THE LOOKING-GLASS. ON MRS. PULTENEY.1 FITH scornful mien, and various toss Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair, She looks ambition, and she moves disdain. ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS.2 ES, I beheld the Athenian Queen Descend in all her sober charms; "And take (she said, and smiled serene), "Take at this hand celestial arms: 1 Mrs. Pulteney was the daughter of John Gumley, a glass manufacturer at Isleworth. To enter into the spirit of this address, it is neces "Secure the radiant weapons wield; This golden lance shall guard Desert, And if a Vice dares keep the field, This steel shall stab it to the heart." Awed, on my bended knees I fell, "What well? what weapons?" (Flavia cries) "But, friend, take heed whom you attack; sary to premise that the poet was threatened with a prosecution in the House of Lords for the two poems entitled the Epilogue to the Satires; on which, with great resentment against his enemies for not being willing to distinguish between "Grave Epistles bringing vice to light,” and licentious libels, he began a Third Dialogue, more severe and sublime than the first and second, which being no secret, matters were soon compromised. His enemies agreed to drop the prosecution, and he promised to leave the Third Dialogue unfinished and suppressed. This affair occasioned this little beautiful poem, to which it alludes throughout, but more especially in the four last stanzas.-Warburton. Lady Frances Shirley was a daughter of Earl Ferrers, who had at that time a house at Twickenham. She died unmarried in 1762.—Bowles. 1 A toy-shop at Bath. 2 Lambeth would seem to be here meant. In the Epilogue to the Satires, Dial. i. 120, Pope had 'You'd write as smooth again on glass, "Athenian Queen! and sober charms! "Come, if you'll be a quiet soul, That dares tell neither truth nor lies, I'll list you in the harmless roll, Of those that sing of these poor eyes." VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE, ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT, THE CELEBRATED EARL OF ROCHESTER, SLEPT IN AT ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL, JULY 9, 1739. ITH no poetic ardour fired W I press the bed where Wilmot lay; That here he loved, or here expired, Begets no numbers grave or gay. Beneath thy roof, Argyll, are bred Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie Stretched out in honour's nobler bed, Beneath a nobler roof-the sky. hazarded an allusion to a scandal, that the Archbishop of Canterbury had "pocketed" the will of George I.-Carruthers. Such flames as high in patriots burn, When freedom is more dear than life. ON SEEING THE LADIES AT CRUXEASTON WALK IN THE WOODS BY THE GROTTO.1 EXTEMPORE BY MR. POPE. UTHORS the world and their dull brains have traced To fix the ground where Paradise was placed; Mind not their learned whims and idle talk ; Here, here's the place where these bright angels walk. INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO, THE WORK OF NINE LADIES.2 ERE, shunning idleness at once and praise, This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise; The glittering emblem of each spotless dame, But fate disposed them in this humble sort, 1 From "The Student," Oxford Miscellany, 1750. 2 From Dodsley's Miscellany. The nine ladies were sisters of Dr. Lisle, chaplain to the Factory at Smyrna. IMITATION OF TIBULLUS.1 Hic jacet immiti consumptus morte Tibullus, ERE, stopped by hasty death, Alexis Who crossed half Europe, led by IMITATION OF MARTIAL.2 T length my friend, while Time with still career Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year, Sees his past days safe out of Fortune's power, Pope, in a letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Nov. 10, 1716, expressed a desire to travel abroad to meet her; "But if my fate be such," he says, "that this body of mine be left behind in the journey, let this epitaph of Tibullus be set over it." (Tibullus i. 4, 55-6). 2 Sir William Trumbull, Jan. 19, 1716, writes to Pope : "On occasion of my being obliged to congratulate the birthday of a friend of mine, finding I had no materials of my own, I very frankly sent him your imitation of Martial's epigram on Antonius Primus, Jam numerat placido felix Antonius ævo, &c." (Martial x. 23.) |