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Nor e'er approach my rural seat,
To tempt me to be base and great.
And, Goddess, this kind office done,
Charge Venus to command her son
(Wherever else she lets him rove)
To shun my house, and field, and grove;
Peace cannot dwell with Hate or Love.
Hear, gracious Rhea, what I say,
And thy petitioner shall pray.

WRITTEN IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS.

GIVEN TO THE DUKE OF SHREWSBURY IN FRANCE,
AFTER THE PEACE, 1713.

DICTATE, O mighty judge, what thou hast seen
Of cities and of courts, of books and men,
And deign to let thy servant hold the pen.

Through ages, thus, I may presume to live,
And from the transcript of thy prose receive
What my own short-lived verse can never give.

Thus shall fair Britain, with a gracious smile,
Accept the work, and the instructed isle,
For more than treaties made, shall bless my

toil.

Nor longer hence the Gallic style preferred,
Wisdom in English idiom shall be heard,
While Talbot tells the world where Montaigne

err'd.

WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF

MEZERAY'S HISTORY OF FRANCE.

WHATE'ER thy countrymen have done
By law and wit, by sword and gun,
In thee is faithfully recited;

And all the living world that view
Thy work, give thee the praises due,
At once instructed and delighted.

Yet for the fame of all these deeds
What beggar in the invalids,

With lameness broke, with blindness smitten, Wish'd ever decently to die,

To have been either Mezeray

Or any monarch he has written?

'Tis strange, dear author, yet it true is,
That down from Pharamond to Louis,
All covet life, yet call it pain,
And feel the ill, yet shun the cure ;-
Can sense this paradox endure !
Resolve me, Cambray, or Fontaine.

The man in graver tragic known
(Though his best part long since was done)
Still on the stage desires to tarry ;
And he who play'd the Harlequin,
After the jest still loads the scene,
Unwilling to retire, though weary.

WRITTEN IN

THE NOUVEAUX INTERETS

DES PRINCES DE L'EURope.

BLESS'D be the princes who have fought
For pompous names, or wide dominion;
Since by their error we are taught
That happiness is but opinion.

WRITTEN IN AN OVID.
OVID is the surest guide

You can name to show the way
To any woman, maid, or bride,
Who resolves to go astray.

VERSES

SPOKEN TO LADY HENRIETTA-CAVENDISH-HOLLES HARLEY, COUNTESS OF OXFORD, IN THE LIBRARY OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, NOV. 9, 1719.

MADAM,

SINCE Anna visited the Muses' seat,

(Around her tomb let weeping angels wait)
Hail thou, the brightest of thy sex, and best,
Most gracious neighbour and most welcome guest:
Not Harley's self, to Cam and Isis dear,
In virtues and in arts great Oxford's heir,
Not he such present honour shall receive,
As to his consort we aspire to give.

To

Writings of men our thoughts to-day neglects, pay due homage to the softer sex

Plato and Tully we forbear to read,

And their great followers whom this House has To study lessons from thy morals given,

[bred, And shining characters impress'd by Heaven. Science in books no longer we pursue, Minerva's self in Harriet's face we view; For when with Beauty we can Virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine.

Their pious incense let our neighbours bring To the kind memory of some bounteous king: With grateful hand due altars let them raise To some good knight's, or holy prelate's praise; We tune our voices to a nobler theme, Your eyes we bless, your praises we proclaim; Saint John's was founded in a woman's name. Enjoin'd by statute, to the Fair we bow; In spite of time we keep our ancient vow; What Margaret Tudor was, is Harriet Harley

now.

ON A PICTURE

OF SENECA DYING IN A BATH. BY JORDAIN.

AT THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF EXETER'S

AT BURLEIGH-HOUSE.

WHILE cruel Nero only drains

The moral Spaniard's ebbing veins,
By study worn, and slack with age,
How dull, how thoughtless, is his rage!
Heighten'd revenge he should have took;
He should have burn'd his tutor's book,
And long have reign'd supreme in vice;
One nobler wretch can only rise;

"Tis he whose fury shall deface
The Stoic's image in this piece;
For while unhurt, divine Jordain,
Thy work, and Seneca's, remain ;
He still has body, still has soul,

And lives and speaks, restored and whole.

ON SEEING THE

DUKE OF ORMOND'S PICTURE

AT SIR GODFREY KNELLER'S.

OUT from the injured canvass, Kneller, strike
These lines, too faint; the picture is not like.
Exalt thy thought, and try thy toil again :
Dreadful in arms, on Landen's glorious plain
Place Ormond's duke: impendent in the air
Let his keen sabre, comet-like, appear,

Where'er it points denouncing death: below
Draw routed squadrons, and the numerous foe
Falling beneath, or flying from his blow;
Till weak with wounds, and cover'd o'er with blood,
Which from the patriot's breast in torrents flow'd,
He faints his steed no longer feels the rein,
But stumbles o'er the heap his hand had slain'.
And now exhausted, bleeding, pale he lies,
Lovely, sad object! in his half-closed eyes
Stern Vengeance yet and hostile Terror stand:
His front yet threatens, and his frowns command.
The Gallic chiefs their troops around him call,
Fear to approach him, though they see him fall.-

1 After his horse was shot under him, and he had received many wounds, the Duke of Ormond was taken prisoner at the battle of Landen.

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