Stood up to dash each vain pretender's hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the Pope!
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden-shoes in scorn;
If there's a critic of distinguish'd rage;
If there's a senior who contemns this age;
Let him to night his just assistance lend,
And be the critic's, Briton's, old-man's, friend.

WH

MACER.

A CHARACTER.

WHEN simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all the' ambition his high soul could feel
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele :
Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these he ventur'd on the town,
And with a borrow'd play outdid poor Crown.
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little;
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.

Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.
So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd,
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Aukward and supple each devoir to pay,
She flatters her good lady twice a-day;
Thought wondrous honest, though of mean degree,
And strangely lik'd for her simplicity:

In a translated suit then tries the town,
With borrow'd pins and patches not her own;
But just endur'd the winter she began,
And in four months a batter'd harridan :
Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale, and shrunk,
To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

SONG BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

Written in the Year 1733.

FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid! o'er my heart;

I a slave in thy dominions:
Nature must give way to art.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian-goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth!
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia! tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion! string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
Bright Apollo ! lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto! king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.

Melancholy, smooth Mæander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.

Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to fate.

I

On a certain Lady at Court.

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, nor gay through folly, An equal mixture of good humour,

And sensible soft melancholy.

"Has the not 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.

On his Grotto at Twickenham, composed of Mars bles, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals.

THOU who shalt stop where Thames" translucent

wave

Shines a broad mirror through the shady cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral 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' Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought,
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through March.
mont's soul.

Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country and be poor.

On receiving from the Right Hon. Lady Frances Shirley a Standish and two Pens.

YES, I beheld the Athenian queen

Descend in all her sober charms;
"And take, (she said, and smil'd serene,)
Take at this hand celestial arms:

"Secure the radiant weapons wield;
This golden lance shall guard desert,
And if a vice dares keep the field,
This steel shall stab it to the heart."

Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
Receiv'd the weapons of the sky,
And dipp'd them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.

"What well? what weapon? (Flavia cries,)
A standish, steel, and golden pen!

It came from Bertrand's, not the skies;
I gave it you to write again.

"But, friend! take heed whom you attack;
You'll bring a house (I mean of peers)
Réd, blue, and green, nay, white and black,
L and all about your ears.

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

As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.

"Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell ye, fool! there's nothing in't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;-
In Dryden's Virgil see the priut.

"Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,
That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll
Of those that sing of these poor eyes."

On Charles Earl of Dorset, in the Church of Withyam, Sussex.

DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died!

The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:*
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.

Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd, vice had his hate and pity too.
Bless'd courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships and his ease.
Bless'd peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets, shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

On Sir William Trumbal, one of the principal Secretaries of State to King William III. who, having resigned his place, died in his retire ment at Easthamsted in Berkshire, 1716.

A Pleasing form, a firm yet cautious mind;

Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd Honour unchang'd, a principle profest, Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest : An honest courtier, yet a patriot too, Just to his prince, and to his country true: Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth, A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth; A generous faith, from superstition free, A love to peace, and hate of tyranny: Such this man was, who now, from earth remov At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd.