in my power to be informed of my errors by my friends and my enemies. And that I expect no favour on account of my youth, business, want of health, or any fuch idle excuses. But the true reason they are not yet more correct is owing to the confideration how short a time they, and I have to live. A man that can expect but fixty years may be afhamed to employ thirty in meafuring fyllables and bringing sense and rhyme together. We spend our youth in pursuit of riches or fame, in hopes to enjoy them when we are old; and when we are old, we find it is too late to enjoy any thing. I therefore hope the Wits will

pardon me; if I referve some of my time to save my foul; and that some wife men will be of my opinion, even if I should think a part of it better spent in the enjoyments of life than in pleasing the critics.

Caring for nothing but what Ease requir'd;
Too dully ferious for the Mufe's sport,
And from the Critics safe arriv'd in Port;
I little thought of launching forth agen,
Amidít advent'rous Rovers of the Pen;
And after so much undeferv'd fuccess,
Thus hazarding at laft to make it lefs.
Encomiums fuit not this cenforious time,
Itself a Subject for fatiric thyme;
Ignorance honour'd, Wit and Worth defam'd,
Folly triumphant, and ev'n Homer blam'd!
But to this Genius, join'd with fo much Art,
Such various Learning mix'd in ev'ry part,
Poets are bound a loud applause to pay;
Apollo bids it, and they must obey.

And yet so wonderful, fublime a thing,
As the great ILIAD, scarce could make me fing;

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Except I justly could at once commend
A good Companion, and as firm a Friend.
One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed
Can all defert in Sciences exceed.

'Tis great delight to laugh at some mens ways, But a much greater to give Merit praife.

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To Mr. POPE, on his Paftorals.

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more dull, as more censorious days, When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,

A Muse fincere, that never Flatt'ry knew,
Pays what to friendship and defert is due.

Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found
Art strength'ning Nature, Sense improv'd by Sound.
Unlike those Wits, whose numbers glide along
So fmooth, no thought e'er interrupts the fong:

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Laborioufly enervate they appear,
And write not to the head, but to the ear:
Our minds unmev'd and unconcern'd they lull,
And are at best most musically dull:
So purling streains with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into fleep.
As finoothest speech is most deceitful found,
The smoothest numbers oft are empty found.
But Wit and Judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as Youth, as Age confummate too:

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Your strains are regularly bold, and please
With unforc'd care, and unaffected ease,
With proper thoughts, and lively images:
Such as by Nature to the Ancients shewn,
Fancy improves, and judginent makes your own:
For great mens fashions to be follow'd are,
Altho' disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear.
Some in a polish'd style write Paftoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall.
Like fome fair Shepherdess, the Sylvan Muse,
Should wear those flow'rs her native fields produce;
And the true measure of the shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit :
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common swain's be wrought.
So, with becoming art, the Players dress
In filks the shepherd, and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely ruffet of the swains
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long loft graces of Simplicity :
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With Virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her Modefty those charms conceal'd,
'Till by mens Envy to the world reveal'd;
For Wits industrious to their trouble feem,

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And needs will envy what they must esteem.

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Live and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate, Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait; Whose Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight; Thine shall, like his, foon take a higher flight;

So Larks, which first from lowly fields arife,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.

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W. WYCHERLEY.

To Mr. POPE, on his Windfor-Forest.

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AIL, facred Bard! a Muse unkoown before Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic fhore. To our dark world thy fhining page is shown, And Windfor's gay retreat becomes our own. The Eaftern pomp had just bespoke our care, And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here: A various fpoil adorn'd our naked land, The pride of Perfia glitter'd on our strand, And China's Earth was caft on common fand: Toss'd up and down the glossy fragments lay, And dress'd the rocky shelves, and pav'd the painted

bay.

Thy treasures next arriv'd and now we boaft
A nobler cargo on our barren coaft:
From thy luxuriant Forest we receive

More lafting glories than the East can give.

Where-e'er we dip in thy delightful page, What pompous scenes our bufy thoughts engage! The pompous scenes in all their pride appear, Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were. Nor half so true the fair Lodona shows The sylyan ftate that on her border grows,

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