There liv'd in primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;
Who, though the house was up, delighted sate
Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate:
In all but this a man of sober life,

Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell,
And much too wise to walk into a well.

Him the damn'd doctors and his friends immur'd, They bled, they cupp'd, they purg'd; in short, they Whereat the gentleman began to stare— [cur'd ; My friends! (he cried) pox take you for your care! That from a patriot of distinguish'd note

Have bled and purg'd me to a simple vote.'

Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate: Wisdom (curse on it!) will come soon or late. There is a time when poets will grow dull: I'll e'en leave verses to the boys at school: To rules of poetry no more confin'd, I'll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind, Teach every thought within its bounds to roll, And keep the equal measure of the soul.

Soon as I enter at my country door, My mind resumes the thread it dropt before; Thoughts which at Hyde-park Corner I forgot, Meet and rejoin me in the pensive grot: There all alone, and compliments apart, I ask these sober questions of my heart:

If, when the more you drink the more you crave, You tell the doctor; when the more you have

The more you want, why not, with equal ease,
Confess as well your folly as disease?

The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
'Men only feel the smart, but not the vice.'
When golden angels cease to cure the evil,
You give all royal witchcraft to the devil:
When servile chaplains1 cry, that birth and place
Endue a peer with honour, truth, and grace,
Look in that breast, most dirty D—! be fair,
Say, can you find out one such lodger there?
Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach,
You go to church to hear these flatterers preach.
Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit,
A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit,
The wisest man might blush, I must agree,
If D- lov'd sixpence more than he.

If there be truth in law, and use can give

A property, that's yours on which you live.

2

Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford

Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
All Worldly's hens, nay, partridge, sold to town,
His venison too, a guinea makes your own:
He bought at thousands what with better wit
You purchase as you want, and bit by bit:
Now, or long since, what difference will be found,
You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,

An allusion to a dedication by Dr. Kennet to the Duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain.

2 A farm over against Hampton Court.

Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln Fen,
Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat,
Buy every pullet they afford to eat;

Yet these are wights who fondly call their own
Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.
The laws of God, as well as of the land,
Abhor a perpetuity should stand:

Estates have wings, and hang in fortune's power,
Loose on the point of every wavering hour,
Ready by force, or of your own accord,

By sale, at least by death, to change their lord. Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou

have?

Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.
All vast possessions, (just the same the case
Whether you call them villa, park, or chase,)
Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail?
Join Cotswood hills to Saperton's fair dale;
Let rising granaries and temples here,
There mingled farms and pyramids, appear,
Link towns to towns with avenues of oak,
Enclose whole downs in walls; 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.
Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptur'd high,
Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,
There are who have not—and, thank Heaven,

there are

Who, if they have not, think not worth their care. Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find

Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:

Leave such to trifle with more grace

and ease,

Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

THE FIRST ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK

OF HORACE.

TO VENUS.

AGAIN? new tumults in my breast?

Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne.
Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms,
Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms.
Mother too fierce of dear desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires:
To number five direct your doves,

There spread round Murray1 all your blooming

loves;

Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With every sprightly, every decent part;
Equal the injur'd to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend:
He, with a hundred arts refin'd,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind :
To him each rival shall submit,

1 Afterwards Lord Mansfield.

Make but his riches equal to his wit.
Then shall thy form the marble grace,

(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face: His house, embosom'd in the grove,

Sacred to social life and social love,

Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,
Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:
Thither the silver sounding lyres

Shall call the smiling loves and young desires;
There every grace and muse shall throng,
Exalt the dance, or animate the song ;
There youths and nymphs, in consort gay,
Shall hail the rising, close the parting day.
With me, alas! those joys are o'er;
For me the vernal garlands bloom no more.
Adieu fond hope of mutual fire,
The still believing, still renew'd desire:
Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,

And all the kind deceivers of the soul!
But why? ah! tell me, ah! too dear,
Steals down my cheek th' involuntary tear?
Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,
Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee?
Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam,

Absent I follow through th' extended dream;
Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms,

And now you burst (ah, cruel!) from my arms, And swiftly shoot along the mall,

Or softly glide by the canal;

Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,

And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.