SUCH
UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet fung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld, and lost ! admir'd, and mouru’d!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn’d !
Bleft in each science, blest in every strain;
Dear to the Muse, to Harley dear --in vain!
For him thou oft haft bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend :
For Swift and him, despis'd the farce of ftate,
The fober follies of the wise and great ;
Dextrous, the craving, fawning croud to quit,
And pleas'd to scape from flattery to wit.
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A figh the absent claims, the dead a tear)
Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays :
Who, careless now, of interest, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e’er was great;
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.
And sure, if aught below the seats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a foul like thine :
B 2
A foul
A soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blaft of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.
In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
Tis hers, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace,
When interest calls off all her sneaking train,
When all th' oblig'd desert, and all the vain ;
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last lingering friend has bid farewell.
Ev’n now the shades thy evening-walk with bays,
(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise)
Ev’n now obfervant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm sun-set of thy various day ;
Through Fortune's cloud one truly great can see,
Nor fears to tell, that Mortimer is he.
WHAT antient times (those times we fancy wise)
Have left on long record of woman's rise,
What morals teach it, and what fables hide,
What author wrote it, how that author dy’d,
All these. I sing. In Greece they fram’d the tale
(In Greece 'twas thought a woman inight be frail);
Ve modern beauties! where the Poet drew -
His softest pencil, think he dreanit of you;
And, warn’d by him, ye wanton pens beware
How Heaven's concern'd to vindicate the fair.
The case was Hefiod's; he the fable writ;
.Some think with meaning, some with idle wit:
Perhaps 'tis either, as the Ladies please.;.
I wave the contest, and commence the lays.
In days of yore (no matter where or when,
'Twas ere the low creation swarmd with men).
That one Prometheus, sprung of heavenly birth,
(Our Author's song can witness) liv'd on earth:
He carv?d the turf to mold a manly frame,
And stole from Jove his animating flame.
The fly contrivance o’er Olympus ran,
When thus the Monarch of the Stars began.
O versid
Overs'd in arts ! whose daring thoughts aspire, To kindle clay with never-dying fire ! Enjoy thy glory past, that gift was thine ; The next thy creature meets, be fairly mine : And such a gift, a vengeance so design'd, As suits the counsel of a God to find ; A pleating bosom-cheat, a fpecious ill, Which felt the curse, yet covets still to feel.
He said, and Vulcan ftrait the Sire commands, To temper mortar with ætherial hands; In such a shape to mold a rising fair, As virgin goddefies are proud to wear ; To make her eyes with diamond-water shine, And form her organs for a voice divine. 'Twas thus the Sire ordain'd; the Power obey'd; And work'd, and wonder'd at the work he made; The faireft, softest, sweetest frame beneath, Now made to feem, now more than seem to breathe.
As Vulcan ends, the chearful Queen of Charms Claip'd the new-panting creature in her arms : From that embrace a fine complexion spreaci, Where mingled whiteness glow'd with softer red. Then in a kifs she breath'd her various arts, Of trifling prettily with wounded hearts; A mind for love, but still a changing mind; The lisp affected, and the glance design'd; The sweet confusing bluih, the secret wink, The gentle swimming walk, the courteous sink; The stare for strangeness fit, for scorn the frown; For decent yielding, looks declining down;
The practis'd languish, where well-feign'd desire
Would own its melting in a niutual fire;
Gay smiles to comfort; April showers to move;
And all the nature, all the art of love.
Gold scepter'd Juno next exalts the fair ;
Her touch endows her with imperious air,
Self-valuing fancy, highly-crcited pride,
Strong sovereign will, and some desire to chide;
For which, an eloquence, that aims to vex,
Withi native tropes of anger, arms the sex.
Minerva, kilful goddess, traind the maid
To twirle the spindle by the twisting thread;
To fix the loom, instruct the reeds to part,
Cross the long weft, and clote the web with art,
An useful gift; but what profuse expence,
What world of fashions, took its rise from hence!
Young Hermes next, a close contriving God,
Her brows encircled with his serpent rod;
Then plots and fair excuses fill'd her brain,
The views of breaking amorous vows for gain ;
The price of favours; the designing arts
That aim at riches in contempt of hearts ;
And, for a comfort in the marriage life,
The little piifering temper of a wife.
Full on the fair his beams Apollo flung,
And fond persuasion tipp'd her easy tongue ;
He
gave
her words, where oily flattery lays
The pleasing colours of the art of praise ;
And wit, to scandal exquisitely prone,
Which frets another's spleen to cure its own.
B4.
Thore
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