EPIGRAM.

ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS

ROYAL HIGHNESS?.

LINES SUNG BY DURASTANTI? WHEN SHE TOOK LEAVE OF

THE ENGLISH STAGE.

THE WORDS WERE IN HASTE PUT TOGETHER BY MR POPE, AT THE REQUEST OF

THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.

G

EN'ROUS, gay, and gallant nation, Let old charmers yield to new;

Bold in arms, and bright in arts; In arms, in arts, be still more shining; Land secure from all invasion,

All your joys be still increasing; All but Cupid's gentle darts !

All your tastes be still refining; From your charms, oh who would run ? All your jars for ever ceasing: Who would leave you for the sun ?

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

Happy soil, adieu, adieu !

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED OF

;

er

Marbles, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals 3.

'HOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Where ling’ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow :
Approach! Great NATURE studiously behold;
And eye the Mine without a wish for Gold.
Approach; but awful! Lo! th' Egerian Grot,
Where, nobly-pensive, ST JOHN sate and thought;
Where British sighs from dying WYNDHAM stole",
And the bright Aame was shot thro' MARCHMONT'S5 Soul.
Let such, such only tread this sacred Floor,
Who dare to love their Country, and be poor.

10 VERSES TO MR C.1

F

ST JAMES'S PALACE. LONDON, Oct. 22.
EW words are best; I wish you well;

BETHEL, I'm told, will soon be here;
Some morning walks along the Mall,

And ev’ning friends, will end the year.
If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost,
You please to see, on Twit'nam green,

Your friend, your poet, and your host:
For three whole days you here may rest

From Office bus'ness, news and strife;
And (what most folks would think a jest)

Want nothing else, except your wife.

TO MR GAY,

WHO HAD CONGRATULATED MR POPE ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND

GARDENS.

5

H, friend ! 'tis true—this truth you lovers know

Ín vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;
In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains, and of sloping, greens:
Joy lives not here,—to happier seats it fies,
And only dwells where WORTLEY casts her eyes.
What are the gay parterre, the chequer'd shade,
The morning bower, the ev'ning colonnade,
But soft recesses of uneasy minds,
To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds ?
So the struck deer in some sequester'd part
Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
He, stretch'd unseen in coverts hid from day,
Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S HOUSE

AT WOODSTOCK.

Atria longa patent; sed nec conantibus usquam,
Nec somno, locus est: quam bene non habitas.'

MARTIAL, Epigr. [x11. 50. V. 7, 8.] [BLENHEIM, built by Vanbrugh. "In his buildings,' says Sir Joshua Reynolds, there is a greater display of imagination than we shall find perhaps in any other.' At the same time the heaviness of his style of architecture was the subject of the constant ridicule of Horace Walpole and others.]

[Probably Craggs, who was in office at the time when Pope established himself at Twicker ham. ]

SEE

EE, 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 sieep, or where d'ye dine ?
I find, by all you have been telling,
That 'tis a house, but not a dwelling?

IO

15

ON BEAUFORT HOUSE GATE AT CHISWICK.

[The Lord Treasurer Middlesex's house at Chelsea, after passing to the Duke of Beaufort, was called Beaufort House. It was afterwards sold to Sir Hans Sloane. When the House was taken down in 1740, its gateway, built by Inigo Jones, was given by Sir Hans Sloane to the Earlof Burlington, who removed it with the greatest care to his garden at Chiswick, where it may be still seen. See Cunningham's London.]

WAS brought from Chelsea last year,

Inigo Jones put me together;
Sir Hans Sloane let me alone;

Burlington brought me hither.

I ;

LINES TO LORD BATHURST.

[In illustration Mitford refers to Pope's letter to Lord Bathurst of September 13, 1732, where “Mr L.' is spoken of as more inclined to admire God in his greater works, the tall timber.' From Mr Mitford's notes to his edition of Gray's Corre spondence with the Rev. Norton Nichols. As to Lord Bathurst's improvements at Cirencester, to which these lines allude, see Moral Essays, Ep. IV. vv. 186 ff.]

WOOD!" quoth Lewis, and with that

He laugh’d, and shook his sides of fat.
His tongue, with eye that mark'd his cunning,
Thus fell a-reasoning, not a-running:
“Woods are---not to be too prolix-

5 Collective bodies of straight sticks.

“A

I The same idea is used by Lord Chesterfield in his Epigram on Burlington House:

• How will you build, let flatt'ry tell,
And all mankind, how ill you dwell.'

Bowles.

10

It is, my lord, a mere conundrum
To call things woods for what grows under 'em.
For shrubs, when nothing else at top is,
Can only constitute a coppice.
But if you will not take my word,
See anno quint. of Richard Third;
And that's a coppice call’d, when dock’d,
Witness an. prim. of Harry Oct.
If this a wood you will maintain,
Merely because it is no plain,
Holland, for all that I can see,
May e'en as well be term’d the sea,
Or C-byl be fair harangued
An honest man, because not hang'd."

15

20

INSCRIPTION ON A PUNCH-BOWL,

IN THE SOUTH-SEA YEAR (1720), FOR A CLUB, CHASED WITH JUPITER PLACING CALLISTO

IN THE SKIES, AND EUROPA WITH THE BULL.

5

NCE (says an Author ; where, I need not say)

Two Trav'lers found an Oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong,
While Scale in hand Dame Justice past along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well,
“There take” (says Justice) “take ye each a Shell.
We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you:
'Twas a fat Oyster-Live in peace—Adieu.”

10

I Thomas, first Lord Coningsby, a zealous. of Boileau's Second Epistle; and is said to be promoter of the Revolution of 1688. Carru- originally derived from an old Italian comedy. thers.

La Fontaine, who also versified the fable, sub• [There seems no doubt that these terms stituted a judge (named Perrin Dandin) for Jus. ; originated in the South-Sea year; and that they tice'; wherein, according to Boileau's opinion, he gradually came into general use. See a lively erred; inasmuch as it is not the judges only, but discussion of the subject, and of the meaning of all the officers of justice, who empty the pockets the terms, in Notes and Queries for 1859,] of litigants. From a note to Amsterdam edition 3

[This famous fable is narrated at the close (1735) of Euvres de Boileau.]

MY

EPIGRAM.
Lordl complains that Pope, stark mad with gardens,

Has cut three trees, the value of three farthings.
“ But he's my neighbour,” cries the peer polite:

‘And if he visit me, I'll waive the right.” What! on compulsion, and against my will, A lord's acquaintance? Let him file his bill!

66

5

YES

EPIGRAM. [EXPLAINED by Carruthers to refer to the large sums of money given in charity on

account of the severity of the weather about the year 1740.]
TES! 'tis the time, (I cried,) impose the chain,

Destined and due to wretches self-enslaved ;
But when I saw such charity remain,

I half could wish this people should be saved.
Faith lost, and Hope, our Charity begins;

And 'tis a wise design in pitying Heaven,
If this can cover multitude of sins,

To take the only way to be forgiven.

OCCASIONED BY READING THE TRAVELS OF CAPTAIN

LEMUEL GULLIVER.

On the publication of Gulliver's Travels Pope wrote several pieces of humour intended to accompany the work, which he sent to Swift; and they were printed in 1727 under the title of Poems occasioned by reading the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver explanatory and commendatory. Roscoe. [I. II. IV. were also published in the joint Miscellanies.]

I.
TO QUINBUS FLESTRIN, THE MAN-MOUNTAIN.
An Ode by Tilly-Tit, Poet Laureate to His Majesty of Lilliput.

Translated into English.
Namaze,

All thy fire!
Lost I gaze,

Bards of old
Can our eyes

Of him told,
Reach thy size?

When they said
May my lays

Atlas' head
Swell with praise,

Propp'd the skies :
Worthy thee!

See! and believe your eyes!
Worthy me!

See him stride
Muse, inspire,

Valleys wide,

I Lost