EPISTLE TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER, PREFIXED TO PARNELLE'S POEMS. SUCH were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh, just beheld and lost! admir'd and mourn'd! With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd! Bless'd in each science! bless'd in every strain! Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear—in vain! For him thou oft hast bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For Swift and him despis'd the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great, Dexterous the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleas'd to 'scape from flattery to wit. Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear, (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear) Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, Still hear thy Parnelle in his living lays; Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great; Or deeming meanest what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall. And sure if aught below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine; A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. SECRETARY OF STATE. A SOUL, as full of worth as void of pride, And strikes a blush through frontless flattery: Know, kings and fortune cannot make thee more. you. EPISTLE TO MR. JERVAS, WITH DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY'S ART OF PAINTING. THIS verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse Whether thy hand strike out some free design, 1 See Memoir prefixed to these volumes, p. xxxvii. Like them to shine through long succeeding age, So just thy skill, so regular my rage. Smit with the love of sister arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; Like friendly colours found them both unite, And each from each contract new strength and light. How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought! With thee on Raphael's monument I mourn, While fancy brings the vanish'd piles to view, Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divine. How finish'd with illustrious toil appears This small well polish'd gem, the work of 2 years! Yet still how faint by precept is exprest The living image in the painter's breast! Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow, Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow; Thence beauty, waking all her forms, supplies An angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes. Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed Those tears eternal that embalm the dead; Call round her tomb each object of desire, Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire; Bid her be all that cheers or softens life, The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife; Bid her be all that makes mankind adore, Then view this marble, and be vain no more! Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage, Her modest cheek shall warm a future age. Beauty, frail flower, that every season fears, Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years. Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts surprise, And other beauties envy Worsley's 3 eyes; Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow, And soft Belinda's blush for ever glow. O, lasting as those colours may they shine, Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line; 2 Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing his poem. • Frances Lady Worsley, wife of Sir Robert Worsley, Bart. |