Concuffeque cadunt urbes, dubiæque minantur;
Quid mirum, fi fe temnunt mortalia fæcla,
Atque poteflates magnas mirafque relinquunt
In rebus vireis Divûm, quæ cuncta gubernent?
What bofom fhrinks not with an awe divine,`
Whose flesh with terrour creeps not, when the ground,
Smit with the ftroke of thunder, flaming, shakes,
And murmurs roll through the long vault of heaven?
Quake not whole nations with their haughty kings?
When Earth's broad surface rocks beneath our feet,
When crafhing cities fall, or tottering threat,
What wonder, if frail man himself despise ;
If wond'rous powers, and vaft, to Gods he give,
To guide this universe with boundless sway?

434

EPISTLE IV. P. 145.

Ver. 107. Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When Nature ficken'd, and each gale was death?
Or why fo long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor

and me?

Archbishop Sheldon, and others, must share in this praise of the good bishop of Marseilles ; fee Pennant's London, p. 328. and the two minifters of Tidefwell in Derbyshire; see Dr. Aikin's Environs of Manchester, p. 485. And in the former couplet our poet might profit from fome anonymous verses in Dryden's Miscellanies, vi. p. 76.

When Nature fickens, and with fainting breath
Struggles beneath the bitter pangs of death:

as the third verfe is a palpable imitation of Virgil, Æn. x. 861.
Rhobe, diù, res fi qua diù mortalibus ulla eft,
Viximus.

O Rhœbus, we have liv'd too long for me,
If life and long were terms that could agree,

Dryden,

Ver, 289. In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy thofe to ruin, these betray!
Mark by what wretched fteps their glory grows,
From dirt and fea-weed as proud Venice rofe;
In each how guilt and greatnefs equal ran,
And all that rais'd the Hero, funk the Man,

Now

Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But ftain'd with blood, or ill-exchang'd for gold.
Then fee them broke with toils, or funk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
Oh wealth ill-fated! which no at of fame
E'er taught to fhine, or fanctifyed from shame!
What greater blifs attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophy'd arches, ftory'd halls invade,
And haunt their flumbers in the pompous fhade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide
Compute the morn and ev'ning to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,

ray,

A tale, that blends their glory with their shame! I have extracted the whole of this fublime invective, that the particular afpect of our satirist on the circumstances of Marlborough's life may be more diftinctly seen amidft this general cenfure of military glories.

The fecond claufe of the firft verfe, and the fecond couplet, relate to his intrigue with the Duchefs of Cleveland, for which I refer the reader to the Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 563, or Ledi ard's life, pp. 18 and 19.

The third and fourth couplets have a view to his fuppofed peculation as commander in chief, and his prolongation of the war on this account, to which we must refer alfo the discarded variation at his first Moral Effay, ver. 86.

Triumphant leaders, at an army's head,

Hemm'd round with glories, pilfer cloth or bread:
As meanly plunder, as they bravely fought;

Now fave a people, and now fave a groat.

The fixth couplet is explained by that charge of avarice which is ufually brought against him, and which gave rife to that epigram upon the bridge in Blenheim-Park:

The spacious arch his vast ambition shows;
The ftream an emblem of his bounty flows.

The application of the following lines to his Duchefs, the palace at Blenheim, and his fecond infancy, fo finely touched by Johnfon in his Vanity of Human Wishes, is too obvious to need more than a fimple admonition to direct the attention of the reader.

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. P. 197.

Ver. 17. What bleffings thy free bounty gives,
Let me not caft away;

For God is paid when Man receives :

T' enjoy is to obey.

Athenaus, in his compilations, ii. 3. quotes a paffage from Alexis, which contains a pleafing fentiment of the fame complexion, as follows:

Let Fortune's fav'rites in broad funshine live,
And God's benignity difplay to all.

Then, only then, the bounteous Donor
reaps
His recompenfe, when man enjoys the boon.
The niggard and penurious, who shuts up
The ftores cœleftial with close-handed care,
He views difpleas'd, and soon withdraws the gift.

Ver. 49. To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies.

Lucan, ix. 578. has an admirable passage of this kind
Eftne Dei fedes, nifi terra, et pontus, et aër,
Et cœlum, et virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultrà ?
Jupiter eft quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris.
Is there a place, that God would choose to love
Beyond this earth, the feas, yon heaven above,
And virtuous minds, the nobleft throne of Jove?
Why feek we farther then? Behold around,
How all thou feeft does with the God abound;
Jove is alike in all, and always to be found.

Rowe.

MORAL

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE 1. P. 207.

Ver. 256. Euclio was defigned for Sir Charles Duncombe of Helmfley; who is alluded to again in Imitations of Horace, ii. Sat. ii. fin.

And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a fcriv'ner, or a city knight:

and who divided his eftates in Yorkshire and Wilts among different branches of his family. B.

See note A. in the Biog. Brit. Art. Duncombe William.

EPISTLE II. P. 245.

Ver. 17. Come then, the colours and the ground prepare!
Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air;

Chufe a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it

Catch, e'er fhe change, the Cynthia of this minute.

This paffage, of elegance fo exquifitely curious, is indebted for

the original conception to Cowley, David. ii. 807.

This he with ftarry vapours fpangles all,

Took in their prime, e'er they grow ripe and fall:
Of a new rainbow, e'er it fret or fade,

The choiceft piece took out, the scarf is made.

EPISTLE III. P. 271.

Ver. 127. The crown of Poland, venal twice an age,
To juft three millions ftinted modeft Gage.
But nobler fcenes Maria's dreams unfold,
Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold.
Congenial fouls! whofe life one avʼrice joins,
And one fate buries in th' Afturian mines.

A Mr. Gage, of Sir Thomas Gage's family, of Hengrave, I think, near Bury, Suffolk; and Lady Mary Herbert (daughter of the Marquis of Powis), whofe mother was a natural daughter

of

of James II.; whence the phrase hereditary realms. In Bowles's Travels into Spain, is fome account of this scheme of working the Afturian mines. B.

Ver. 291. When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch, who living fav'd a candle's end. Edmund Boulter, Efq. executor to Vulture Hopkins, made fo fplendid a funeral for him, that the expences amounted to 76661. B.

Ver. 333. Cutler and Brutus, dying, both exclaim,

"Virtue! and Wealth! what are ye but a name?” Dion Caffius, xlvii. 49. "Brutus made an effort to force his way "from the ftrong pofition, whither he had retreated, into the camp; but, finding this impracticable and learning that fome "of his foldiers had fubmitted to the conquerors, he abandoned "himself to despair: but, difdaining captivity, he refolved on "death; and defired fome of his attendants to dispatch him, "after he had repeated with a loud voice that exclamation of "Hercules, in the Tragedy:

66

"Ah! hapless Virtue! deem'd a truth by me;

"But Fortune's flave thou wert, and a mere empty name."

EPISTLE IV. P. 321.

Ver. 117. Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform juft reflects the other.

An author of congenial tafte; and, on a fimilar fubject, has made ufe of this moft happy couplet:

And scatter'd clumps, that nod at one another,
Each ftiffly waving at its formal brother.

*Landscape, ii. 6. a poem, which the elegant and ingenious author, by a few lectures. on verfification, relative to modes of expreffion too undignified for poetry, and a languishing imbecillity of numbers, would foon polish into greater excellence. The address of Sir Edward Winnington is an admirable specimen of fine tafte and noble fentiment.

* Mr. Knight's Poem.

Ver.