THE

TEMPLE

O F

FA M E.

Written in the Year M DCC XI.

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THE hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered, the defcriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not fuffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third book of Fame, there being nothing in the two firft books that answers to their title: wherever any hint is taken from him, the passage itself is fet down in the marginal notes.

Millions of Suppliant Crowds the Shrine attend,
And all degrees before the Goddess bend:
The Poor, the Rich, the Valiant, and the Sage?
And toasting Youth, & narrative Old-Age..

Temple of Fame

FA

M

E.

IN

N that foft feafon, when defcending show'rs
Call forth the greens, and wake the rifing flow'rs
When op'ning buds falute the welcome day,
And earth relenting feels the genial ray ;

As balmy fleep had charm'd my cares to reft,
And love itfelf was banith'd from my breast,
(What time the morn myfterious vifions brings,
While purer flumbers spread their golden wings)*
A train of phantoms in wild order rose,
And join'd, this intellectual scene compofer

10

I ftood, methought, betwixt earth, feas, and skies; The whole creation open to my eyes:

NOTES.

VER. 1. In that foft feafon, etc.] This Poem is introduced in the manner of the Provencial Poets, whofe works were for the most part Vifions, or pieces of imagination, and constantly defcriptive. From thefe, Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrow the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and the Dream, Flower, and the Leaf, etc. of the latter. The Author of this therefore chofe the fame fort of Exordium..

IMITATIONS.

VIR. II, etc.] These verses are hinted from the following of Chaucer, Book ii.

Tho' beheld I fields and plains,
No hills, and now mountains,