Happy indeed, to bid the lay
Truth and Tafte, at once, convey!-

Oh, happier still, could thy controul,
Bright WISDOM! fanctify the whole.

From youthful days to latest year, Mellifluous to my lift'ning ear,

Thy numbers, POPE, have drawn along

My fense enraptur'd by thy fong;

Nay, mid those hours of sport or play

(The luftre lov'd of vernal day!)

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"leaves, and flowers, and fruit; fo that great part of it must be written, as it were, by "the Reader." I fay, agreeable to that now known plan, and which therefore it would be tiresome to repeat, it tempted me again to a deviation from the ftrait line, drawn by the fascination of fo alluring a subject of excursion; I even fat down under this idea to a little Episode from it in verfe, that, could I have executed it to my satisfaction, might not perhaps fo ill have prefaced the Epifode we are really coming to; I even compofed ten or twelve lines for that purpose, but not at all fatisfying my own tafte, I afterwards expunged them, though ftill, it is feen, defirous of not parting with my beloved fubject without any notice at all; my above quoted profe-fentences were meant as the basis of my poetical fling, but that failing me, I will flatter myself enough to suppose my reader of taste not to be averse to the seeing those my quondam effusions on Taste, and which, I will also suppose, he will not, (like the Country Gentlemen in Mr. Tickle's most ingenious playfulness of Anticipation, for whose fake he translated, he said, his French quotations) no, for which he will not, as fome fine gentlemen-critics I have, however, in my eye, might do, have wanted more writing or dilatation than is contained in the fentences themselves.

E'en then, when books were fcarcely feen,
Or aught youth's pleasures came between,

Yes then, at times, the happier hour,
Attracted by thy magic pow'r,
Sequefter'd from their festive charms,

Has giv'n thy better to my arms;
Better, as knowing to controul
The joys and feastings-of the foul!
And if, so many lustres flown,

I now give aught-I give thy own;
Yes haply, should the line succeed,
Of poefy to give the meed,

'Twere some chance feed my foul receiv'd
From thy great ftore, that fince has liv'd,
Smother'd fo many luftres through,
And now shoots forth its fruits for you!

• Who, ELOISA! to thy wrongs, While manhood to the foul belongs,

Can the fad fympathifing figh

With heartfelt fuff'rings deny?

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Oh!

While chance or fate directs the ball,

To chance or fate fubfervient all!
See how the Bard has deck'd the tale,
And furely in fome heav'nly gale,
Aërial loves their pinions spread;

And, piteous, hov'ring o'er his head,

Deep through his foul their influence shed

In melting numbers, nature's throe,
And pathos of descriptive woe!

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In dying founds, e'en now my ear
Mellifluous hears, or feems to hear:
Yes fure, it is, attun'd to woe,
Th' harmonic sweep, in heav'nly flow,

Of heaven's minstrels, fadly fweet,

Who all in plaintive concord meet,
In dirges' melancholy tones,

To vent that woe each angel owns.
-No; 'tis the poet's fancy all;

Sad ELOISA, at thy call,

Who now, e'en now, thy woe

Could fympathetic feel and know;

(Oh, murd'rous knife! at thy dread stroke

In choral fhrieks the Angels broke;)

And now, e'en now, by Fancy's fpell,
What kindred angels felt could tell;
Tell how loft joys, joys all their own,
Those kindred beings must bemoan;—
Tell, to love murder'd in its prime,
How love celeftial and fublime
Discordant vibrates; and how shame
Of horrors, nature dares not name,

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790