TO MRS M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY1.

[1723.]

H be thou blest with all that Heav'n can send,

Obe a Friend:

Not with those Toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and Vanities that tire.
With added years if Life bring nothing new,
But, like a Sieve, let ev'ry blessing thro',

Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad Reflection more;
Is that a Birth-Day? 'tis alas! too clear,
'Tis but the Fun'ral of the former year.

Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content,
And the gay Conscience of a life well spent,
Calm ev'ry thought, inspirit ev'ry grace.

Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a Pain, a Trouble, or a Fear;
Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft Dream, or Extasy of joy,
Peaceful sleep out the Sabbath of the Tomb,
And wake to Raptures in a Life to come.

5

10

15

20

THE CHALLENGE.

A COURT BALLAD.

To the Tune of 'To all you Ladies now at Land,' &c. [By Dorset.]

Written anno 1717. Warton.

[THIS delightful trifle is addressed to Pope's charming friends at the Court of the Prince and Princess of Wales (afterwards King George II. and Queen Caroline), and is full of petits mots alluding to the ladies and gentlemen of their society.]

1 [Martha Blount. Lines 5-10 occur as a reflexion on the poet's own birthday in a letter to Gay of the year 1722, and they were also adapted for him to a kind of epitaph on Henry Mordaunt, the nephew of Lord Peterborough, who committed suicide in 1724. On this occasion the following lines were added:

'If there's no hope with kind, though fainter ray
To gild the ev'ning of our future day;
If ev'ry page of life's long volume tell

The lines concerning which the charge of plagiarism was mutually made between Pope and James Moore-Smythe were omitted by Pope on reprinting the poem, but introduced (slightly altered) in the Characters of Women (Moral Essays, Ep. 11. vv. 243-248).]

2 [This delightful trifle is addressed to Pope's charming friends at the Court of the Prince and Princess of Wales (afterwards King George II. and Queen Caroline), and is full of petits mots The same dull story-MORDAUNT, thou didst alluding to the ladies and gentlemen of their society.]

well.'

this has been omitted.]

The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn:

And not one Muse of all he fed
Has yet the grace to mourn 5.
My friends, by turns, my friends con-
found,

Betray, and are betrayed:
Poor Yr's sold for fifty pound,
And B-ll is a jade.

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?
Or follow girls, seven hours in eight?
I us'd but once a week.
Still idle, with a busy air,

Deep whimsies to contrive;

And Garth, the best good Christian he, The gayest valetudinaire,
Although he knows it not.

Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
Heaven gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips, and fat Johnson3.
Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The wits in envious feuds engage:

And Homer (damn him!) calls*.

of George II., who, according to Horace Walpole, quoted by Carruthers, granted the reprieve of a condemned malefactor, in order that an experiment might be made on his ears for her benefit.]

[Cs is evidently Craggs; and H-k, as Carruthers interprets the hiatus, Lord Hinchinbrook, a young nobleman of spirit and fashion.]

2 Rowe had the year before, on the accession of George I., been made Poet Laureate, one of the land-surveyors of the port of London, Clerk of the Closet to the Prince of Wales, and Secre

Most thinking rake, alive.
Solicitous for others' ends,

Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,

For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,

For salads, tarts, and pease!

Adieu to all, but Gay alone,
Whose soul, sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.

THE BASSET-TABLE.

AN ECLOGUE.

ONLY this of all the Town Eclogues was Mr Pope's; and is here printed from a copy corrected by his own hand.-The humour of it consists in this, that the one is in love with the Game, and the other with the Sharper. Warburton. [The original edition of the Town Eclogues was published in 1716 anonymously, and consisted of three eclogues, written to parody the Pastorals of Pope and Philips, entitled respectively the Basset-Table, the Drawing-Room, and The Toilet. They were first ascribed to Gay, to whose mock pastorals they bear much resemblance. Three others were added by the same hand which had written all the Town Eclogues except the Basset-Table, viz. that of Lady M. W. Montagu.]

CARDELIA. SMILINDA.

CARDELIA.

HE Basset-Table spread, the Tallier come1;
Why stays SMILINDA in the Dressing-Room?
Rise, pensive Nymph, the Tallier waits for you:

SMILINDA.

Ah, Madam, since my SHARPER is untrue,

I joyless make my once ador'd Alpeu.

I saw him stand behind OMBRELIA'S Chair,

And whisper with that soft, deluding air,

And those feign'd sighs which cheat the list'ning Fair.

CARDELIA.

Is this the cause of your Romantic strains?

5

A mightier grief my heavy heart sustains.
As You by Love, so I by Fortune cross'd;
One, one bad Deal, Three Septleva's have lost.

IO

SMILINDA.

Is that the grief, which you compare with mine?
With ease, the smiles of Fortune I resign:
Would all my gold in one bad Deal were gone;
Were lovely SHARPER mine, and mine alone.

15

CARDELIA.

A Lover lost, is but a common care;

And prudent Nymphs against that change prepare:

The KNAVE OF CLUBS thrice lost: Oh! who could guess
This fatal stroke, this unforeseen Distress?

1 [Basset was a game commonly played in England at the period after the Restoration; and in France in the reign of Louis XIV., who issued

20

an ordinance prohibiting it and similar games. Chatto.]