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POEMS

ON

VARIOUS SUBJECTS;

SELECTED TO ENFORCE

THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE;

And with a View to comprise in

ONE VOLUME

The Beauties of English Poetry.

BY THOMAS TOMKINS.

The Ninth Edition.

The pleafing Art of Poetry's defign'd

To raise the thought, and moralize the mind;
The chafte delights of virtue to infpire,

And warm the bofom with feraphic fire;

Sublime the paffions, lend devotion wings,

And celebrate the FIRST GREAT CAUSE of things.

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BOL

TO THE PUBLIC.

POETRY may be faid to claim our first attention,

as it was originally intended to express our gratitude to the Deity, and teach mankind the most important precepts of religion and virtue; by which the human foul is not only exalted and refined, but the heart is fortified against all the various affaults of human calamities, and by which we are taught to confider happiness as entirely depending on the reflections of our own minds. We fhall be fufficiently convinced of these truths, if we only confider the particular end and defign of the feveral species of poetry.

The EPIC POEM was intended to convey inftructions difguifed under the allegory of an important and heroic action. The ODE, to celebrate the exploits of great men, in order to excite a general imitation in others. TRAGEDY, to infpire us with a deteftation of guilt, 1 y painting the fatal confequences that follow it; and with a veneration for virtue, by representing the rewards and just praises that attend it. COMEDY and SATIRE, to correct whilst they divert us, and wage implacable war with vice and folly. ELEGY, to weep over the tombs of such as

deferve to be lamented; and PASTORAL, to fing the innocence and pleasures of rural life.

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To promote fuch defirable ends, the study of poetry has ever met with the fanction and encouragement of men the most eminent for their wisdom and virtue and it is much to be feared, that those whose imaginations are not enlivened by the charms of Poetry, muft either have their affections depraved, or be naturally infenfible of the exquisite pleasure refulting from the proper exercife of them.

To allure thofe who are inattentive to the excellence of virtue, and direct their thoughts to the nobleft qualifications, induced the Editor of this small volume to select such poems as have been universally efteemed the first ornaments of our language, and admired, not only for purity of fentiment, but for beauty and harmony of numbers.

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