with a good-humoured confession of his mistake, has printed in the subsequent volume of his Observations on Pope, 8vo. 1769, conceiving that" they will form an agreeable termination of his Preface."

"Watchful Wakefield, late and early
Slumbering o'er the page of Pope,
Wit has caught her critic fairly,
Twisting sand into a rope," &c.

But perhaps the most solemn and successful imposition that ever was practised on an inconsiderate reader, is the Ode on Science; printed (as is also the Love Song by a person of quality) in Pope and Swift's Miscellanies; and which, like that, to judge from the style, is not unlikely to have been the work of Pope.

ODE ON SCIENCE.

O, Heavenly born! in deepest dells
If fairest Science ever dwells

Beneath the mossy cave;
Indulge the verdure of the woods,
With azure beauty gild the floods,
And flow'ry carpets lave.

For melancholy ever reigns
Delighted in the sylvan scenes

With scientific light;

While Dian, huntress of the vales,
Seeks lulling sounds and fanning gales,
Though wrapt from mortal sight.

Yet, Goddess, yet the way explore
With magic rites and heathen lore
Obstructed and depress'd;
Till Wisdom give the sacred Nine,
Untaught, not uninspir'd, to shine

By reason's power redress'd.

When Solon and Lycurgus taught
To moralize the human thought

Of mad opinion's maze,
To erring zeal they gave new laws,
Thy charms, O Liberty, the cause
That blends congenial rays.

Bid bright Astræa gild the morn,
Or bid a hundred suns be born,

To hecatomb the year;
Without thy aid, in vain the poles,
In vain the zodiac system rolls

In vain the lunar sphere.

Come, fairest princess of the throng,
Bring sweet philosophy along
In metaphysic dreams;
While raptur'd bards no more behold
A vernal age of purer gold,
In Heliconian streams.

Drive Thraldom with malignant hand, To curse some other destin'd land,

By Folly led astray;

Iërne bear on azure wing,
Energic let her soar, and sing
Thy universal sway.

So when Amphion bade the lyre
To more majestic sound aspire,

Behold the madding throng,
In wonder and oblivion drown'd,
To sculpture turn'd by magic sound
And petrifying song!

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon; (Envy be silent, and attend!)

I know a reasonable Woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a Friend.

Not warp'd by Passion, aw'd by Rumour,
Not grave through Pride, or gay through Folly,
An equal Mixture of good Humour,
And sensible soft Melancholy.

"Has she no faults then, (Envy says,) Sir ?"
Yes, she has one, I must aver;

When all the World conspires to praise her,
The Woman's deaf, and does not hear.

NOTES.

Ver. 1. I know the thing] Equal in elegance to any compliment that Waller has paid to Saccharissa, especially the last stanza, and the answer to Envy. The Lady addrest was Mrs. Howard, of Marble-hill, bed-chamber woman to Queen Caroline, and afterwards Countess of Suffolk. Warton.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED OF

MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS.

THOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent

wave

Ver. 8. eye the Mine]

Shines a broad Mirror through the shadowy Cave;
Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distil,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow:
Approach. Great NATURE studiously behold!
And eye the Mine without a wish for Gold.
Approach: But awful! Lo! the Aegerian Grot,
Where, nobly pensive, ST. JOHN sate and thought;

NOTES.

On his Grotto] The improving and finishing his Grot was the favourite amusement of his declining years; and the beauty of his poetic genius, in the disposition and ornaments of this romantic recess, appears to as much advantage as in his best contrived Poems. Warburton.

"Aurum irrepertum, et sic melius situm
Cum terra celet."

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 6. in the MS.

5

Horat. 1. 3. od. 3.

You see that Island's wealth, where, only free,
Earth to her entrails feels not Tyranny.

i. e. Britain is the only place in the globe which feels not tyranny even to its very entrails.

Warburton.

Where British sighs from dying WYNDHAM stole, And the bright flame was shot through MARCHMONT'S Soul.

NOTES.

Ver. 9. Aegerian Grot.] These are two charming lines; but are blemished by two bad rhymes, Grot to Thought; scarce excusable in so short a poem, in which every syllable ought to be

correct.

It is remarkable that Juvenal, having mentioned this celebrated cave, takes occasion to inveigh against artificial grotto-work, and adulterating the simple beauties of nature, in lines uncommonly poetical:

66

In vallem Egeria descendimus, et Speluncas
Dissimiles veris; quanto præstantius esset

Numen aquæ, viridi si margine clauderit undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum."
Sat. iii. v. 17.

Milton, in an exquisite Latin poem, addressed to Salsillus, vol. ii. p. 532, has beautifully feigned that Numa is still living in this dark grove and grotto, in the perpetual enjoyment of his Ægeria. Warton.

Ver. 10. Where nobly pensive ST. JOHN] Lord Bolingbroke's account of the conversations, and manner of Pope's friends passing their time in his Garden, is not uninteresting:

"All I dare promise you is, that my thoughts, in what order soever they flow, shall be communicated to you, just as they pass through my mind, just as they used to be when we conversed together on these or any other subject, when we sauntered alone, or, as we have often done, with good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick, among the multiplied scenes of your little Garden." Letter to Sir William Wyndham. Bowles.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 11. Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,] In his MS. it was thus:

To Wyndham's breast the patriot passions stole, which made the whole allude to a certain anecdote of not much consequence to any but the parties concerned. Warburton.