P. So proud, I am no slave:

So impudent, I own myself no knave:
So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me:
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone.

O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
To all but Heaven-directed hands denied,
The muse may give thee, but the gods must guide:
Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal;
To rouse the watchman of the public weal,
To virtue's work provoke the tardy hall,
And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.
Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains,
That counts your beauties only by your stains,
Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day!
The MUSE'S wing shall brush you all away:
All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,
All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings;
All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
Like the last gazette, or the last address.

When black ambition stains a public cause,
A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws,
Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar,
Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star.

Not so, when diadem'd with rays divine,

Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine, Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die,

And opes the temple of Eternity.

There, other trophies deck the truly brave,
Than such as ANSTIS1 casts into the grave;
Far other stars than * and ** wear,
And may descend to Mordington from STAIR;2
(Such as on HOUGH'S3 unsullied mitre shine,
Or beam, good DIGBY, from a heart like thine ;)

1 The chief herald at arms. It is the custom, at the funeral of great men, to cast into the grave the broken staves and ensigns of honour.

2 John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, served in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough.

3 Dr. John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby: the one an assertor of the church of England, in opposition to the false

Let Envy howl, while heaven's whole chorus sings,
And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine.
Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,
When Truth stands trembling on the edge of law;
Here, last of Britons! let your names be read;
Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,
And for that cause which made your fathers shine,
Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.

F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,
And write next winter more Essays on Man.

LINES ON RECEIVING FROM THE

RT. HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY

A STANDISH AND TWO PENS.

YES, I beheld the Athenian queen
Descend in all her sober charms;
"And take" (she said, and smiled serene)
"Take at this hand celestial arms:

"Secure the radiant weapons wield;
This golden lance shall guard desert,
And if a vice dares keep the field,

This steel shall stab it to the heart."

measures of King James II.; the other as firmly attached to the causs of that king; both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue.

1 This was the last poem of the kind printed by our author, with a resolution to publish no more, but to enter thus, in the most plain and solemn manner he could, a sort of PROTEST against that insuperable corruption and depravity of manners which he had been so unhappy as to live to see. Could he have hoped to have amended any, he had continued those attacks; but bad men were grown so shameless and so powerful, that ridicule was become as unsafe as it was ineffectual. The poem raised him, as he knew it would, some enemies: but he had reason to be satisfied with the approbation of good men, and the testimony of his own conscience.

Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
Received the weapons of the sky;
And dipt them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.

"What well? what weapon?" (Flavia cries)
"A standish, steel and golden pen !
It came from Bertrand's, not the skies;
I gave it you to write again.

"But, friend, take heed whom you attack;
You'll bring a house (I mean of peers)
Red, blue, and green, nay white and black,
and all about your ears.

"You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run, on ivory, so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.

"Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.
"Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll

Of those that sing of these poor eyes."

ΤΟ

THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED "SUCCESSIO,"

[ELKANAH SETTLE.]

BEGONE, ye critics! and restrain your spite,
Codrus writes on, and will for ever write:
The heaviest muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.
What though no bees around your cradle flew,
Nor on your lips distill'd their golden dew?
Yet have we oft discover'd in their stead
A swarm of drones that buzz'd about your head.

When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,
Attentive blocks stand round you and admire.
Wit pass'd through thee no longer is the same,
As meat digested takes a different name;
But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,
Since no reprisals can be made on thee.

Thus thou may'st rise, and in thy daring flight
(Tho' ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height:
So forced from engines, lead itself can fly,

And ponderous slugs move nimbly through the sky.
Sure Bavius copied Mævius to the full,

And Chœrilus taught Codrus to be dull;
Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er
This needless labour; and contend no more
To prove a dull succession to be true,
Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.

1740.

A FRAGMENT OF A POEM.

O WRETCHED B-! jealous now of all,
What God, what mortal, shall prevent thy fall ?
Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,
And see what succour from the patriot race.
C—, his own proud dupe, thinks monarchs things
Made just for him, as other fools for kings;
Controls, decides, insults thee every hour,
And antedates the hatred due to power.
Thro' clouds of passion P- -'s views are clear,
He foams a patriot to subside a peer;
Impatient sees his country bought and sold,
And damns the market where he takes no gold.
Grave, righteous S- jogs on, till, past belief,

He finds himself companion with a thief.

To purge and let thee blood, with fire and sword, Is all the help stern S- would afford.

That those who bind and rob thee, would not kill, Good Chopes, and candidly sits still. Of Ch-s W- who speaks at all,

No more than of Sir Harry or Sir Paul?

Whose names once up, they thought it was not wrong To lie in bed, but sure they lay too long.

G- -r, C

-m, B

-t, pay thee due regards, Unless the ladies bid them mind their cards.

And C

with wit that must

d, who speaks so well and writes,

Whom (saving W.) every S. harper bites.

Whose wit and

must needs

equally provoke one,

Finds thee, at best, the butt to crack his joke on.
As for the rest, each winter up they run,
And all are clear, that something must be done.
Then urged by C-
-t, or by C -t stopp'd,
and by P

Inflamed by P

dropp'd;

They follow reverently each wondrous wight,
Amazed that one can read, that one can write:
So geese to gander prone obedience keep,
Hiss if he hiss, and if he slumber, sleep.
Till having done whate'er was fit or fine,
Utter'd a speech, and ask'd their friends to dine;
Each hurries back to his paternal ground,
Content but for five shillings in the pound;
Yearly defeated, yearly hopes they give,
And all agree, Sir Robert cannot live.
Rise, rise, great W, fated to appear,
Spite of thyself, a glorious minister!
Speak the loud language princes
And treat with half the

Though still he travels on no bad pretence,
To show

Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue,
Veracious W- and frontless Young;

Sagacious Bub, so late a friend, and there

So late a foe, yet more sagacious H— ?

Hervey and Hervey's school, F-, H——y, ¤——n,

Yea, moral Ebor, or religious Winton.

How! what can O- -w, what can D

The wisdom of the one and other chair,

N- laugh, or D-'s sager,

Or thy dread truncheon, M.'s mighty peer?

What help from J -'s opiates canst thou draw, -k's quibbles voted into law?

Or H