W Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,

WITH scornful mien, and various toss of air,

Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,

She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage grac'd her virgin life,
But charming Gy's lost in Py's wife.
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind:
O could the sire renown'd in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter's use!
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,

Be what she was, and charm mankind once more!

ON CERTAIN LADIES.

WHEN other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavia, Delia, stay in town:

Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

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1 Dr Gilbert. Carruthers. [Or it might be Gumley of Isleworth, who had gained his fortune

by a glass manufactory, was married to Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath.]

EPIGRAM.

ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS

LINES SUNG BY DURASTANTI2 WHEN SHE TOOK LEAVE OF THE ENGLISH STAGE.

G

THE WORDS WERE IN HASTE PUT TOGETHER BY MR POPE, AT THE REQUEST OF
THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.

EN'ROUS, gay, and gallant nation,
Bold in arms, and bright in arts;
Land secure from all invasion,

All but Cupid's gentle darts!
From your charms, oh who would run?
Who would leave you for the sun?
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!

Let old charmers yield to new;

In arms, in arts, be still more shining;
All your joys be still increasing;
All your tastes be still refining;
All your jars for ever ceasing:
But let old charmers yield to new.
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED OF

Marbles, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals3.

HOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad Mirror thro' the shadowy Cave;

Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow:

Approach! Great NATURE studiously behold;
And eye the Mine without a wish for Gold.

5

Approach; but awful! Lo! th' Egerian Grot,

Where, nobly-pensive, ST JOHN sate and thought;

Where British sighs from dying WYNDHAM stole1,

And the bright flame was shot thro' MARCHMONT's Soul.
Let such, such only tread this sacred Floor,
Who dare to love their Country, and be poor.

1 [Frederick, Prince of Wales. Roscoe traces the idea of this epigram to Sir W. Temple's Heads designed for an Essay on Conversation.]

[Margherita Durastanti was brought out at the English Opera-house by Handel, and sang in his operas and those of Bononisni from 1719 to 1723. She then retired, finding herself unable to contend with the superior powers of Cuzzoni. She took a formal leave of the English stage, for which occasion the above lines were composed

Arbuthnot

by Pope, at her patron's desire.
wrote a burlesque version of them, which is not
remarbably witty. See Hogarth's Memoirs of
the Musical Drama.]

3 [As to Pope's grotto, see Introductory Memoir, p. xxxiv.]

4 [See Epil. to Satires. Dial. 11. v. 88.] 5 [The Earl of Marchmont, afterwards one of Pope's executors.]

EW words are best; I wish you well;

FEW Word, are bold, will soon be here;

Some morning walks along the Mall,

And ev'ning friends, will end the year.
If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost,
You please to see, on Twit'nam green,
Your friend, your poet, and your host:
For three whole days you here may rest
From Office bus'ness, news and strife;
And (what most folks would think a jest)
Want nothing else, except your wife.

TO MR GAY,

WHO HAD CONGRATULATED MR POPE ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND

GARDENS.

H, friend! 'tis true-this truth you lovers know

AHL In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;

In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens:
Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,
And only dwells where WORTLEY casts her eyes.
What are the gay parterre, the chequer'd shade,
The morning bower, the ev'ning colonnade,
But soft recesses of uneasy minds,

To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds?
So the struck deer in some sequester'd part
Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
He, stretch'd unseen in coverts hid from day,
Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S HOUSE

AT WOODSTOCK.

'Atria longa patent; sed nec cœnantibus usquam,
Nec somno, locus est: quam bene non habitas.'
MARTIAL, Epigr. [XII. 50. vv. 7, 8.]

5

IO

[BLENHEIM, built by Vanbrugh. In his buildings,' says Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'there is a greater display of imagination than we shall find perhaps in any other.' At the same time the heaviness of his style of architecture was the subject of the constant ridicule of Horace Walpole and others.]

ham.]

[Probably Craggs, who was in office at the time when Pope established himself at Twicken

EE, sir, here's the grand approach;
This way is for his Grace's coach:

SE

There lies the bridge, and here's the clock,
Observe the lion and the cock,

The spacious court, the colonnade,

And mark how wide the hall is made!
The chimneys are so well design'd,
They never smoke in any wind.
This gallery's contrived for walking,
The windows to retire and talk in;
The council chamber for debate,
And all the rest are rooms of state.

Thanks, sir, cried I, 'tis very fine,
But where d'ye sleep, or where d'ye dine?
I find, by all you have been telling,
That 'tis a house, but not a dwelling1.

ON BEAUFORT HOUSE GATE AT CHISWICK.

[THE Lord Treasurer Middlesex's house at Chelsea, after passing to the Duke of Beaufort, was called Beaufort House. It was afterwards sold to Sir Hans Sloane. When the House was taken down in 1740, its gateway, built by Inigo Jones, was given by Sir Hans Sloane to the Earl of Burlington, who removed it with the greatest care to his garden at Chiswick, where it may be still seen. See Cunningham's London.]

[IN illustration Mitford refers to Pope's letter to Lord Bathurst of September 13, 1732, where Mr L.' is spoken of as more inclined to admire God in his greater works, the tall timber.' From Mr Mitford's notes to his edition of Gray's Correspondence with the Rev. Norton Nichols. As to Lord Bathurst's improvements at Cirencester, to which these lines allude, see Moral Essays, Ep. IV. vv. 186 ff.]

IN THE SOUTH-SEA YEAR [1720], FOR A CLUB, CHASED WITH JUPITER PLACING CALLISTO IN THE SKIES, AND EUROPA WITH THE BULL.

IO

15

20

ONG

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

Un Jour dit un Auteur, etc.3

NCE (says an Author; where, I need not say)
Two Trav'lers found an Oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong,
While Scale in hand Dame Justice past along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well,
"There take" (says Justice) "take ye each a Shell.
We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you:
'Twas a fat Oyster-Live in peace-Adieu."

5

ΤΟ

of Boileau's Second Epistle; and is said to be originally derived from an old Italian comedy. La Fontaine, who also versified the fable, substituted a judge (named Perrin Dandin) for 'Justice'; wherein, according to Boileau's opinion, he erred; inasmuch as it is not the judges only, but all the officers of justice, who empty the pockets of litigants. From a note to Amsterdam edition (1735) of Euvres de Boileau.]