to his fingers.

NOTES.

VER. 3. This day Tom's] This amiable writer lived the longest, and died one of the richeft, of all our poets. In 1737, Mr. Gray, writing to a friend, fays very agreeably, "We have here. old Mr. Southern, who often comes to fee us; he is now feventyseven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory; but is as agreeable an old man as can be, at least I perfuade myself so, when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oroonoko." He was certainly a great mafter of the pathetic; and in the latter part of his life became fenfible of the impropriety he had been guilty of in mixing Tragedy with Comedy. He was the first play writer that had the benefit of a third night. He told Dryden that he once had cleared feven hundred pounds by one of his plays.

WARTON.

VER. 6. A table,] Mr. Southern was invited to dine on his birth. day with this nobleman (Lord Orrery), who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill of fare is here fet down. WARBURTON.

VER. 8. Prefents her Harp] The Harp is generally wove on the Irish linen; fuch as table-cloths, &c. WARBURTON.

The feast, his tow'ring genius marks

In yonder wild goose and the larks!
The mushrooms fhew his wit was fudden
And for his judgment, lo a pudden !

Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, altho' a bard, devout.

May Toм, whom heav'n fent down to raise
The price of Prologues and of Plays,
Be ev'ry birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,

And fcorn a rascal in a coach.

10

15

20

NOTES.

VER. 16. The price of Prologues and of Plays,] This alludes to a story Mr. Southern told of Dryden, about the fame time, to Mr. P. and Mr. W.-When Southern firft wrote for the stage, Dryden was fo famous for his Prologues, that the Players would act nothing without that decoration. His ufual price till then had been four guineas; but when Southern came to him for the Prologue he had bespoke, Dryden told him he must have fix guineas for it; "which (faid he) young man, is out of no disrespect to you, but the Players have had my goods too cheap."-We now look upon thefe Prologues with the fame admiration that the Virtuofi do on the Apothecaries' pots painted by Raphael. WARBURTON,

ROXANA, OR THE DRAWING-ROOM,

AN ECLOGUE.

ROXANA from the court returning late,
Sigh'd her foft forrow at St. James's gate :
Such heavy thoughts lay brooding in her breast;
Not her own chairmen with more weight oppreft:
They curfe the cruel weight they're doom'd to bear;
She in more gentle founds exprefs'd her care.

Was it for this, that I these roses wear?
For this, new-fet the jewels for my hair?
Ah Princess! with what zeal have I purfu'd?
Almost forgot the duty of a prude.

This King, I never could attend too foon;

I miss'd my pray❜rs, to get me dress'd by noon.
For thee, ah! what for thee did I refign?
My paffions, pleasures, all that e'er was mine:
I've facrific'd both modesty and ease;

Left

operas, and went to filthy plays :
Double entendres fhock'd my tender ear;
Yet even this, for thee, I chufe to bear:
In glowing youth, when nature bids be gay,
And ev'ry joy of life before me lay;
By honour prompted, and by pride restrain❜d,
The pleasures of the young my foul disdain'd:

BB 4

6

10

15

20

Sermons