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Here, Laft of Britons! let your Names be read; 250
Are none, none living? let me praise the Dead,
And for that Cause which made your Fathers fhine,
Fall by the Votes of their degen'rate Line.

Fr. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,
And write next winter more Essays on Man.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 255. in the MS.

255

Quit, quit these themes, and write Essays on Man.

NOTES.

law is a dreadful precipice, which may well make Truth herfelf tremble. And from thence came the common proverb, Summum jus, fumma injuria. SCRIBL.

VER. ult.] This was the last poem of the kind printed by our author, with a refolution to publifh no more; but to enter thus, in the most plain and folemn manner he could, a fort of PROTEST against that infuperable corruption and depravity of manners, which he had been fo unhappy as to live to fee. Could he have hoped to have amended any, he had continued those attacks; but bad men were grown fo fhameless and fo powerful, that Ridicule was become as unfafe as it was ineffectual. The Poem raised him, as he knew it would, fome enemies; but he had reason: to be fatisfied with the approbation of good men, and the teftimony of his own confcience. R.

ON

Receiving from the Right Hon. the Lady FRANCES SHIRLEY

Y

A STANDISH and Two PENS.

ES, I beheld the Athenian Queen

Defcend in all her fober charms;

"And take (fhe faid, and fmil'd ferene) "Take at this hand celestial arms :

Secure the radiant weapons wield; "The golden lance shall guard Desert, "And if a Vice dares keep the field, "This steel fhall ftab it to the heart."

Aw'd, on my bended knees I fell,
Receiv'd the weapons of the fky;
And dipt them in the fable Well,
The fount of Fame or Infamy.

What well? what weapon? (Flavia cries)
"A ftandish, steel and golden pen;
"It came from Bertrand's, not the skies:

I gave it you to write again.

NOTES.

The Lady Frances Shirley] a Lady whose great Merit Mr. Pope took a real pleasure in celebrating.

A famous toy-fhop at Bath.

But, Friend, take heed whom you attack; "You'll bring a House (I mean of Peers) "Red, Blue, and Green, nay white and black, "Land all about your ears.

"You'd write as smooth again on glass, "And run, on ivory, fo glib,

As not to ftick at fool or afs ",
"Nor stop at Flattery or Fib .

“Athenian Queen! and fober charms !
"I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in't :
" 'Tis Venus, Venus gives thefe arms;
"In Dryden's Virgil fee the print.

"Come, if you'll be a quiet foul,
"That dares tell neither Truth nor Lies',
"I'll lift you in the harmless roll

Of those that fing of thefe poor eyes."

b 'The Dunciad.

NOTES.

The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

Such toys being the ufual prefents from lovers to their miftreffes.

• When the delivers Eneas a fuit of heavenly armour. fi. e. If you have neither the courage to write Satire, nor the application to attempt an Epic poem.-He was then meditating on fuch a work,

C.4

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