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"For ever feeble, and for ever tame," the reader of it will be surprised rather at the popularity it obtained than at the neglect it has experienced. His motive in composing this work, he has himself explained. "His observation," he said, "of the various effects of SPLEEN on the female character, induced him to believe that he might render essential service to social life, if his poetry could induce his young and fair readers to cultivate the gentle qualities of the heart, and maintain a constant flow of good humour." And he adds, that the production owed its existence to an incident which actually occurred. The hint of the poem was avowedly taken from the Rape of the Lock; it is made up of sinrilar machinery, and similar spirits are chosen, as guardians, to watch over and guide the destiny of the "lovely, engaging, and accomplished" Serena, the heroine, who is conducted through various perils, into the happy home of a youth, chosen by

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This, lightly sporting on the village green,
Paint the wild beauties of the rural scene.

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Oh! let the Sisters, who, with friendly aid, The Grecian lyre, and Grecian pencil sway'd, Who join'd their rival powers with fond delight, Το grace each other with reflected light, Let them in Britain thus united reign,

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"For ever feeble, and for ever tame," the reader of it will be surprised rather at the popularity it obtained than at the neglect it has experienced. His motive in composing this work, he has himself explained. "His observation," he said, "of the various effects of SPLEEN on the female character, induced him to believe that he might render essential service to social life, if his poetry could induce his young and fair readers to cultivate the gentle qualities of the heart, and maintain a constant flow of good humour." And he adds, that the production owed its existence to an incident which actually occurred. The hint of the poem was avowedly taken from the Rape of the Lock; it is made up of sinrilar machinery, and similar spirits are chosen, as guardians, to watch over and guide the destiny of the "lovely, engaging, and accomplished" Serena, the heroine, who is conducted through various perils, into the happy home of a youth, chosen by

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ART with no common gifts her Gainsborough grac'd,
Two different pencils in his hand she plac'd;
This shall command, she said, with certain aim,

A perfect semblance of the human frame;
This, lightly sporting on the village green,
Paint the wild beauties of the rural scene.

*

Oh! let the Sisters, who, with friendly aid,
The Grecian lyre, and Grecian pencil sway'd,
Who join'd their rival powers with fond delight,
To grace each other with reflected light,
Let them in Britain thus united reign,

FROM AN ESSAY ON EPIC POETRY.

FOR me, who feel, whene'er I touch the lyre,
My talents sink below my proud desire ;
Who often doubt, and sometimes credit give,
When friends assure me that my verse will live ;
Whom health too tender for the bustling throng
Led into pensive shade and soothing song;
Whatever fortune my unpolish'd rhymes
May meet, in present or in future times,
Let the blest art my grateful thoughts employ,
Which soothes my sorrow and augments my joy ;
Whence lonely peace and social pleasure springs,
And friendship dearer than the smile of kings!
While keener poets, querulously proud,
Lament the ills of poesy aloud,

And magnify, with irritation's zeal,
Those common evils we too strongly feel,
The envious comment and the subtle style
Of specious slander, stabbing with a smile;
Frankly I wish to make her blessings known,
And think those blessings for her ills atone:
Nor would my honest pride that praise forego,
Which makes malignity yet more my foe.

If heartfelt pain e'er led me to accuse
The dangerous gift of the alluring Muse,
'Twas in the moment when my verse imprest
Some anxious feelings on a mother's breast.

O thou fond Spirit, who with pride hast smil'd,
And frown'd with fear on thy poetic child,
Pleas'd, yet alarm'd, when in his boyish time
He sigh'd in numbers, or he laugh'd in rhyme;
While thy kind cautions warn'd him to beware
Of penury, the bard's perpetual snare;
Marking the early temper of his soul,
Careless of wealth, nor fit for base control.
Thou tender saint, to whom he owes much more
Than ever child to parent ow'd before,

In life's first season, when the fever's flame
Shrunk to deformity his shrivell'd frame,
And turn'd each fairer image in his brain

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