Dialogue' between HE and SHE should have been suppressed for the author's sake.

In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wise men serious, he confounds the living man with the dead:

Under this stone, or under this sill,

Or under this turf, &c.

When a man is once buried, the question, under what he is buried, is easily decided. He forgot, that though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed.

The world has but little new; even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines:

Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa

Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu
Sub quicquid voluit benignus hæres,
Sive hærede benignior comes, seu

Opportunius incidens Viator:

Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec

Tanti erat vacuum sibi cadaver

Ut utnam cuperet parere vivens,
Vivens ista tamen sibi caravit,
Quæ inscribi voluit suo sepulchro
Olim siquod haberetis sepulchrum.

Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator.

Encomiums on Pope.

ON

MR. POPE AND HIS POEMS,

BY JOHN SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

WITH age decay'd, with courts and business tired,
Caring for nothing but what ease required;
Too dully serious for the Muse's sport,
And, from the critics, safe arrived in port;
I little thought of launching forth again,
Amidst adventurous rovers of the pen;
And after so much undeserved success,
Thus hazarding, at last, to make it less.

Encomiums suit not this censorious time,
Itself a subject for satiric rhyme:
Ignorance honour'd, wit and worth defamed,
Folly triumphant, and even Homer blamed!
But to this genius, join'd with so much art,
Such various learning mix'd in every part,
Poets are bound a loud applause to pay;
Apollo bids it, and they must obey.

And yet so wonderful, sublime a thing,
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing;
Except I justly could at once commend
A good companion and as firm a friend.
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
Can all desert in sciences exceed.

'Tis great delight to laugh at some men's ways, But a much greater to give merit praise.

TO MR. POPE.

BY DR. PARNELL.

To praise, and still with just respect to praise, A bard triumphant in immortal bays;

The learn'd to show, the sensible commend, Yet still preserve the province of the friend; What life, what vigour, must the lines require! What music tune them, what affection fire!

O might thy genius in my bosom shine, Thou should'st not fail of numbers worthy thine; The brightest ancients might at once agree To sing within my lays, and sing of thee.

Horace himself would own thou dost excel In candid arts to play the critic well. Ovid himself might wish to sing the dame Whom Windsor Forest sees a gliding stream; On silver feet, with annual osier crown'd, She runs for ever through poetic ground. How flame the glories of Belinda's hair, Made by the Muse the envy of the fair! Less shone the tresses Egypt's princess wore, Which sweet Callimachus so sung before. Here courtly trifles set the world at odds; Belles war with beaux, and whims descend for gods. The new machines, in names of ridicule, Mock the grave frenzy of the chemic fool. But know, ye fair, a point conceal'd with art, The sylphs and gnomes are but a woman's heart: The graces stand in sight; a satyr-train

Peeps o'er their head, and laughs behind the scene.

In Fame's fair temple, o'er the boldest wits, Enshrined on high the sacred Virgil sits; And sits in measures such as Virgil's Muse, To place thee near him, might be fond to choose. How might he tune the' alternate reed with thee, Perhaps a Strephon thou, a Daphnis he;

While some old Damon, o'er the vulgar wise,
Thinks he deserves, and thou deservest the prize!
Rapt with the thought, my fancy seeks the plains,
And turns me shepherd while I hear the strains.
Indulgent nurse of every tender gale,

Parent of flowrets, old Arcadia, hail!
Here in the cool my limbs at ease I spread,
Here let thy poplars whisper o'er my head;
Still slide thy waters, soft among the trees,
Thy aspin quiver in a breathing breeze!
Smile, all ye valleys in eternal spring,

Be hush'd ye winds, while Pope and Virgil sing.
In English lays, and all sublimely great,
Thy Homer warms with all his ancient heat;
He shines in council, thunders in the fight,
And flames with every sense of great delight.
Long has that poet reign'd, and long unknown,
Like monarchs sparkling on a distant throne;
In all the majesty of Greek retired,

Himself unknown, his mighty name admired;
His language failing, wrapp'd him round with night;
Thine, raised by thee, recalls the work to light.
So wealthy mines, that ages long before
Fed the large realms around with golden ore,
When choked by sinking banks, no more appear,
And shepherds only say, 'The mines were here :'
Should some rich youth (if Nature warms his heart,
And all his projects stand inform'd with art)

Here clear the caves, there ope the leading vein,
The mines detected flame with gold again.
How vast, how copious, are thy new designs!
How every music varies in thy lines!

Still, as I read, I feel my bosom beat,

And rise in raptures by another's heat.

Thus in the wood, when summer dress'd the days,
While Windsor lent us tuneful hours of ease,
Our ears the lark, the thrush, the turtle bless'd,
And Philomela sweetest o'er the rest:
The shades resound with song-O, softly tread,
While a whole season warbles round my head.

This to my friend; and when a friend inspires,
My silent harp its master's hand requires,
Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound;
For Fortune placed me in unfertile ground;
Far from the joys that with my soul agree,
From wit, from learning-very far from thee.
Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf;
Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf;
Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet,
Rocks at their sides, and torrents at their feet;
Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood,
Whose dull brown Naiads ever sleep in mud:
Yet here content can dwell, and learned ease,
A friend delight me, and an author please;
Even here I sing when Pope supplies the theme,
Show my own love, though not increase his fame.