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,
Dye, by fome fudden Extafy of Joy;

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

To Mr. THOMAS SOUTHERN,

R

On his Birth-day, 1742.

ESIGN'D to live, prepar'd to die,

With not one fin, but Poetry,
This day Tom'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,
Presents her harp ftill to his fingers.
The feast, his tow'ring genius marks
In yonder wild goofe and the larks!

5

ΙΟ

The mushrooms fhew his wit was fudden !

And for his judgment, lo a pudden!

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

And

NOTES.

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

VER. 8. Prefents her harp] The Harp is generally wove on the Irish Linen; fuch as Table-cloths, etc.

1

May Tom, whom heav'n fent down to raise 15
The price of prologues and of plays,

Be ev'ry birth-day more a winner,
Digeft his thirty-thoufandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,

And fcorn a rafcal and a coach.

NOTES.

20

His

VFR. 16. The Price of prologues and of play,] 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 ufual price till then had been four guineas: But when Southern came to him for the Prologue he had befpoke, Dryden told him he must have fix guineas for it; "which (faid he) "young man, is out of no difrefpect to you, but the Players "have had my goods too cheap."- We now look upon these Prologues with the fame admiration that the Virtuofi do on the Apothecaries pots painted by Raphael.-As Southern raised the price of Dryden's Prologues, fo he raifed the price of his own Plays, being the firft who brought the Bookfellers to give 1001. for the copy of a Play.

EPITAPH S.