PHRYNE had talents for mankind,
Open she was, and unconfined,
Like some free port of trade:
Merchants unloaded here their freight,
And agents from each foreign state,
Here first their entry made.
Her learning and good breeding such,
Whether the Italian or the Dutch,
Spaniards or French came to her:
To all obliging she'd appear:
'Twas Si Signor, 'twas Yaw Mynheer,
Twas S'il vous plait, Monsieur.
Obscure by birth, renowned by crimes,
Ttill changing names, religions, climes,
At length she turns a bride:
In diamonds, pearls, and rich brocades,
She shines the first of battered jades,
And flutters in her pride.
So have I known those insects fair
(Which curious Germans hold so rare)
Still vary shapes and dyes;
Still gain new titles with new forms;
First grubs obscene, then wriggling worms,
Then painted butterflies.
THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON.
PARSON, these things in thy possessing
Are better than the bishop's blessing.
A wife that makes conserves; a steed
That carries double when there's need:
1 Jonathan Swift (Dean), born 1667, died 1745. He was the intimate friend of Pope.
October store, and best Virginia,
Tithe-pig, and mortuary guinea:
Gazettes sent gratis down, and franked,
For which thy patron's weekly thanked:
A large Concordance, bound long since:
Sermons to Charles the First, when Prince;
A chronicle of ancient standing;
A Chrysostom to smooth thy band in.
The Polyglot-three parts,-my text,
Howbeit,-likewise--now to my next.
Lo here the Septuagint,--and Paul,
To sum the whole, the close of all.
He that has these, may pass his life,
Drink with the squire, and kiss his wife;
On Sundays preach, and eat his fill;
And fast on Fridays--if he will;
Toast Church and Queen, explain the news
Talk with church-wardens about pews,
Pray heartily for some new gift,
And shake his head at Doctor S
The hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's "House of Fame." The design is in a manner entirely altered, the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third book of "Fame," there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title: wherever any hint is taken from him, the passage itself is set down in the marginal notes.
In that soft season, when descending shower's1
Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flow'rs;
When opening buds salute the welcome day,
And earth relenting feels the genial ray;
As balmy sleep had charmed my cares to rest,
And love itself was banished from my breast,
(What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings)
A train of phantoms in wild order rose,
And, joined, this intellectual scene compose.
I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies; The whole creation open to my eyes:
In air self-balanced hung the globe below,
Where mountains rise and circling oceans flow;
Here naked rocks, and empty wastes were seen,
There tow'ry cities, and the forests green;
Here sailing ships delight the wand'ring eyes:
There trees, and intermingled temples rise;
Now a clear sun the shining scene displays,
The transient landscape now in clouds decays.
1 This poem is introduced in the manner of the Provencal poets, whose works were for the most part visions, or pieces of imagination, and constantly descriptive. From these Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrow the idea of their poems. See the "Trionfi" of the former, and the "Dream," "Flower and the Leaf," &c., of the latter. The author of this therefore chose the same sort of exordium.-Pope,
O'er the wide prospect as I gazed around,
Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound,
Like broken thunders that at distance roar,
Or billows murm'ring on the hollow shore:
Then gazing up, a glorious pile beheld,
Whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds concealed.
High on a rock of ice the structure lay,
Steep its ascent, and slipp'ry was the way;
The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone,
And seemed, to distant sight, of solid stone.
Inscriptions here of various names I viewed,
The greater part by hostile time subdued;
Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
And poets once had promised they should last.
Some fresh engraved appeared of wits renowned;
I looked again nor could their trace be found.
Critics I saw, that other names deface,
And fix their own, with labour, in their place:
Their own, like others, soon their place resigned,
Or disappeared, and left the first behind.
Nor was the work impaired by storms alone,
But felt th' approaches of too warm a sun;
For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays
Not more by envy than excess of praise.
Yet part no injuries of heav'n could feel,
Like crystal faithful to the graving steel:
The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade,
Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade.
Their names inscribed unnumbered ages past
From time's first birth, with time itself shall last;
These ever new, nor subject to decays,
Spread, and grow brighter with the length of days.
So Zembla's rocks (the beauteous work of frost)1
Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast;
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away,
And on th' impassive ice the lightnings play;
Eternal snows the growing mass supply,
1 Though a strict verisimilitude be not required in the description of this visionary and allegorical kind of poetry, which admits of every wild object that fancy may present in a dream, and where it is sufficient if the moral meaning atone for the improbability, yet men are naturally so desirous of truth, that a reader is generally pleased, in such a case, with some excuse or allusion that seems to reconcile the description to probability and nature. The simile here is of that sort, and renders it not wholly unlikely that a rock of ice should remain for ever, by mentioning something like it in our northern regions agreeing with the accounts of our modern travellers,-Pope,
Till the bright mountains prop th' incumbent sky: As Atlas fixed, each hoary pile appears,
The gathered winter of a thousand years.
On this foundation Fame's high temple stands ;
Stupendous pile! not reared by mortal hands.
Whate'er proud Rome or artful Greece beheld,
Or elder Babylon, its frame excelled,
Four faces had the dome, and every face1
Of various structure, but of equal grace:
Four brazen gates, on columns lifted high,
Salute the diff'rent quarters of the sky.
Here fabled chiefs in darker ages born,
Or worthies old, whom arms or arts adorn,
Who cities raised, or tamed a monstrous race
The walls in venerable order grace:
Heroes in animated marble frown,
And legislators seem to think in stone.
Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appeared,
On Doric pillars of white marble reared,
Crowned with an architrave of antique mold,
And sculpture rising on the roughened gold.
In shaggy spoils here Theseus2 was beheld,
And Perseus dreadful with Minerva's shield:"
There great Alcides stooping with his toil,
Rests on his club, and holds th' Hesperian spoil.
Here Orpheus sings; trees moving to the sound
Start from their roots, and form a shade around:
Amphion there the loud creating lyre
Strikes, and beholds a sudden Thebes aspire!
The temple is described to be square, the four fronts with open gates facing the different quarters of the world, as an intimation that all nations of the earth may alike be received into it. The western front is of Grecian architecture: the Doric order was peculiar. ly sacred to heroes and worthies. Those whose statues are after mentioned were the first names of old Greece in arms and arts.---Pope.
2 The Athenian hero, who was known as the destroyer of monsters and tyrants. He was the son of Egeus, King of Athens. The shaggy spoils probably allude to the Minotaur, which he killed, and thus freed the Athenians from the tribute of human victims which they had to yield to it.
Perseus, a demi-god. Minerva lent him her shield to fight the Gorgon Medusa. When he had slain the Gorgon, he cut off her head, and gave it to Minerva, who fixed it in her Ægis or shield.
That snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore; unconquered virgin:
Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone.
4 Hercules. The "Hesperian spoil" was the golden apples of the Hesperides. "The figure of Hercules is drawn with an eye to the position of the famous statute of Farnese."-Pope.
See notes to the "Thebais."
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