EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES, ON THE PICTURE OF LADY MARY W. MONTAGU BY KNELLER. [From Dallaway's Life of Lady Mary.] THE playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, THE LOOKING-GLASS. ON MRS. PULTENEY, WITH scornful mien, and various toss of air, Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair, Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain, To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd On every learned sot; And Garth, the best good Christian he, Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go; Farewell, unhappy Tonson! Lean Philips, and fat Johnson. And Homer (damn him!) calls. And not one muse of all he fed Has yet the grace to mourn. My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Betray, and are betray'd: Poor Y- -rs sold for fifty pounds, -ll is a jade. And B Why make I friendships with the great, When I no favour seek? Still idle, with a busy air, Deep whimsies to contrive; The gayest valetudinaire, Most thinking rake alive. Solicitous for other ends, Though fond of dear repose; Careless or drowsy with my friends, And frolic with my foes. Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days! And Burlington's delicious meal, For salads, tarts, and pease! Adieu to all but Gay alone, Whose soul, sincere and free, Loves all mankind, but flatters none, And so may starve with me. THE FOLLOWING LINES WERE SUNG BY DURAS TANTI, WHEN SHE TOOK HER LEAVE OF THE ENGLISH STAGE. THE WORDS WERE IN HASTE PUT TOGETHER BY MR. POPE, AT THE REQUEST OF THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. GENEROUS, gay, and gallant nation, All but Cupid's gentle darts! Happy soil, adieu, adieu ! In arms, in arts, be still more shining; All your joys be still increasing; All your tastes be still refining; But let old charmers yield to new :- UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S Atria longa patent; sed nec cœnantibus usquam, MART. Epig. SEE, sir, here's the grand approach, This way is for his Grace's coach; There lies the bridge, and here's the clock, Observe the lion and the cock, The spacious court, the colonnade, And mark how wide the hall is made! The chimneys are so well design'd, They never smoke in any wind. This gallery's contrived for walking, The windows to retire and talk in ; The council-chamber for debate, And all the rest are rooms of state. Thanks, sir, cried I, 'tis very fine, But where d'ye sleep, or where d'ye dine? I find by all you have been telling, That 'tis a house, but not a dwelling. VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE, ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT, THE CELEBRATED EARL OF ROCHESTER, SLEPT IN, AT ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, JULY 9, 1739. WITH no poetic ardour fired press the bed where Wilmot lay; That here he loved, or here expired, Begets no numbers, grave or gay. Beneath thy roof, Argyle, are bred THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS. Or gentle Philips will I ever sing, VERSES TO DR. BOLTON, IN THE NAME OF MRS. BUTLER'S SPIRIT, LATELY DECEASED. STRIPP'D to the naked soul, escaped from clay, DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride, II. ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL, ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE TO KING WILLIAM J. WHO HAVING RESIGNED HIS PLACE, DIED IN HIS RETIREMENT AT EASTHAMSTED, IN BERKSHIRE, 1716. A PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind; Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd: Honour unchanged, a principle profest. III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT ; AT THE CHURCH OF STANTON-HARCOURT IN OXFORDSHIRE. 1720. To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near, Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear: Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died. How vain is reason, eloquence how weak! If Pope must tell what HARCOURT cannot speak. Oh let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone, And, with a father's sorrows, mix his own! IV. ON JAMES CRAGGS, Esq. IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY. JACOBUS CRAGGS REGNI MAGNÆ BRITANNIE A SECRETIS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIÆ: OB. FEB. XIV. MDCCXX. STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE, IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY. THY reliques, RowE', to this fair urn we trust, And sacred, place by DRYDEN's awful dust: 1 It is altered, on the monument in the Abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter. Thy reliques, RowE! to this sad shrine we trust, To these, so mourn'd in death, so loved in life! HERE rests a woman, good without pretence, VII. ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HONOURABLE ROBERT DIGBY, AND OF HIS SISTER MARY, ERECTED BY THEIR FATHER THE LORD DIGBY, IN THE CHURCH OF SHERBORNE IN DORSETSHIRE, 1727. Go! fair example of untainted youth, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom, Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb, Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore, IX. ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS. IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, 1729. HERE, WITHERS, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind, For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear, WITHERS, adieu! yet not with thee remove VIII. ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER, IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, 1723. KNELLER, by Heaven and not a master taught, Whose art was nature, and whose pictures thought; The tomb of Mr. Dryden was erected upon this hint by the Duke of Buckingham; to which was originally intended this Epitaph: "This Sheffield raised. The sacred dust below Was Dryden once: The rest who does not know?" which the Author since changed into the plain inscription now upon it, being only the name of that great Poet: J. DRYDEN. Natus Aug. 9. 1613. Mortuus Maij 1. 1700. JOANNES SHEFFIELD DUX BUCKINGHAMIENSIS POSUIT. XI. ON MR. GAY. IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, 1732. Or manners gentle, of affections mild; With native humour tempering virtuous rage, 1 Imitated from the famous Epitaph on Raphael:- Rerum magna parens, et moriente, mori." XII. INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON, IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY. ISAACUS NEWTONUS: Quem Immortalem Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum: Mortalem Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: GOD said, Let Newton be! and all was light. XIV. ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 1735. IF modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, XV. FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY. HEROES and KINGS! your distance keep: ANOTHER ON THE SAME. UNDER this marble, or under this sill, AN ESSAY ON MAN. TO H. ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE. THE DESIGN. HAVING proposed to write some pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his nature and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being. The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points; there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind, by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory, of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms ut terly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate, yet not in consistent, and a short, yet not imperfect, system of ethics. This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxíms, or precepts, so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but is true. I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity. What is now published, is only to be considered as a general map of MAN, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated Consequently in the charts which are now to follow. these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. |