HORACE, BOOK IV. ODE IX.
ADDRESSED TO HUMPHRY FRENCH,

LATE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN.

PATRON of the tuneful throng,
O! too nice, and too severe !
Think not, that my country song
Shall displease thy honest ear.
Chosen strains I proudly bring,
Which the Muses' sacred choir,
When they gods and heroes sing,
Dictate to th' harmonious lyre.

Ancient Homer, princely bard!
Just precedence still maintains,
With sacred rapture still are heard
Theban Pindar's lofty strains.
Still the old triumphant song,
Which, when hated tyrants fell,
Great Alcæus boldly sung,

ESQ.1

Warns, instructs, and pleases well.
Nor has Time's all-darkening shade
In obscure oblivion press'd
What Anacreon laugh'd and play'd;
Gay Anacreon, drunken priest!

Gentle Sappho, love-sick muse,

Warms the heart with amorous fire;

Originally annexed to the Presbyterians' Plea of Merit. 1731.---Scott.

Still her tenderest notes infuse

Melting rapture, soft desire. Beauteous Helen, young

and gay,

By a painted fopling won,
Went not first, fair nymph, astray,
Fondly pleased to be undone.

Nor young Teucer's slaughtering bow,
Nor bold Hector's dreadful sword,
Alone the terrors of the foe,

Sow'd the field with hostile blood.

Many valiant chiefs of old

Greatly lived and died before Agamemnon, Grecian bold,

Waged the ten years' famous war. But their names, unsung, unwept, Unrecorded, lost and gone,

Long in endless night have slept, And shall now no more be known.

Virtue, which the poet's care

Has not well consign'd to fame,

Lies, as in the sepulchre

Some old king, without a name. But, O Humphry, great and free, While my tuneful songs are read, Old forgetful Time on thee

Dark oblivion ne'er shall spread. When the deep cut notes shall fade

On the mouldering Parian stone,

On the brass no more be read

The perishing inscription;

Forgotten all the enemies,

Envious G-n's cursed spite,
And Pl's derogating lies,
Lost and sunk in Stygian night;
Still thy labour and thy care,
What for Dublin thou hast done,
In full lustre shall appear,

And outshine th' unclouded sun.
Large thy mind, and not untried,
For Hibernia now doth stand,
Through the calm, or raging tide,
Safe conducts the ship to land.
Falsely we call the rich man great,
He is only so that knows
His plentiful or small estate
Wisely to enjoy and use.
He in wealth or poverty,
Fortune's power alike defies;

And falsehood and dishonesty

More than death abhors and flies: Flies from death!-no, meets it brave, When the suffering so severe May from dreadful bondage save Clients, friends, or country dear. This the sovereign man, complete ; Hero; patriot; glorious; free; Rich and wise; and good and great; Generous Humphry, thou art he.

ON MR. PULTENEY'S1 BEING PUT OUT

OF THE COUNCIL. 1731.

SIR ROBERT, wearied by Will Pulteney's teasings,
Who interrupted him in all his leasings,

Resolved that Will and he should meet no more,
Full in his face Bob shuts the council door;
Nor lets him sit as justice on the bench,
To punish thieves, or lash a suburb wench.
Yet still St. Stephen's chapel open lies
For Will to enter-What shall I advise?

Ev'n quit the house, for thou too long hast sat in't,
Produce at last thy dormant ducal patent;
There near thy master's throne in shelter placed,
Let Will, unheard by thee, his thunder waste;
Yet still I fear your work is done but half,
For while he keeps his pen you are not safe.
Hear an old fable, and a dull one too;

It bears a moral when applied to you.

A hare had long escaped pursuing hounds, By often shifting into distant grounds;

'Right Honourable William Pulteney, Esq. since Earl of Bath.---F.

2 Sir Robert Walpole, Knight of the Garter, chief Minister of State, who resigned all his employments, December 4, 1741, and, on the 19th of February following, was created Earl of Orford. His lordship died the 18th of March, 1745-6, in the 70th year of his age.---F.

Till, finding all his artifices vain,

To save his life he leap'd into the main.
But there, alas! he could no safety find,
A pack of dogfish had him in the wind.
He scours away; and, to avoid the foe,
Descends for shelter to the shades below:
There Cerberus lay watching in his den,
(He had not seen a hare the Lord knows when.)
Out bounced the mastiff of the triple head;
Away the hare with double swiftness fled;
Hunted from earth, and sea, and hell, he flies
(Fear lent him wings) for safety to the skies.
How was the fearful animal distrest!

Behold a foe more fierce than all the rest:
Sirius, the swiftest of the heavenly pack,
Fail'd but an inch to seize him by the back.
He fled to earth, but first it cost him dear;
He left his scut behind, and half an ear.

Thus was the hare pursued, though free from

guilt;

Thus, Bob, shalt thou be maul'd, fly where thou wilt.
Then, honest Robin, of thy corpse beware;

Thou art not half so nimble as a hare :
Too ponderous is thy bulk to mount the sky;
Nor can you go to Hell before you die.
So keen thy hunters, and thy scent so strong,
Thy turns and doublings cannot save thee long.'

This hunting ended in the promotion of Will and Bob. Bob was no longer first minister, but Earl of Orford; and Will was no longer his opponent, but Earl of Bath.---H.