Our ears the lark, the thrush, the turtle, blest,

And Philomela sweetest o'er the rest:

The shades resound with song-O softly tread,

While a whole season warbles round my head.

This to my friend—and when a friend inspires,

My silent harp its master's hand requires,

Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound;

For Fortune plac'd me in unfertile ground;

Far from the joys that with my soul agree,

From wit, from learning-very far from thee.
Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf;
Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf;

Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet,

Rocks at their sides, and torrents at their feet;
Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood,

Whose dull brown Naiads ever sleep in mud:

Yet here content can dwell, and learned ease,

A friend delight me, and an author please;

E'en here I sing, when Pope supplies the theme,
Show my own love, though not increase his fame.

T. PARNELL.

ΤΟ

MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR.

MADAM,

It will be in vain to deny that I

have some regard for this Piece, since I dedicate it to you. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only to divert a few young ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex's little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with

the air of a secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offered to a bookseller, you had the good-nature, for my sake, to consent to the publication of one more correct: this I was forced to, before I had executed half my design, for the machinery was entirely wanting to complete it.

The machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or dæmons, are made to act in a poem: for the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern ladies, let an action be ever so trivial in

itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance. These machines I determined to raise

on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrusian

doctrine of spirits.