Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil, [soul. TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY. Let joy or ease, let affluence or content, TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN, On his Birth-day, 1742. RESIGN'D to live, prepared 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 ! 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, Dijest his thirty thousandth dinner; Walk to his grave without reproach, And scorn a rascal and a coach. SAY,† St. John, who alone peruse To you (the all-envied gift of heaven) The indulgent gods, unask'd, have given A form complete in every part, And, to enjoy that gift, the art. 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 libell'd by her hate. *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. Albi, nostrorum sermonum, candide judex, Quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana? Scribere, quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat? The lines here quoted occur in the Essay on Man. § An tacitum silvas inter reptare salubres? Di tibi formam Di tibi divitas dederunt, artemque fruendi. *What could a tender mother's care That every day shall be your last; In spite of tears, of mercy spite, There, half devour'd by spleen, you'll find EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS, A handsome Woman with a fine Voice, but very covetous and proud. So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, EPIGRAM, On one who made long Epitaphs.|| FRIEND, for your epitaphs I'm grieved; Where still so much is said, One half will never be believed, TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER, On has painting for me the Statues of Apollo, WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move 'Twas Friendship-warm as Phoebus, kind as Love, And strong as Hercules. *Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, ↑ Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras.. 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 inferior, 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, chant A FAREWELL TO LONDON DEAR, damn'd distracting town, farewell! This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease. Soft B*** and rough C*****, adieu! May knock up whores alone. On every learned sot, And Garth, the best good christian he, Lintot, farewell; thy bard must go! Why should I stay? Both parties rage; And Homer (damn him!) calls. The love of arts lies cold and dead And not one Muse of all he fed, Has yet the grace to mourn. My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Poor Y***r's sold for fifty pound, Why make I friendships with the great, Or follow girls seven hours in eight?-- Most thinking rake alive. Though fond of dear repose; Adieu to all but Gay alone, Whose soul sincere and free, Loves all mankind, but flatters none, And so may starve with me. A DIALOGUE. ed her recitative in English, in answer to his Italian; Pope. SINCE my old friend is grown so great yet the charms of their voices overcame the absurdity. It is not generally known that the person here meant was Dr. Robert Friend, head master of Westminster school. As to be minister of state. I'm told (but 'tis not true I hope) That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope. 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 saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere! VIRO. ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET, In the Church of Withyam, in Susser. DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses pride, Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died. The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state: Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay; His anger moral, and his wisdom gay. Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the means so true, As show'd vice had his hate and pity too. Bless'd courtier! who could king and country please Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease. Bless'd peer! his great forefathers' every grace Reflecting, and reflected in his race; Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine, And patrons still, or poets, deck the line. ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBALL, One of the principal Secretaries of State to King William the Third, who, having resigned his place, died in his Retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1716. A PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind; Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd; Honour unchanged, a principle profess'd, 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 removed At length enjoys that liberty he loved. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, Only Son of the Lord Chancellor Harcourt, at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire, 170 To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near; Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear; Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died. How vain is reason, eloquence how weak! If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak. Oh let thy once-loved 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 AMOR ET DELICIE VIXIT, TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR, STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear! Who broke no promise, served no private end, INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE, In Westminster Abbey. THY reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And, sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust: Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Bless'd in thy genius, in thy love too bless'd! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies. ON MRS. CORBET, Who died of a Cancer in her Breast. HERE rests a woman, good without pretence, Bless'd with plain reason, and with sober sense; No conquest she, but o'er herself, desired, No arts essay'd, but not to be admired. Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convinced that virtue only is our own. So unaffected, so composed a mind; So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refined; Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried ; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died. ON THE MONUMENT OF THE AND OF HIS SISTER MARY, Erected by their Father, the Lord Digby, in the Church of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, 1727. Go! fair example of untainted youth, 159 Just of thy word, in every thought sincere, And thou, bless'd maid! attendant on his doom, ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER, In Westminster Abbey, 1723. KNELLER, by Heaven, and not a master, taught, Whose art was nature, and whose pictures thought; Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great, Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays, Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise. Living, great nature fear'd he might outvie Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die. ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS, HERE, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind, For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear, ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON, At Easthamstead, in Berks, 1730. THIS modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, 'Here lies an honest man:' A poet, bless'd beyond the poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great ON MR. GAY, In Westminster Abbey, 1730. Or manners gentle, of affections mild; In wit, a man; simplicity, a child. She. YES, we have lived-one pang, and then we part; He. Dear shade! I will: ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, Who died in the 19th year of his age, 1735. Ir modest youth with cool reflection crown'd, And every opening virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT. RESPECT to Dryden, Sheffield justly paid, 1 This Epitaph, originally written on Picus Mirandula, is applied to F. Chartres, and printed among the works of Swift. See Hawkesworth's edition, vol. vi. S. 2 Mr. Pope, in one of the prints from Scheemaker's monument of Shakspeare in Westminster Abbey, has sufficiently shown his contempt of Alderman Barber, by the following couplet, which is substituted in the place of The cloud-capt towers,' &c. Thus Britain loved me; and preserved my fame, Clear from a Barber's or a Benson's name.'-A. POPE. Pope might probably have suppressed his satire on the alderman, because he was one of Swift's acquaintances and correspondents; though in the fourth book of the Dunciad he has an anonymous stroke at him: So by each bard an alderman shall sit, |