From his deep fund our Author largely draws;
Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.
Though plays for honour in old time he made,
'Tis now for better reasons-to be paid.
Believe him, he has known the world too long,
And seen the death of much immortal song.
He says, poor poets lost, while players won,
As pimps grow rich, while gallants are undone.
Though Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,
The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.
Fame is at best an unperforming cheat;
But 'tis substantial happiness to eat.
Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,
Nor force him to be damn'd to get his living.

WHEN

HEN learning, after the long Gothic night,

Fair o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising Sophonisba rose;
The Tragic Muse, returning wept her woes.

With her the Italian scene first learn'd to glow,
And the first tears for her were taught to flow:
Her charms the Gallic Muses next inspired;
Corneille himself saw, wonder'd, and was fired.

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What foreign theatres with pride have shown,
Britain, by juster title, makes her own.
When freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight,
And hers, when freedom is the theme, to write.
For this a British author bids again

The heroine rise to grace the British scene:
Here, as in life, she breathes her genuine flame,
She asks, what bosom has not felt the same?
Asks of the British youth-is silence there?
She dares to ask it of the British fair.

20

PROLOGUE TO THOMSON'S SOPHONISBA.

[Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Pope, says, "I have been told by Savage, that of the Prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it, and that the concluding lines were added by Mallet "]:

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To-night our homespun author would be true
At once to nature, history, and you.
Well pleased to give our neighbours due applause,
He owns their learning, but disdains their laws,
Not to his patient touch, or happy flame,
"Tis to his British heart he trusts for fame.
If France excel him in one freeborn thought,
The man, as well as poet, is in fault.
Nature! informer of the poet's art,

Whose force alone can raise or melt the heart,
Thou art his guide; each passion, every line,
Whate'er he draws to please, must all be thine.
Be thou his judge: in every candid breast
Thy silent whisper is the sacred test.

MUS

USE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends,
And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain,
Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

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309

OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

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[The lines by Buckingham compliment Pope on his Iliad, and also on his worth as a companion and friend. For a notice of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, by Pope, see Essay on Criticism, vol. ii. p. 214. This nobleman lived in great state in Buckingham House, St. James's Park. He built the mansion in 1703, and in a letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury describes minutely its fine gardens, noble terrace, park, and canal, with its magnificent apartments, pictures, sculpture, and other decorations. He dwells with pleasure on the avenues to the house along St. James's Park, “through rows of goodly elms on one hand, and gay flourishing limes on the other;" and on his book-closet at the end of the green-house, under the windows of which was a little wilderness, full of blackbirds and nightingales. Pope said the stately mansion was a country house in the summer, and a town house in the winter. Buckingham House, it is well known, was purchased by George

So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd, 15
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay;
She flatters her good lady twice a day;

Thought wondrous honest, though of mean degree,
And strangely liked for her simplicity:
In a translated suit, then tries the town,
With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own:
But just endured 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.

UMBRA.

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[When first published in the Miscellanies the piece had the following note attached :-"He requested, by public advertisements, the aid of the ingenious to make up a Miscellany in 1713." Ambrose Philips seems to be the person satirized. On the accession of George I., when the Whigs obtained power, Philips was put into the commission of the peace, and appointed a Commissioner of the Lottery. He afterwards went to Ireland with Dr. Boulter, Primate of Ireland, and was made Registrar of the Prerogative Court at Dublin. The "borrowed play" was the "Distrest Mother," from Racine, which was highly successful. The allusion to "simplicity" is no doubt intended to refer to Philips's Pastorals, and that to the "translated suit" to his Persian Tales, translated for Tonson. The next piece, "Umbra," refers also to Philips, or to James Moore Smythe, the "phantom Moore" of the Dunciad. As Philips was a regular frequenter of Button's Coffee-house, and intimate with Steele, Addison, Tickell, &c., he was most likely the party.]

CLOSE to the best-known author Umbra sits,

The constant index to old Button's wits.
"Who's here?" cries Umbra : 66
only Johnson,"--" O!
Your slave," and exit; but returns with Rowe:
"Dear Rowe, let's sit and talk of tragedies:"
Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies.
Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel,
And in a moment fastens upon Steele;

But cries as soon, "Dear Dick, I must be gone,
For, if I know his tread, here's Addison."

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Says Addison to Steele,
""Tis time to go;"
Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.
Poor Umbra, left in this abandon'd pickle,
E'en sits him down and writes to honest Tickell.
Fool! 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam;
Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

SANDYS' GHOST;

OR A PROPER NEW BALLAD ON THE NEW OVID'S METAMORPHOSIS: AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY PERSONS OF QUALITY.

[The last literary labour of Sir Samuel Garth, before his death in 1718, was engaging several " ingenious gentlemen," as he calls them, to undertake a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Among these were Mainwaring, Croxall, Ozell, Vernon, Harvey, Leonard Welsted, &c. Garth himself translated the fourteenth book and part of the fifteenth, besides contributing a preface.]

YE Lords and Commons, men of wit,

And pleasure about town;

Read this ere you translate one bit
Of books of high renown.

Beware of Latin authors all!

Nor think your verses sterling,
Though with a golden pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a berlin :

For not the desk with silver nails,
Nor bureau of expense,

Nor standish well japann'd, avails
To writing of good sense.

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Hear how a ghost in dead of night,
With saucer eyes of fire.

In woful wise did sore affright
A wit and courtly 'squire.

Rare imp of Phoebus, hopeful youth!
Like puppy tame that uses

To fetch and carry, in his mouth,
The works of all the Muses.