Or, would you see his spirits sink,
Relaxing downwards in a stink?
If such a sight as this can please ye,
Good madam Pallas, pray be easy,
To Neptune speak, and he 'll consent;
But he 'll come back the knave he went."
The goddess who conceiv'd an hope
That Horte was destin'd to a rope,
Believ'd it best to condescend
To spare a foe, to save a friend :
Bat, fearing Berkeley in ght be scar'd,
She left him virtue for a guard.
ODE ON SCIENCE.
Он, heavenly born! in deepest dells
If fairest Science ever dwells
Beneath the mossy cave;
Indulge the verdure of the woods;
With azure beauty gild the floods,
And flowery carpets lave;
For melancholy ever reigns
Delighted in the sylvan scenes
With scientific light;
While Dian, huntress of the vales,
Seeks lulling sounds and fanning gales,
Though wrapt from mortal sight.
Yet, goddess, yet the way explore
With magic rites and heathen lore
Obstructed and depress'd;
Till wisdom give the sacred nine,
Untaught, not uninspired, to shine,
By reason's power redress'd.
When Solon and Lycurgus taught
To moralize the human thought
Of mad opinion's maze,
To erring zeal they gave new laws,
Thy charms, O Liberty, the cause
That blends congenial rays.
Bid bright Astrea gild the morn,
Or bid a hundred suns be born,
To hecatomb the year;
Without thy aid, in vain the poles,
In vain the zodiac system rolls,
In vain the lunar sphere.
Come, fairest princess of the throng
Bring swift philosophy along
In metaphy sic dreams; While raptur'd bards no more behold A vernal age of purer gold
In Heliconian streams.
Drive thraldom with malignant hand,
To curse some other destin'd land
By folly led astray:
Jerue bear on azure wing;
Energic let her soar, and sing
Thy universal sway.
So, when Amphion bade the lyre
To more majestic sound aspire,
Behold the madding throng,
In wonder and oblivion drown'd,
To sculpture turn'd by magic sound
And petrifying song.
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY,
MARCH 13, 1726.
THIS day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old ;
Nor think on your approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills:
Tomorrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days;
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.
Although we now can form no morɛ
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
Were future happiness and pain A mere contrivance of the brain; As atheists argue, to entice And fit their proselytes for vice (The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes): Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard That virtue, styi'd its own reward, And by all sages understood To be the chief of human good, Should acting die; nor leave behind Some lasting pleasure in the mind, Which by remembrance will assuage Grief, sickness, poverty, and age, And strongly shoot a radiant dart To shine through life's declining part. Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well spent ; Your skilful hand employ'd to save Despairing wretches from the grave; And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragg'd from death before? So Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates. Your generous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage which can make you just To merit humbled in the dust; The detestation you express For vice in all its glittering dress; That patience under tottering pain, Where stubborn stoics would complain; Must these like empty shadows pass, Or forms reflected from a glass? Or mere chimeras in the mind, That fly, and leave no mark behind? Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago? Aud, had it not been still supply'd, It must a thousand times have died. Then who with reason can maintain That no effects of food remain? And is not virtue in mankind The nutriment that feeds the mind Upheld by each good action past, And still continued by the last? Then, who with reason can pretend That all effects of virtue end?
Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.
O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suffering share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.
Or, when your name and family you boast,
From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coast.
Such was lerne's claim, as just as thine,
Her sons descended from the British line;
Her matchless sous, whose valour still remains
On French records for twenty long campaigns?
Yet, from an empress now a captive grown,
She sav'd Britannia's rights, and lost her own.
In ships decay'd no mariner confides,
Lur'd by the gilded stern and painted sides;
Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight
In the gay trappings of a birth-day night:
They on the gold brocades and sattins rav'd,
And quite forgot their country was enslav'd.
Dear vessel, still be to thy steerage just,
Nor change thy course with every sudden gust
Like supple patriots of the modern sort,
Who turn with every gale that blows from court.
Weary and sea-sick when in thee confin'd,
Now for thy safety cares distract my mind;
As those who long have stood the storms of state
Retire, yet still be moan their country's fate.
Beware; and when you hear the surges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry shore.
They lie, alas! too easy to be found;
For thee alone they lie the island round.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.ad/books/content?id=XsoUAAAAYAAJ&hl=ca&output=html_text&pg=PA451&img=1&zoom=3&q=poor&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U32wddrxzbTz_OL5CKlOAdh-5ivhQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=75,665,436,64)
Poor floating isle, tost on ill-fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand;
Thou, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?
Although the metaphor be worn and stale,
Betwixt a state, and vessel under sail;
Let me suppose thee for a ship a-while,
And thus address thee in the sailor's style:
UNHAPPY ship, thou art return'd in vain :
New waves shall drive thee to the deep again.
Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make some friendly port,
Lost are thy oars, that us'd thy course to guide,
Like faithful counsellors, on either side.
Thy mast, which like some aged patriot stood
The single pillar for his country's good,
To lead thee, as a staff directs the blind,
Behold it cracks by yon rough eastern wind.
Your cable 's burst, and you must quickly feel
The waves impetuous enter at your keel.
Thus commonwealths receive a foreign yoke,
When the strong cords of union once are broke.
Torn by a sudden tempest is thy sail,
Expanded to invite a milder gale.
As when some writer in the public cause
His pen, to save a sinking nation, draws,
While all is calm, his arguments prevail;
The people's voice expands his paper-sail;
Till power, discharging all her stormy bags,
Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags.
The nation scar'd, the author doom'd to death,
Who fondly put his trust in popular breath.
A larger sacrifice in vain you vow;
There's not a power above will help you now:
A nation thus, who oft Heaven's call neglects,
In vain from injur'd Heaven relief expects.
'Twill not avail, when thy strong sides are broke. That thy descent is from the British oak 5
1 Italy was not properly the native place of St. Patrick, but the place of his education, and where he received his mission; and because he had his new birth there, hen e, by poetical licence, and by scripture figure, our author calls that country his native Italy. IRISH ED.
2 Orpheus, or the ancient author of the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, whoever he be, says, that Jason, who manned the ship Argos at Thessaly, sailed to Ireland. IRISH ED.
3 Tacitus, in the life of Julius Agricola, says, that the harbours of Ireland, on account of their commerce, were better known to the world than those of Britain. IRISH ED.
Well may they boast that ancient blood which runs
Within their veins, who are thy younger sons 5,
A conquest and a colony from thee.
The mother-kingdom left her children free;
From thee no mark of slavery they felt :
Not so with thee thy base invaders dealt ;
Invited here to vengeful Morrough's aid ",
Those whom they could not conquer they betray'd.
Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful isle!
Not by thy valour, but superior guile :
Britain, with shame, confess this land of mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine 7;
My prelates and my students, sent from hence,
Made your sons converts both to God and sense :
Not like the pastors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.
Wretched Ierne! with what grief I see
The fatal changes time hath made on thee
The Christian rites I introduc'd in vain:
Lo! infidelity return'd again!
Freedom and virtue in thy sons I found,
Who now in vice and slavery are drown'd.
By faith and prayer, this crosier in my hand,
I drove the venom'd serpent from thy land;
The shepherd in his bower might sleep or sing,
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor scorpion's sting
With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains.
I sent the magpie from the British soil,
With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil,
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black.
What else are those thou seest in bishops' geer,
Who crop the nurseries of learning here;
Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state à
tained with any degree of precision. Ireland, even to this day, "remains superstitiously devoted to her ancient history," and "wraps herself in the gloom As you grew more degenerate and base, of her own legendary annals." Mr. Whitaker has I sent you millions of the croaking race; displayed an uncommon fund of knowledge on this Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn very curious subject, both in his History of Man-Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn; chester, and in The Genuine History of the Britons asserted. N.
5" The Scots" (says Dr. Robertson) "carry their pretensions to antiquity as high as any of their neighbours. Relying upon uncertain legends, and the traditions of their bards, still more uncertain, they reckon up a series of kings several ages before the birth of Christ, and give a particular detail of occurrences which happened in their reigns. the beginning of the sixteenth century, John Major and Hector Boëthius published their histories of Scotland; the former a succinct and dry writer, the latter a copious and florid one; and both equally credulous. Not many years after, Buchanan undertook the same work; and if his accuracy and impartiality had been in any degree equal to the elegance of his taste, and to the purity and vigour of his style, his history might be placed on a level | with the most admired compositions of the ancients. But, instead of rejecting the improbable tales of chronicle-writers, he was at the utmost pains to adorn them, and hath clothed with all the beauties and graces of fiction those legends which formerly had only its wildness and extravag ince."-On the authority of Buchanan and his predecessors the historical part of this poem seems founded, as well as the notes signed Irish Ed. some of which, I believe, were written by the dean himself. N.
A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls,
And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls!
See, where that new devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!
With harpy claws it undermines the ground,
And sudden spreads a numerous offspring round.
Th' amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,
Drains all thy lakes of fish, of fruits thy land.
Where is the holy well that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came !
Fair Freedom's emblem once, which smoothly flows,
And blessings equally on all bestows.
Here, from the neighbouring nursery 9 of arts,
The students, drinking, rais'd their wit and parts;
Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein,
Their Phabus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discourag d youths! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemn'd to country cottages and ale;
To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classics, read Th' Attorney's Guide;
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.
Oh! that I had been apostle to the Swiss, Or hardy Scot, or any land but this; Combin'd in arms, they had their foes defied, And kept their liberty, or bravely died. Thon still with tyrants in succession curst, The last invaders trampling on the first: 6 In the reign of king Henry II. Dermot MorNow fondly hope for some reverse of fate, rough, king of Leinster, be no deprived of his king- Vntue herself would now return too late. dom by Roderie O'Connor, king of Connaught, he | Not half thy course of misery is run, invited the English over as auxiliaries, and promised. Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun. Richard Strangbow, carl of Pembe, his daughter | Soon shall thy sons (the time is just at hand) and all his dominions, as a portion. By this assist- Be all made captives in their native land; ance, M'Morrough recovered his crown, and Strang-When, for the use of no Hibernian born, bow became possessed of all Leinster. INISH ED. Shall rise one blade of grass, one ear of corn; 7 St. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the year 431, and completed the conversion of the natives, which had been begun by Palladius and others. And, as 8There are no snakes, vipers, or toads, in Ireland; bishop Nicholson observes, Ireland soon became the and even frogs were not known here until about the fountain of learning, to which all the Western Chris-year 1700. The magpies came a short time before; tians, as well as the English, had recourse, not only, and the Norway rats since. IRISH ED. for instructions in the principles of religion, but in 9 The university of Dublin, called Trinity Colall sorts of literature, viz. Legendi et scholastica | lege, was founded by queen Elizabeth in 1591 eruditionis gratia. Irish LD. IRISH ED.
When shells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass 10.
But all turn leasers to that mongrel breed 11,
Who from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvests there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.
I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage resign.
If bankrupts, when they are undone,
Into the senate-house can run,
And sell their votes at such a rate
As will retrieve a lost estate :
If law be such a partial whore,
To spare the rich, and plague the poor:
If these be of all crimes the worst,
What land was ever half so curst?
ON READING DR. YOUNG'S SATIRES
I there be truth in what you sing,
Such god-like virtues in the king;
A minister so fill'd with zeal
And wisdom for the common-weal:
If he 2 who in the chair presides
So steadily the senate guides:
If others, whom you make your theme,
Are seconds in the glorious scheme :
If every peer whom you commend,
To worth and learning be a friend:
If this be truth, as you attest,
What land was ever half so blest?
No falsehood now among the great,
And tradesmen now no longer cheat;
Now on the bench fair justice shines,
Her scale to neither side inclines;
Now pride and cruelty are flown,
And mercy here exalts her throne:
For such is good example's power,
It does its office every hour,
Where governors are good and wise;
Or else the truest maxim lies:
For so we find all ancient sages
Decree, that, ad exemplum regis,
Through all the realm his virtues run,
Ripening and kindling like the Sun.
If this be true, then how much more
When you have nam'd at least a score
Of courtiers, each in their degree,
If possible, as good as he?
Or take it in a different view.
I ask (if what you say be true)
If you affirm the present age
Deserves your satire's keenest rage:
If that same universal passion
With every vice hath fill'd the nation:
If virtue dares not venture down
A single step beneath the crown:
If clergymen, to show their wit,
Praise classics more than holy writ:
10 Wood's ruinous project in 1724.
11 The absentees, who spent the income of their Irish estates, places, and pensions, in England. IRISH ED.
THE DOG AND THIEF. 1726.
QUOTH the thief to the dog, "let me into your door,
And I'll give you these delicate bits." [you 're,
Quoth the dog, "I shall then be more villain than
And besides must be out of my wits.
"Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal,
But my master each day gives me bread;
You'll fly, when you get what you came here to
And I must be hang'd in your stead." [steal,
The stock-jobber thus from 'Change-alley goes down,
And tips you the freeman a wink;
"Let me have but your vote to serve for the town, And here is a guinea to drink."
Says the freeman, " your guinea to night would be
Your offers of bribery cease:
[spent!
I'll vote for my landlord, to whom I pay rent,
Or else I may forfeit my lease."
From London they come, silly people to chouse,
Their lands and their faces unknown:
Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house,
That would turn a man out of his own?
1 The original copy of Mr. Pope's celebrated translation of Homer (preserved in the British Mus
1 Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford.seum) is almost entirely written on the covers of 2 Sir Spencer Compton, then speaker, afterwards letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letearl of Wilmington.
WHO DESIRED THE AUTHOR TO WRITE SOME VERSES
UPON HER IN THE HEROIC STYLE.
WRITTEN AT LONDON IN 1726,
AFTER venting all my spite,
Tell me, what have I to write?
Every errour I could find
Through the mazes of your mind,
Have my busy Muse employ'd
Till the company was cloy'd.
Are you positive and fretful,
Heedless, ignorant, forgetful?
Those, and twenty follies more,
I have often told before.
Hearken what my lady says:
Have: hing then to praise ?
Ill it fits you to be witty,
Where a fault should move your pity,
If you think me too conceited,
Or to passion quickly heated;
If my wandering head be less
Set on reading than on dress;
If I always seem too dull t' ye;
I can solve the difficulty,
You would teach me to be wise;
Truth and honour how to prize;
How to shine in conversation,
And with credit fill my station;'
How to relish notions high;
How to live, and how to die.
But it was decreed by fate-
Mr. Dean, you come too late.
Well I know, you can discern,
I am now too old to learn:
Follies, from my youth instill'd,
Have my soul entirely fill'd;
In my head and heart they centre,
Nor will let your lessons enter.
Bred a fondling and an heiress,
Drest like any lady mayoress,
Cocker'd by the servants round,
Was too good to touch the ground;
Thought the life of every lady
Should be one continual play day--
Balls, and masquerades, and shows,
Visits, plays, and powder'd beaux.
Thus you have my case at large, And may now perform your charge. Those materials I have furnish'd When by you rein'd and barnish d,
Must, that all the world may know 'em,
Be reine'd into a poem.
But, I beg, suspend a while
That same paltry, burlesque style;
Drop for once your constant rule,
Turning all to ridicule;
Teaching others how to ape you;
Court nor parliament can 'scape you ;
Treat the public and your friends
Both alike, while neither mends.
Sing my praise in strain sublime:
Treat me not with doggrel rhyme.
Ti: but just you should produce,
With each fault, each fault's excuse;
Not to publish every trifle,
And my few perfections stifle.
With some gifts at least endow me,
Which my very foes allow me.
Am I spiteful, proud, unjust?
Did I ever break my trust?
Which of all qur modern dames
Censures less, or less defames?
In good manners am I faulty?
Can you call me rude or haughty
Did I e'er my mite withhold
From the impotent and old?
When did ever I omit
Due regard for men of wit?
When have I esteem express'd
For a coxcomb gaily dress'd?
Do I, like the female tribe,
Think it wit to fleer and gibe?
Who with less designing ends
Kindlier entertains their friends;
With good words, and countenance sprightly,
Strives to treat them more politely?
Think not cards my chief diversion:
'Tis a wrong, unjust aspersion:
Never knew I any good in 'em,
But to dose my head like laudanum.
We by play, as men by drinking,
Pass our nights, to drive out thinking,
From ny ailments give me leisure,
I shall read and think with pleasure;
Conversation learn to relish,
And with books my mind embellish,
Now, methinks, I hear you cry,
Mr. Dean, you must reply.
Madam, I allow 'tis true;
All these praises are your due.
You, like some acute philosopher,
Every fault have drawn a gloss ove
Placing in the strongest light
All your virtues to my sight
Though you lead a blameless life,
Are an humble prudent wife,
Answer all domestic ends;
What is this to us your friends?
Though your children by a nod
Stand in awe without a rod;
Though, by your obliging sway,
Servants love you, and obey;
Though you treat us with a smile;
Clear your looks, and smooth your style
Load our plates from every dish;
This is not the thing we wish.
may be your debtor;
We expect employment better,
You must learn, if you would gain us,
With good sense to entertain us.
Scholars, when good sense describinga
Call it tasting and imbibing:
Metaphoric meat and drink
Is to understand and think :
We may carve for others thus ;
And let others carve for us:
To discourse and to attend,
Is to help yourself and friend.
Conversation is but carving;
Carve for all, yourself is starving?
Give no more to every guest,
Than he 's able to digest;
Give him always of the prime
And but little at a time.
|