THE FOLLOWING LINES WERE SUNG BY DURASTANTI, 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,
Bold in arms, and bright in arts;
Land secure from all invasion,

All but Cupid's gentle darts!
From your charms, oh who would run?
Who would leave you for the sun?

Happy soil, adieu, adieu ! Let old charmers yield to new.

In arms, in arts, be still more shining; All your joys be still increasing ;

All your tastes be still refining; All your jars for ever ceasing:

But let old charmers yield to new :Happy soil, adieu, adieu !

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK.

Atria longa patent; sed nec cœnantibus usquam, Nec somno locus est: quàm bene non habitas!

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 19, 1739

WITH no poetic ardour fired

I 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
Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie
Stretch'd out in honour's nobler bed,
Beneath a nobler roof-the sky.

Such flames as high in patriots burn
Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;
And such as wicked kings may mourn,
When freedom is more dear than life.

THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS.

OF gentle Philips will I ever sing,
With gentle Philips shall the valleys ring;
My numbers too for ever will I vary,
With gentle Budgell, and with gentle Carey.
Or if in ranging of the names I judge ill,
With gentle Carey and with gentle Budgell:
Oh! may all gentle bards together place ye,
Men of good hearts, and men of delicacy.
May satire ne'er befool ye, or beknave ye,
And from all wits that have a knack, God save ye.

VERSES TO DR. BOLTON,

IN THE NAME OF MRS. BUTLER'S SPIRIT, LATELY DECEASED.

STRIPP'D to the naked soul, escaped from clay,
From doubts unfetter'd, and dissolved in day;
Unwarm'd by vanity, unreach'd by strife,
And all my hopes and fears thrown off with life;
Why am I charm'd by friendship's fond essays,
And though unbodied, conscious of thy praise?
Has pride a portion in the parted soul?
Does passion still the firmless mind control!
Can gratitude out-pant the silent breath!
Or a friend's sorrow pierce the gloom of death!
No-'tis a spirit's nobler task of bliss ;

That feels the worth it left, in proofs like this;
That not its own applause, but thine approves,
Whose practice praises, and whose virtue loves;
Who livest to crown departed friends with fame;
Then dying, late, shalt all thou gavest reclaim.

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.
Blest satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd, vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest 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.

II.

ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL,

ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE TO KING WILLIAM III. 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,
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 removed,
At length enjoys that liberty he loved.

IIL.

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

ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS,

PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIÆ :
VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR
ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, XXXV.

OB. FEB. XIV. MDCCXX.

STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear!
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
Praised, wept, and honour'd, by the muse he loved.

V.

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,
And near thy SHAKESPEAR place thy honour'd bust.
Oh, next him, skill'd to draw the tender tear,
For never heart felt passion more sincere ;
To nobler sentiment to fire the brave,
For never Briton more disdain'd a slave.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest;
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest!
And blest, that timely from our scene removed,
Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved.

To these, so mourn'd in death, so loved in life!
The childless parent, and the widow'd wife,
With tears inscribes this monumental stone,
That holds their ashes and expects her own.

Beneath a rude and nameless stone1 he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest!
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies
What a whole thankless land to his denies.

Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great, Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays, Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die1.

VI.

ON MRS. CORBET,

WHO DIED OF A CANCER IN HER BREAST.

HERE rests a woman, good without pretence,
Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense;
No conquest she, but o'er herself, desired,
No arts essay'd, but not to be admired.
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinced that virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so composed a mind;
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refined;
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried!
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

IX.

ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS.

IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, 1729.

HERE, WITHERS, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,
Thy country's friend, but more of human kind.
O born to arms! O worth in youth approved!
O soft humanity, in age beloved!

For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear,
And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere,

WITHERS, adieu! yet not with thee remove
Thy martial spirit, or thy social love!
Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
Still leave some ancient virtues to our age:
Nor let us say (those English glories gone)
The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

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,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great.
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,

Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go live! for Heaven's eternal year is thine,
Go, and exalt thy mortal to divine.

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,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these tears, mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites, a stone, a verse, receive;
'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!

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;

1 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.

OF manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
And uncorrupted even among the great:
Above temptation, in a low estate,
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms-Here lies GAY.

1 Imitated from the famous Epitaph on Raphael :-
"Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci

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,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a sinking state;
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear,
Or sadly told, how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had shone approved,
The senate heard him, and his country loved.
Yet softer honours and less noisy fame
Attend the shade of gentle BUCKINGHAM:
In whom a race, for courage famed and art,
Ends in a milder merit of the heart;
And chiefs or sages long to Britain given,
Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven.

XV.

FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

HEROES and KINGS! your distance keep:
In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flatter'd folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

UNDER this marble, or under this sill,
Or under this turf, or e'en what they will;
Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,
Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head,
Lies one who ne'er cared, and still cares not a pin
What they said, or may say, of the mortal within:
But, who living and dying, serene still and free,
Trusts in GOD, that as well as he was, he shall be.

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 inconsistent, 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, maxims, 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.

EPISTLE I.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN, WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE.

Of Man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future 'state, that all his happiness in the present depends. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of man's error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his dispensations. V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfections of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable. VII. That, throughout the whole visible world, a universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that reason alone countervails all the other faculties. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire. X. The consequence of all the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state.

AWAKE, MY ST. JOHN ! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;

A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot,
Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

I. Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,
"Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied Being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee ?
II. Presumptuous Man! the reason would'st
thou find,

Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man :
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has placed him wrong?

Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God's, one single can its end produce; Yet serves to second too some other use. So Man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; "Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains

His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suffering; check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect he ought:
His knowledge measured to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to-day is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book

of fate,

All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits

know:

Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven :
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined, from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.