in my power to be informed of my errors by my friends and my enemies. And that I expect no favour on account of my youth, business, want of health, or any fuch idle excuses. But the true reafon they are not yet more correct is owing to the confideration how fhort a time they, and I have to live. A man that can expect but fixty years may be afhamed to employ thirty in meafuring fyllables and bringing fenfe and rhyme together. We spend our youth in pursuit of riches or fame, in hopes to enjoy them when we are old; and when we are old, we find it is too late to enjoy any thing. I therefore hope the Wits will pardon me; if I referve fome of my time to fave my foul; and that fome wife men will be of my opinion, even if I fhould think a part of it better spent in the enjoyments of life than in pleafing the critics. On Mr. POPE and his Poems, By His GRACE JOHN SHEFFIEL D, Duke of BUCKINGHAM. ITH Age decay'd, with Courts and bus'nefs tir'd, WITH Caring for nothing but what Ease requir'd; And yet fo wonderful, fublime a thing, As the great ILIAD, fcarce could make me fing'; 10 Except I juftly could at once commend 'Tis great delight to laugh at some mens ways, But a much greater to give Merit praise. To Mr. POPE, on his Paftorals. thefe more dull, as more cenforious days, I when few dare give, and fewer inerit praife, A Mufe fincere, that never Flatt'ry knew, And write not to the head, but to the ear: 10 25 30 Your strains are regularly bold, and please 35 45 Live and enjoy their fpite! nor mourn that fate, Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait; Whofe Mufe did once, like thine, in plains delight; Thine fhall, like his, foon take a higher flight; So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise, 50 W. WYCHERLEY. To Mr. POPE, on his Windfor-Foreft. TAIL, facred Bard! a Mufe unkoown before HAIL, Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore. To our dark world thy fhining page is shown, And Windfor's gay retreat becomes our own. The Eaftern pomp had juft bespoke our care, And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here: A various fpoil adorn'd our naked land, The pride of Perfia glitter'd on our strand, And China's Earth was caft on common fand: Tofs'd up and down the gloffy fragments lay, And drefs'd the rocky fhelves, and pav'd the painted bay. : Thy treasures next arriv'd and now we boast From thy luxuriant Foreft we receive More lafting glories than the Eaft can give. Where e'er we dip in thy delightful page, What pompous fcenes our bufy thoughts engage! The pompous fcenes in all their pride appear, Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were. Nor half fo true the fair Lodona fhows The fylyan ftate that on her border grows, 10 20 |