British Race! Well, this is very pitiful, to be fure; but we fhall weep bye and bye,

What Eye can read without a starting Tear,

What Heart reflect without a pensive Sigh?
On the same story every Marble here

Relates of wretched Man's Mortality.

So the Eye muft fhed a starting Tear, and the Heart must heave a penfive Sigh at every Stone we come to, because every Stone we come to tells us, what is very little known, that we muft die. But why fhould we weep, my good Elegiographer, when in the next Stanzas you tell us, that

Here terminate Ambition's airy fchemes,

The Syren Pleasure here allures no more;
Here grov ling Av'rice drops her golden dreams,
And Life's fantastic trifles all are o'er.

No furious paffions here the bofom rend,

Here the true Mourner's poignant Sorrows ceafe;
Here hopeless Love and cruel Hatred end,

And the world-weary Trav'ller refts in peace.

All the rest of the Poem is employed to tell us, what has a thousand and a thoufand times been told, that neither Fame, Honour, Virtue, Genius, Wit, Birth, Beauty, nor, in short, any thing else can avert the stroke of that pale tyrant, Death; and that therefore we ought to provide for another state of being.

Take warning from this, all ye that defign to publish your late or future excurfions to Parnaffus, that fomething more is neceffary to poetical Excellence than common-place thoughts and smooth numbers, and that he who can neither strike out any thing new, nor recommend a known fentiment by the elegance or novelty of its drefs, had better fleep than write. La

The Nunnery. An Elegy, in Imitation of the Elegy in a ChurchYard. 4to. 6d. DodЛley.

WHA

HAT, another Elegiac Bard!--Well, this per⚫formance, however; must be allowed to be a good Parody, whatever may be thought of it as a Poem. Every ftanza, nay almoft every line, echoes its correfpondent line in Mr. Gray's Elegy. Where the Parody, as in the following ftanza, is fo very close, it is not unentertaining.

Within those antient Walls, by mofs o'erspread,
Where the relenting Sinner learn's to weep,
Each in her narrow bed, till mid-night laid,
The gentle Daughters of Devotion fleep.

The defcription of the monaftic Life of the Nuns is poetical and harmonious,

Far from the Buftle of the fplendid Throng,
They tread Obfcurity's fequefter'd Vale,
Where the white hours glide filently along,
Smooth as the ftream, when fleeps the breezy gale.

Yet tho' they're fprinkled with ethereal dew,

With blooming wreaths by hands of Seraphs crown'd;
Tho' Heaven's eternal fplendors burst to view,
And harps celeftial to their ear refound;

Still grateful Memory paints the abfent Friend,
Not even the World to their Remembrance dies;
Their midnight Orifons to Heaven afcend,

To stop the Bolt defcending from the Skies.
For who, entranc'd in Vifions from above,
The thought of Kindred razes from the mind?
Feels in the Soul no warm-returning Love
For fome endear'd Companion left behind?
From Friendship's breaft reluctant they withdrew,
And with a figh forfook their native air :
To their fond Parents, when they bade, adieu,
Gufh'd from their eye the tender filial tear.

And in another place,

Th' endearing fcenes of Life they all forego,

Even Hymen's Torch for them must never blaze,
The Hufband's fond Embrace they ne'er fhall know,
Nor view their Image in their Children's Face.

The glistening eye, the half-feen breaft of snow,
The coral lip, the clear vermillion bloom,
Await alike th' inexorable Foe,

The Paths of Pleasure lead but to the Tomb.

Thefe Stanzas are not only remarkable for their close Imitation of the Elegy in the Church-Yard, but have also much merit of their own. It must be obferved, nevertheless, that the Piece is unequal, fome of the Verfes being feeble, and others quaint and inelegant. The concluding Letter, in particular, is fo much inferior to the reft of the Performance, that one would not imagine it to have been written by the fame Author.

A a 4

Lá

Poems

Pems on feveral Occafions. By David Mallet, Efq; 8vo. 2s,

BEFOR

Millar.

DEFORE we enter upon a Review of these Poems, we muft take the liberty to animadvert on those arts of Publication, which have often been practifed, to the prejudice of Literature, the abufe of the Public, and the disgrace of Individuals. As foon as a fet of Pamphlets have had their day, nothing is more ufual than to re-publish them, together with a new piece or two, to give the Book fome little air of originality, under the title of Poems, or Effays, on several occafions; and if the title induces you to purchase, you have the mortification to find that you have been paying your money over again, for what you had already bought.

Were fuch Collections only to be bought up by perfons of opulent fortunes, who could afford to pay as dear for their literary entertainment as they do for their other pleasures, thefe money-making fchemes might admit of fome excufe. But the cafe is far otherwife; for as all perfons of diftinction. are not perfons of tafte, so neither are all men of taste men of fortune. It is therefore our duty, as Reviewers, to expose every impofition of this kind, to prevent the complaints of the Public, and to defend the interests of Learning.

The Collection of Poems before us confifts only of eighty Pages, near fifty of which are taken up with pieces that have been already publifhed, viz. Tyburn to the Marine Society, for an account of which fee Review, Vol. XX. p. 474; Edwin and Emma, Vol. XXII. p. 514; Truth in Rhyme; Vol. XXV,

P. 79:

We cannot but obferve the following extraordinary instance of vanity, in the Imprimatur prefixed to Truth in Rhyme : It has no Faults, or I no Faults can spy; It is all Beauty, or all Blindness I."

Imprimatur, meo periculo CHESTERFIELD. If this noble Lord, fo juftly celebrated for the elegance of his tafte and wit, ftill retained fo much of the Courtier, as to give fuch a teftimony to Mr. Mallet's Poem as no Poem ever deferved, furely a modeft man would rather have fuppreffed than produced it, or would not, at leaft, have been fo far tranfported by it as publickly to triumph in fo extravagant a compliment, even admitting that, with refpect to his LordThip, the compliment was fincere; which fome may poffibly

queftion

question. Others perhaps may fufpect that the humorous transcriber of this couplet intended to try how far fuch high praise of Mr. M's offspring would work upon the fond affections of a parent; and without doubt he was not a little entertained when he beheld his name, like that of old Pontificalibus, pompously posted under an IMPRIMATUR.

The first original piece that appears in this Volume is The Difcovery: upon reading fome Verfes, written by a young Lady at a boarding-fchool, September, 1760.

Apollo lately fent to know,

If he had any Sons below;

For, by the Trash he long has seen
In Male and Female Magazine,
A hundred quires not worth a groat,

The Race must be extinct, he thought.

His Messenger goes to enquire at Court, but there, alas !
Auguftus knit his Royal brow,

And bade him let Apollo know it,
That from his infancy till now,

He lov❜d nor Poetry nor Poet.

His next adventure was in the Park, where he hears nothing but the language of gaming. The ftage he finds poffeffed by mere Durfeys.

Slow to the City laft he went,

There all was Profe of Cent per Cent.
There Alley-omnium, Scrip, and Bonus,
(Latin for which a Mufe would stone us,
Yet honeft Gideon's claffic style)

Made our poor Nuncio ftare and smile.

It was now eleven o'clock, and the Meffenger was just about to return, when he accidentally fpies a young Lady writing, at a boarding-school in Queen's Square. Our arch Mercury fteals her Paper, and conveys it to Apollo, who gives it his Imprimatur, and so ends the ditty.

This Poem is followed by an Epigram, written at Tunbridge Wells; which, as it terminates with a beautiful compliment to a much-injured Lady, we shall make more public by quoting it.

When CHURCHILL led his Legions on,
Succefs ftill follow'd where he fhone.

And are thofe triumphs with the dead,
All from his houfe for ever fled ?

His late M

Not

Not fo: by fofter, furer arms,

They yet furvive in Beauty's charms;
For, look on blooming PEMBROKE's face,
Even now he triumphs in his Race.

Zephyr, or the Stratagem, is a licentious Tale, told with eafe and humour. The fubject of it is a young Lady's being furprized on horse-back, by a violent ftorm of wind and rain from the SOUTH-WEST, which made her difmount fomewhat precipitately. There is fome wit and spirit in this Tale, but it is unfit for a modeft ear,

But the Poem which does the Author the greatest honour of any in this little Collection, and which still keeps up his claim to that reputation he has already acquired in the poetical world, is that on the Death of Lady Anfon, addressed to her Father. As it is but short, we shall give it our Readers, as well for their entertainment, as to confirm their good opinion of Mr. Mallet's poetical abilities,

O crown'd with Honour, bleft with length of days,
Thou, whom the Wife revere, the Worthy praife,
Juft Guardian of thofe Laws thy voice explain'd,
And meriting all Titles thou haft gain'd.-
Tho' ftill the faireft from Heaven's bounty flow,
For good and great no Monarch can bestow :
Yet thus, of Health, of Fame, of Friends poffeft,
No Fortune, HARDWICKE, is fincerely bleft.
All Human-kind are fons of Sorrow born:
The Great must fuffer, and the Good must mourn.
For fay, can Wisdom's Self, what late was thine,
Can Fortitude, without a figh refign?

Ah, no! when Love, when Reofon, hand in hand,
O'er the cold Urn confenting Mourners ftand,
The firmest heart diffolves to foftness here;

And Piety applauds the falling tear.

Thofe facred drops, by virtuous weakness shed,

Adorn the Living, while they grace the Dead.

From tender thought their fource unblam'd they draw.
By Heaven approv'd, and true to Nature's Law.
When his lov'd Child the Roman* cou'd not fave,
Immortal Tully! from an early Grave;
No common forms his home-felt paffion kept,
The Sage, the Patriot, in the Parent, wept.
And O, by Grief allied, as join'd in Fame,
The fame thy lofs, thy forrows are the fame.

Tullia died about the age of two and thirty. She is celebrated for her filial Piety, and for having added to the ufual graces of her fex the more folid accomplishments of Knowlege and polite Letters.

She,