In vain to Deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
'Tis hers the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.
When Interest calls off all her sneaking train,
And all the obliged desert, and all the vain ;
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last lingering friend has bid farewell.
Ev'n now she shades thy evening walk with bays
(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise);
Ev'n now, observant of the parting ray,

Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day;
Through Fortune's cloud one truly great can see,
Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he.

the storm, let the danger be what it would. He was a steady man, and had a great firmness of soul, and would

have died unconcernedly; or perhaps, like Sir Thomas More, with a jest in his mouth."-POPE to Spence.

VOL. III. POETRY.

EPISTLE VI.

ΤΟ

JAMES CRAGGS, Esq.,

SECRETARY OF STATE.

EPISTLE VI.

ΤΟ

JAMES CRAGGS, Esq.,

SECRETARY OF STATE.'

A SOUL as full of worth, as void of Pride,
Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide,
Which nor to guilt nor fear its caution owes,
And boasts a warmth that from no passion flows.
A face untaught to feign; a judging eye,

That darts severe upon a rising lie,

And strikes a blush through frontless flattery.

All this thou wert, and being this before,

Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a foe these Virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed,-a Minister, but still a Man.

1 James Craggs the younger was made Secretary of State for War in 1717. According to Lady M. W. Montagu, he owed his success chiefly to the favour of the Countess of Platen, through whose influence he was named for Cofferer by George I. on his accession. He was afterwards employed on diplomatic missions. He was

5

10

deeply mixed up in the South Sea Scheme, having accepted £30,000 of the fictitious stock, given away by the Company to facilitate the progress of the Bill through the House of Commons; but he was spared the disgrace of a public exposure by dying of small pox in 1720, being then in the thirty-sixth year of his age.