Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!
Wept by each friend, forgiv'n by every foe:
Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,
Eut pitied Belisarius old and blind?
Was there a chief but melted at the sight?
A common soldier, but who clubb'd his mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
Waen press'd by want and weakness Dennis lies;
Dernis, who long had warr'd with modern Huns,
Their quibbles routed, and defy'd their puns;
A desperate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce,
Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse:

How chang'd from him who made the boxes

groan,

And shook the stage with thunder all his own!
Stood up to dash each vain pretender's hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the pope !
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn;
If there's a critic of distinguish'd rage;
If there's a senior, who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend,
And be the critic's, Briton's, old man's friend.

PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA.

BY POPE AND MALLET1.

WHEN learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose:

The tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes.
With her th' Italian scene first learn'd to glow;
And the first tears for her were taught to flow.
Her charms the Gallic Muses next inspir'd:
Corneille himself saw, wonder'd, and was fir'd.

What foreign theatres with pride have shown,
Britain, by juster title, makes her own.
When freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight;
And hers, when fre. lom is the theme, to write.
For this a British author bids again

The heroine rise, to grace the British scene.
Here, as in life, she breathes her genuine flame:
She asks what bosom has not felt the same?
Asks of the British youth-Is silence there?
She dares to ask it of the British fair.

To-night our home-spun author would be true,
At once, to nature, history, and you.
Well-pleas'd to give our neighbours due ap-
plause,

He owns their learning, but disdains their laws.
Not to his patient touch, or happy flame,
'Tis to his British heart he trusts for fame.
If France excel him in one free-born thought,
The man, as well as poet, is in fault.

Nature informer of the poet's art,
Whose force alone can raise or melt the heart,
Thou art his guide; each passion, every line,
Whate'er he draws to please, must all be thine.
Be thou his judge: in every candid breast,
Thy silent whisper is the sacred test.

I have been told by Savage, that of the Prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were written by Mallet. Dr. Johnson.

MACER:

A CHARACTER.

WHEN Simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all th' ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steel.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford;
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventur'd on the town,
And with a borrow'd play out did poor Crown.
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little :
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.

Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.

So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd, Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid; Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay, She flatters her good lady twice a-day; Thought wonderous honest, though of mean degree, And strangely lik'd for her simplicity: In a translated suit, then tries the town, With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own: But just endur'd the winter she began, And in four months a batter'd harridan. Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale and shrunk, To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

TO MR. JOHN MOORE,

AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER.

How much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceiv'd by shows and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All human kind are worms.
Man is a very worm by birth,

Vile, reptile, weak, and vain?
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.
That woman is a worm, we find

E'er since our grandame's evil;
She first convers'd with her own kind,
That ancient worm, the Devil.

The learn'd themselves we book-worms name,
The blockhead is a slow-wormn;
The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
Is aptly terin'd a glow-worm:

The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;

First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.

The flatterer an earwig grows;

Thus worms suit all conditions;
Misers are muck-worns, silk-worms beaus,
And death-watches physicians.
That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;
Their conscience is a worn within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,
If thou conld'st make the courtier void
The worm that never dies!

O learned friend of Abchurch-lane,
Who sett'st our entrails free;
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall eat ev'n thee.
Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
Ev'n Button's wits to worms shall turp,
Who maggots were before.

SONG,

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733,

FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions;

Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,

All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:

Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrours,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrours,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, 'verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Mrander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,

With thy flowery chaplets crown'd
Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to Fate.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM. COMPOSED OF MARBLE, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS.

THOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent

wave

Shines a broad mirrour through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,
Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow;
Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine without a wish for gold.
Approach: but awful! Lo! the Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St, John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Windham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, [soul,
Who dare to love their cquutry, and be poor.

TO MRS, M, B, ON HER BIRTH-DAY,
OH, be thou blest with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend!
Not with those 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 every blessing through,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth-day; 'tis alas! too clear,
"Tis but the funeral of the former year.

Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile 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 some soft dream, or ecstasy of joy,
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb,
And wake to raptures in a life to coine.

13

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon; (Envy, be silent and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend,

Not warp'd by passion, aw'd by rumour:

Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly; An equal mixture of good-humour,

And sensible soft melancholy.

"Has she no faults then, (Envy says) sir?"
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.

TO MR, THOMAS SOUTHERN, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, 1742, RESIGN'D to live, prepar'd to die, With not one sin, 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 singers, Presents her harp still to his fingers. The feast, his towering genius marks In yonder wild-goose and the larks! The mushrooms show his wit was sudden ! And for his judgment, lo a pudden !

VARIATION.

Ver. 15. Originally thus in the MS.

And oh, since Death must that fair frame destroy, Die, by some sudden ecstasy of joy;

In some soft dream may thy mild soul remove, And be thy latest gasp a sigh of love.

Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom Heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach,

What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws!
Is then a greater work in hand,
Than all the tomes of Haines's band?
"Or shoots he folly as it flies?
"Or catches manners as they rise?" 4
Or, urg'd by unquench'd native heat,
Does St. John Greenwich sports repeat!
Where (emulous of Chartres' fame)
Ev'n Chartres' self is scarce a name.

To you (th' all-envy'd gift of Heaven)

Is beauty or wit,

No mortal as yet

To question your empire bas dar'd;

But men of discerning

Have thought that in learning,

To yield to a lady was hard,

Impertinent schools,
With musty dull rules,

Have reading to females deny'd:
So papists refuse

The Bible to use,

Lest flocks should be wise as their guide,

"Twas a woman at first,
(Indeed she was curst)

In knowledge that tasted delight,
And sages agree

The laws should decree

To the first of possessors the right.
Then bravely, fair dame,
Resume the old claim,
Which to your whole sex does belong;
And let men receive,

From a second bright Eve,

The knowledge of right, and of wrong,
But if the first Eve

Hard doom did receive,

When only one apple had she,

What a punishment new
Shall he found out for you,

Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree?

THE FOURTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE'S EPISTLES?,

A MODERN IMITATION,

SAY, St. John, who alone peruse
With candid eye, the mimic Muse,

This panegyric on lady Mary Wortley Montague might have been suppressed by Mr. Pope, on account of her having satirized him in her verses to the Imitator of Horace; which abuse he returned in the first Satire of the second book of Horace. From furious Sappho, scarce a milder fate, P-'d by her love, or libel'd by her hate, S. 2 This satire on Lord Bolingbroke, and the praise bestowed on him in a letter to Mr. Richardson, where Mr. Pope says,

The sons shall blush their fathers were his foes; being so contradictory, probably occasioned the former to be suppressed. S.

Ad ALBIUM TIBULLUM.

3 Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide judex, Quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana? Scribere, quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat?

A form complete in every part,
And, to enjoy that gift, the art.
"What could a tender mother's care
Wish better to her favourite heir,
Than wit, and fame, and lucky hours,
A stock of health, and golden showers,
And graceful fluency of speech,
Precepts before unknown to teach?

Amidst thy various ebbs of fear,
And gleaming hope, and black despair
Yet let thy friend this truth impart;
A truth I tell with bleeding heart,
(In justice for your labours past)
9 That every day shall be your last;
That every hour you life renew
Is to your injur'd country due.

In spite of fears, of mercy spite,
My genius still must rail, and write.
Haste to thy Twickenham's safe retreat,
And mingle with the grumbling great:
There, half devour'd by spleen, you'll find
The rhyming bubbler of mankind;
There (objects of our mutual hate)
We'll ridicule both church and state,

EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS.

A HANDSOME WOMAN WITH A FINE VOICE, BUT VERY COVETOUS AND PROUD. 10

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along;

But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, That the beasts must have starv'd, and the poet have died.

4 The lines here quoted occur in the Essay on Man.

'An tacitam silvas inter reptare salubres? Di tibi formam Di tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi. "Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, Quam sapere, et fari posset quæ sentiat, et cui Gratia, fama, valetudo contingat abunde,

non deficiente crumena?

8 Inter spem, curamque, timores inter et iras, 9 Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum, Me piuguem, et nitidum bene curata cute vises, Cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum.

10 This epigram, first printed anonymously in Steele's Collection, and copied in the Miscellanies of Swift and Pope, is ascribed to Pope by sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music.-Mrs. Tofts, who was the daughter of a person in the family of bishop Burnet, is celebrated as a singer little in

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls seven hours in eight ?-
I need but once a week.

Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,

Most thinking rake alive.
Solicitous for others ends,
Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For sallads, tarts, and pease!
Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.

The lively H-k and you

May knock up whores alone.

To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Till the third watchman toll;

Let Jervis gratis paint, and Frowde

Save three-pence and his soul.

Farewell Arbuthnot's raillery

On every learned sot,

And Garth, the best good Christian he,

Although he knows it not.

Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!

Heaven gives thee, for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips, and fat Johnson.

Why should I stay? Both parties rage;

My vixen mistress squalls;

The wits in envious feuds engage;
And Homer (damn him!) calls.
The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed,

Has yet the grace to mourn.

My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Betray, and are betray'd:

Poor Y-r's sold for fifty pound,

And B- -ll is a jade.

ferior, either for her voice or manner, to the best Italian women. She lived at the introduction of the opera into this kingdom, and sung in company with Nicolini; but, being ignorant of Italian, chanted her recitative in English, in answer to his Italian; yet the charms of their voices overcame the absurdity.

It is not generally known that the person here meant was Dr. Robert Freind, head master of Westminster-school.

PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind;

CELEBRATED EARL OF ROCHESTER SLEPT IN, AT ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, JULY 9th, 1739.

VERSES TO MR. C.

ST. JAMES'S PLACE.
LONDON, OCTOBER 22.

Few words are best; I wish you well;

Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here: Some morning-walks along the Mall,

And evening friends, will end the year. If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost, You please to see, on Twit'nam green,

Your friend, your poet, and your host; For three whole days you here may rest,

From office, business, news, and strife; And (what most folks would think a jest)

Want nothing else, except your wife.

EPITAPHS.

His siltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere! Virg.

ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET,

IN THE CHURCH OF WITHYAM IN SUSSEX.

DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of Arts, and judge of Nature, dy'd.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learuing, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Blest satyrist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd, Vice had his hate and pity too.

Honour unchang'd, a principle profest,
Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest:
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too :
Just to his prince, and to his country true:
Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth,
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A generous faith, from superstition free:
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;
Such this man was: who now from Earth remov'd,
At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd.

ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT,

ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT, AC THE CHURCH OF STANTON-HARCOURT IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near,
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear;
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he dy'd.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own.

ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

JACOBUS CRAGGS,

REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SECRETIS

ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS,

PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMR ET DELICIA
VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR
ANNOS, HEU PALCOS, XXXV.

OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear!
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.
Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd,
Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the Muse he lov'd

INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE

IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

THY reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, Aud sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust:

VARIATION.

It is as follows on the monument in the Abbey, crected to Rowe and his daughter,

Thy reliques, Rowe! to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Saakspeare place thy honour'd bust,