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EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES,

ON THE PICTURE OF LADY MARY W. MONTAGU, BY KNELLER.

THE
'HE playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth;
So would I draw (but oh! 'tis vain to try,
My narrow genius does the power deny ;)
The equal lustre of the heavenly mind,
Where every grace with every virtue's join'd;
Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe,
With greatness easy, and with wit sincere;
With just description show the work divine,
And the whole princess in my work should shine.

TO MR. GAY,

WHO CONGRATULATED HIM ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND GARDENS.

AH

H, friend! 'tis true-this truth you lovers know-
In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;
In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens:
Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,
And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.
What are the gay parterre, the chequer'd shade,
The morning bower, the evening colonnade,
But soft recesses of uneasy minds,

To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds?
So the struck deer in some sequester'd part
Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
He, stretch'd unseen in coverts hid from day,
Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.

LINES WRITTEN IN WINDSOR FOREST.

["I arrived in the forest by Tuesday noon. I passed the rest of the day in those woods, where I have so often enjoyed a book and a friend; I made a hymn as I passed through, which ended with a sigh, that I will not tell you the meaning of."-Pope to Martha Blount.]

LL hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade!

ALI

Scene of my youthful loves and happier hours!
Where the kind Muses met me as I stray'd,

And gently press'd my hand, and said "Be ours!—
Take all thou e'er shalt have, a constant Muse:

At Court thou may'st be liked, but nothing gain :
Stock thou may'st buy and sell, but always lose,
And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain.”

ERINNA.

THOUGH sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,
A softer wonder my pleased soul surveys,

The mild Erinna blushing in her bays.

So while the sun's broad beam yet strikes the sight,
All mild appears the moon's more sober light;

Serene in virgin majesty she shines,

And unobserved the glaring orb declines.1

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED OF MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS.

THOU

HOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;

Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,

1 [This simile the poet afterwards inserted in his Moral Essays, Er IV.

Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow:1
Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine without a wish for gold.
Approach: but awful! lo! the Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,2
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor!

ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING
PAPER.

PALLAS grew vapourish once, and odd,

She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess, or for god,

Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.

Jove frown'd, and, "Use," he cried, "those eyes
So skilful, and those hands so taper;

Do something exquisite and wise-"

She bow'd, obey'd him,-and cut paper.

This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,,
Her Burlington do just the same.

1 After ver. 6, in the MS.

"You see that island's wealth, where, only free,
Earth to her entrails feels no tyranny."

2 In the MS.

"To Wyndham's breast the patriot passions stole." [Warburton pointed out these variations, but there were others in this small piece, which seems to have been elaborated with great care. At first the poem opened with "O thou who stopp'st," &c.; the " Egerian grot," was "th' inspiring grot," and the allusion to Marchmont and Wyndham was, "Here stole the honest tear from Marchmont's eye,

Here, Wyndham, thy last sighs for liberty."

The first line recalls one in Samson Agonistes, where Milton has the hant wave."]

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WITH scornful mien, and various toss of air,

Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,
Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,

She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage graced her virgin life,
But charming G--y's lost in P―y's wife.
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind :
O could the sire renown'd in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter's use!
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,

Be what she was, and charm mankind once more!

1 [Anna Maria Gumley, Mrs. Pulteney, was the daughter of John Gumley, of Isleworth, who had amassed a large fortune by carrying on a glass manufactory.]

LINES ON A GROTTO AT CRUX-EASTON, HANTS.

[Warton says this grotto was adorned with shell-work, and was constructed by the Misses Lisle, sisters of Dr. Lisle, Chaplain to the Factory at Smyrna.]

HERE, shunning idleness at once and praise,

This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;
The glittering emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul and shining as her frame;
Beauty which nature only can impart,
And such a polish as disgraces art;

But Fate disposed them in this humble sort,
And hid in deserts what would charm a Court.

SONG,

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.

I.

PLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart,
I a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.

II.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,
All beneath yon flowery rocks.

III.

Thus the Cyprian goddess, weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.

IV.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

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