One while they seem to touch the port,
Then straight into the main
Some angry wind, in cruel sport,

The vessel drives again.

At first Disdain and Pride they fear,
Which if they chance to 'scape,
Rivals and Falsehood soon appear,
In a more cruel shape.

By such degrees to joy they come,
And are so long withstood;
So slowly they receive the sum,
It hardly does them good.

"Tis cruel to prolong a pain;
And to defer a joy,

Believe me, gentle Celemene,

Offends the wingéd boy,

An hundred thousand oaths your fears,
Perhaps, would not remove;

And if I gazed a thousand years,
I could not deeper love.

SONG.

PHILLIS, you have enough enjoy'd

The pleasures of disdain;

Methinks your pride should now be cloy'd,

And grow itself again:

Open to love your long-shut breast,
And entertain its sweetest guest.

JOHN POMFRET was minister of Malden, in Bedfordshire. He died of the small-pox, in his thirty-sixth year. It is asked, in Mr. Southey's Specimens of English Poetry, why Pomfret's

Choice is the most popular poem in the English language: it might have been demanded with equal propriety, why London bridge is built of Parian marble.*

FROM "REASON. A POEM."

CUSTOM, the world's great idol, we adore;
And knowing this, we seek to know no more.
What education did at first receive,
Our ripen'd age confirms us to believe.
The careful nurse, and priest, are all we need,
To learn opinions, and our country's creed:
The parent's precepts early are instill'd,
And spoil'd the man, while they instruct the child.
To what hard fate is human kind betray'd,
When thus implicit faith a virtue made;

[Why is Pomfret the most popular of the English Poets? The fact is certain, and the solution would be useful.-Southey's Specimens, vol. i. p. 91.

Pomfret's Choice" exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in

When education more than truth prevails,
And nought is current but what custom seals!
Thus, from the time we first began to know,
We live and learn, but not the wiser grow.
We seldom use our liberty aright,
Nor judge of things by universal light:
Our prepossessions and affections bind
The soul in chains, and lord it o'er the mind;
And if self-interest be but in the case,
Our unexamined principles may pass! [deceive,
Good Heavens! that man should thus himself
To learn on credit, and on trust believe!

our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.-JOHNSON.

Johnson and Southey have written of what was; Mr. Campbell of what is. Pomfret's "Choice" is certainly not now perused oftener than any other composition in our language, nor is Pomfret now the most popular of English poets.]

Better the mind no notions had retain'd,
But still a fair, unwritten blank remain'd:
For now, who truth from falsehood would discern,
Must first disrobe the mind, and all unlearn.
Errors, contracted in unmindful youth, [truth:
When once removed, will smooth the way to
To dispossess the child the mortal lives,
But death approaches ere the man arrives.
Those who would learning's glorious kingdom
find,

The dear-bought purchase of the trading mind,
From many dangers must themselves acquit,
And more than Scylla and Charybdis meet.
Oh! what an ocean must be voyaged o'er,
To gain a prospect of the shining shore!
Resisting rocks oppose th' inquiring soul,
And adverse waves retard it as they roll.

Does not that foolish deference we pay
To men that lived long since, our passage stay?
What odd, preposterous paths at first we tread,
And learn to walk by stumbling on the dead!
First we a blessing from the grave implore,
Worship old urns, and monuments adore!
The reverend sage, with vast esteem we prize;
He lived long since, and must be wondrous wise!
Thus are we debtors to the famous dead,
For all those errors which their fancies bred;

Errors indeed! for real knowledge staid
With those first times, not farther was convey'd:
While light opinions are much lower brought,
For on the waves of ignorance they float:
But solid truth scarce ever gains the shore,
So soon it sinks, and ne'er emerges more.

Suppose those many dreadful dangers past,
Will knowledge dawn, and bless the mind at last?
Ah! no, 'tis now environ'd from our eyes,
Hides all its charms, and undiscover'd lies!
Truth, like a single point, escapes the sight,
And claims attention to perceive it right!
But what resembles truth is soon descried,
Spreads like a surface, and expanded wide!
The first man rarely, very rarely finds

The tedious search of long inquiring minds:
But yet what's worse, we know not what we err;
What mark does truth, what bright distinction
bear?

How do we know that what we know is true?
How shall we falsehood fly, and truth pursue?
Let none then here his certain knowledge boast;
'Tis all but probability at most:

This is the easy purchase of the mind,
The vulgar's treasure, which we soon may find!
But truth lies hid, and ere we can explore
The glittering gem, our fleeting life is o'er.

THOMAS, usually called Tom Brown, the son of a farmer at Shipnel, in Shropshire, was for some time a schoolmaster at Kingston-uponThames, but left the ungenial vocation for the

life of a wit and author, in London. He was a good linguist, and seems rather to have wasted than wanted talent.

SONG.*

To charming Celia's arms I flew,
And there all night I feasted;
No god such transport ever knew,
Or mortal ever tasted.

Lost in sweet tumultuous joy

And bless'd beyond expressing, How can your slave, my fair, said I, Reward so great a blessing? The whole creation's wealth survey, O'er both the Indies wander, Ask what bribed senates give away And fighting monarchs squander. The richest spoils of earth and air, The rifled ocean's treasure, "Tis all too poor a bribe by far,

To purchase so much pleasure.

She blushing cried, My life, my dear, Since Celia thus you fancy,

[*To this song Burns gave what Mrs. Burns emphatically called a brushing.-See Songs of England and Scotland, vol. 1. p. 149.]

Give her-but 'tis too much I fearA rundlet of right Nantzy.

SONG.

WINE, wine in a morning,
Makes us frolic and gay,
That like eagles we soar,

In the pride of the day;
Gouty sots of the night

Only find a decay.
'Tis the sun ripes the grape,
And to drinking gives light:
We imitate him,

When by noon we're at height; They steal wine who take it

When he's out of sight.

Boy, fill all the glasses,

Fill them up now he shines;

The higher he rises

The more he refines,

For wine and wit fall

As their maker declines.

CHARLES SACKVILLE was the direct descendant of the great Thomas Lord Buckhurst. Of his youth it is disgraceful enough to say, that he was the companion of Rochester and Sedley; but his maturer life, like that of Sedley, was illustrated by public spirit, and his fortune enabled him to be a beneficent friend to men of genius. In 1665, while Earl of Buckhurst, he attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war, and finished his well-known song, "To all you ladies now at land," on the day before the sea-fight in which Opdam, the Dutch admiral, was blown up, with all his crew. He was soon after made a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II., and sent on short embassies to France. From James II. he also received some favourable notice, but joined in the opposition to his innovations, and,

with some other lords, appeared at Westminster Hall to countenance the bishops upon their trial. Before this period he had succeeded to the estate and title of the Earl of Middlesex, his uncle, as well as to those of his father, the Earl of Dorset. Having concurred in the Revolution, he was rewarded by William with the office of lord-chamberlain of the household, and with the Order of the Garter; but his attendance on the king eventually hastened his death, for being exposed in an open boat with his majesty, during sixteen hours of severe weather, on the coast of Holland, his health was irrecoverably injured. The point and sprightliness of Dorset's pieces entitle him to some remembrance, though they leave not a slender apology for the grovelling adulation that was shown to him by Dryden in his dedications.

To all you ladies now at land,

We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write:

The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you.

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.

With a fa, &c.

Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost,

By Dutchmen, or by wind:
Our tears we'll send a speedier way,
The tide shall bring them twice a-day.
With a fa, &c.

The king, with wonder and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold;
Because the tides will higher rise,
Than e'er they used of old:
But let him know, it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs.

With a fa, &c.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know Our sad and dismal story;

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe, And quit their fort at Goree:

For what resistance can they find

From men who've left their hearts behind? With a fa, &c.

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse, No sorrow we shall find:

"Tis then no matter how things go,
Or who's our friend, or who's our foe.
With a fa, &c.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main;
Or else at serious ombre play:

But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you.
With a fa, &c.

But now our fears tempestuous grow,
And cast our hopes away;
Whilst you, regardless of our woe,
Sit careless at a play:

Perhaps, permit some happier man
To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.
With a fa, &c.

When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note;

As if it sigh'd with each man's care,
For being so remote;

Think how often love we've made
To you, when all those tunes were play'd.
With a fa, &c.

In justice you cannot refuse

To think of our distress,

THE fame of this poet (says the grave doctor of the last century,) will endure as long as Blenheim is remembered, or cider drunk in England. He might have added, as long as tobacco shall be smoked; for Philips has written more meritoriously about the Indian weed, than about his native apple; and his Muse appears to be more in her element amidst the smoke of the pipe than of the battle.

His father was archdeacon of Salop, and minister of Bampton, in Oxfordshire, where the poet was born. He was educated at Winchester, and afterward at Cambridge. He intended to have followed the profession of physic, and delighted in the study of natural history, but seems to have relinquished scientific pursuits when the reputa

tion of his Splendid Shilling, about the year 1703, introduced him to the patronage of Bolingbroke, at whose request, and in whose house, he wrote his poem on the Battle of Blenheim. This, like his succeeding poem on Cider, was extravagantly praised. Philips had the merit of studying and admiring Milton, but he never could imitate him without ludicrous effect, either in jest or earnest. His Splendid Shilling is the earliest, and one of the best of our parodies; but Blenheim is as completely a burlesque upon Milton as the Splendid Shilling, though it was written and read with gravity. In describing his hero, Marlborough,

[ His diplomatic correspondence is now in the British Museum.]

stepping out of Queen Anne's drawing-room, he unconsciously carries the mock heroic to perfection, when he says,

"His plumy crest

Nods horrible. With more terrific port
He walks, and seems already in the fight."

Yet such are the fluctuations of taste, that contemporary criticism bowed with solemn admiration over his Miltonic cadences. He was meditating a still more formidable poem on the Day of Judgment, when his life was prematurely terminated by a consumption.*

THE SPLENDID SHILLING.

..Sing, heavenly Muse!

Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme,"
A Shilling, Breeches, and Chimeras dire.
HAPPY the man, who void of cares and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains

A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpie, or Town-Hall† repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye
Transfix'd his soul, and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe, or Phillis, he each circling glass
Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile, he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping Penury surrounds,
And Hunger, sure attendant upon Want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
(Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain:
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chill'd fingers; or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well-polish'd jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent!
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton (versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale) when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High over-shadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at th' Arvonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Yclep'd Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renown'd Falern.

Thus while my joyless minutes tedious flow,
With looks demure, and silent pace, a Dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my ærial citadel ascends,

With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly
Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect

[* Fenton, in a letter to the father of the Wartons, makes mention of a copy of verses by Philips against Blackmore. The poem, if recoverable, would be a curiosity.

The fame of Philips will live through his Splendid Shilling and the poetic praises of Thomson and Cowper.] Two noted alehouses at Oxford in 1700.

Through sudden fear; a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and (wonderful to tell!)
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow,
Entrench'd with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes; (ye gods avert
Such plagues from righteous men!) Behind him
stalks

Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar call'd
A Catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods,
With force incredible, and magic charms,
Erst have endued; if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont)
To some enchanted castle is convey'd,
Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains,
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of Money, Pallas sets the captive free.

Beware, ye Debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallow'd touch. So (poets sing)
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowell'd web
Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable, nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue;
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make: with eager strides,
She towering flies to her expected spoils;
Then, with envenom'd jaws, the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.

So pass my days. But, when nocturnal

shades

This world envelop, and th' inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines, and crackling blaze of
wood;