то

QUIL

CA,

A Country-House of Dr. SHERIDAN,

In no very good Repair,

Where the fuppofed Author and fome of his Friends Spent a Summer in the Year 1725.

ET me thy properties explain, A rotten cabbin dropping rain; Chimnies with fcorn rejecting fmoak ; Stool, tables, chairs, and bedsteds broke. Here elements have loft their uses, Air ripens not, nor earth produces; In vain we make poor Sheelah * toil, Fire will not roaft, nor water boil. Through all the valleys, hills and plains, The goddess Want in triumph reigns: And her chief officers of ftate,

Sloth, Dirt, and Theft around her wait.

An Irish name.

HORACE,

HOR

A CE,

I.

O DE XIV. BOOK I..

Paraphrafed, and infcribed to IRELAND.,

Written in the Year 1725-6.

THE INSCRIPTION.

Poor floating ifle, toft on ill-fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of flaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand:
Thou, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?
Although the metaphor be worn and ftale,
Betwixt a ftate, and veffel under fail;
Let me fuppofe thee for a fhip a-while,
And thus address thee in the failor's flyle:

UNHAPPY ship, thou art return'd

vain :

New waves fhall drive thee to the deep again.

1. O navis, referent in mare te novi

Fluctus.

Look

Look to thyfelf, and be no more the sport 2. Of giddy winds, but make fome friendly port.

3. Loft are thy oars, that us'd thy course to guide,

Like faithful counsellors on either fide.
4. Thy maft, which like fome aged patriot
ftood

The fingle pillar for his country's good,
To lead thee, as a ftaff directs the blind,
Behold it cracks by yon rough caftern

wind.

5. Your cables burft, and you must quickly

feel

The waves impetuous enter at your keel.

Thus, commonwealths receive a foreign yoke,

When the ftrong cords of union once are broke.

6. Torn by a fudden tempeft is thy fail, Expanded to invite a milder gale.

As when fome writer in a public cause, His pen to fave, a finking nation draws, While all is calm, his arguments prevail; The people's voice expands his paper fail; 'Till pow'r, discharging all her ftormy bags,

Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags.
The nation fcar'd, the author doom'd to
death,
Who fondly put his truft in pop'lar breath.

A larger facrifice in vain you vow;

7. There's not a pow'r above will help you

now :

A nation thus, who oft heaven's call neglects,

In vain from injur'd heaven relief expects.

8. 'Twill not avail, when they ftrong fides are broke,

That thy defcent is from the British oak;

6. Non tibi funt integra lintea.

7.

Non Dii, quos iterum preffa voces malo.

8. Quamvis pontica pinus;

Sylva filia nobilis.

VOL. VII.

H

Or,

9.

Or, when your name, your family you boast,

From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coaft.

Such was Ierne's claim, as juft as thine, Her fons defcended from the British line; Her matchlefs fons, whofe valour still remains

On French records for twenty long campaigns:

Yet from an emprefs now a captive

grown,

She fav'd Britannia's rights, and lost her

own.

In fhips decay'd no mariner confides, Lur'd by the gilded ftern and painted fides;

Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight In the gay trappings of a birth-day night:

They on the gold brocades and fattins rav'd,

And quite forgot their country was enflav'd.

9. Nil pittis timidus navita puppibus.

10. Dear