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MR. CONGREVE,

ON HIS PLAYS AND POEMS.

BY MRS. ELIZABETH TOLLET'.

CONGREVE! the justest glory of our age!.
The whole Menander of the English stage!
Thy comic Muse, in each complete design,
Does manly sense and sprightly wit combine.
And sure the theatre was meant a school,
To lash the vicious, and expose the fool;
The wilful fool, whose wit is always shown
To hit another's fault, and miss his own,
Laughs at himself, when by thy skill exprest,
And always in his neighbour finds the jest.
A fame from vulgar characters to raise
Is every poet's labour, and his praise:
They, fearful, coast; while you forsake the shore,
And undiscover'd worlds of wit explore,
Enrich the scene with characters unknown,
There plant your colonies, and fix your throne.
Let Maskwell's treacheries and Touchwood's rage,
Let rugged Ben, and Foresight's timorous age,
And Heartwell's sullen passion, grace the stage.
Then let half-critics veil their idle spite,
For he knows best to rail, who worst can write.
Let juster satire now employ thy pen,

To tax the vicious on the world's great scene;

There the reformer's praise the poet shares,
And boldly lashes whom the zealot spares.

Ye British fair! could your bright eyes refuse
A pitying tear to grace his tragic Muse?
Can generous Osmyn sigh beneath his chain,
Or the distress'd Almeria weep in vain?
A kindly pity every breast must move,
For injur'd Virtue, or for suffering Love.
The nymphs adorn Pastora's sacred tomb,
And mourn the lov'd Amynta's short-liv'd bloom!
The learn'd admire the poet, when he flies
To trace the Theban swan amid the skies;
When he translates, still faithful to the sense,
He copies and improves each excellence.
Or when he teaches how the rich and great,
And all but deathless Wit, must yield to Fate;
Or when he sings the courser's rapid speed,
Or Virtue's loftier praise, and nobler deed;
Each various grace embellishes his song,
As Horace easy, and as Pindar strong;
Pindar, who long, like oracles' ador'd
In reverend darkness, now to light restor'd, [record.
Shall stamp thy current wit, and seal thy fame's

1 Daughter of George Tollet, esq. who, as a commissioner of the navy, had a house in the Tower in the reigns of king William and queen Anne. Sir Isaac Newton honoured both him and his daughter with his friendship, and was much pleased with some of her first essays.

POEMS

OF

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

To

EPISTLE

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
CHARLES LORD HALIFAX.

you, my lord, my Muse her tribute pays
Of various verse, in various rude essays;
To you she first address'd her early voice,
By inclination led, and fix'd by choice;
To you, on whose indulgence she depends,
Her few collected lays she now commends.

By no one measure bound, her numbers range,
And, unresolv'd in choice, delight in change;
Her songs to no distinguish'd fame aspire,

For, now, she tries the reed, anon, attempts the lyre:

In high Parnassus she no birth-right claims,
Nor drinks deep draughts of Heliconian streams:
Yet near the sacred mount she loves to rove,
Visits the springs, and hovers round the grove.
She knows what dangers wait too bold a flight,
And fears to fall from an Icarian height:
Yet she admires the wing that safely soars,
At distance follows, and its track adores.

She knows what room, what force, the swan requires,

Whose towering head above the clouds aspires,
And knows as well, it is your lowest praise,
Such heights to reach with equal strength and ease.
O had your genius been to leisure born,
And not more bound to aid us, than adorn!
Albion in verse with ancient Greece had vy'd,
And gain'd alone a fame, which, there, seven states
divide.

But such, ev'n such renown, too dear had cost,
Had we the patriot in the poet lost.
A true poetic state we had deplor'd,
Had not your ministry our coin restor❜d.

But still, my lord, though your exalted name
Stands foremost in the fairest list of Fame,
Though your ambition ends in public good
(A virtue lineal to your house and blood):
Yet think not meanly of your other praise,
Nor slight the trophies which the Muses raise.
How oft a patriot's best-laid schemes we find
By party cross'd, or faction undermin'd!

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Could I, like him, în tuneful grief excel,
And mourn like Stella for her Astrofel;
Then might I raise my voice, (secure of skill)
And with melodious woe the valleys fill;
The listening Echo on my song should wait,
And hollow rocks Pastora's name repeat;
Each whistling wind, and murmuring stream
should tell

How lov'd she liv'd, and how lamented fell.
MENAICAS,

Wert thou with every bay and laurel crown'd,
And high as Pan himself in song renown'd;
Yet would not all thy art avail, to show
Verse worthy of her name, or of our woe:
But such true passion in thy face appears,
In thy pale lips, thick sighs, and gushing tears;
Such tender sorrow in thy heart I read,
As shall supply all skill, not exceed.
Then leave this common line of dumb distress,
Each vulgar grief can sighs and tears express;
In sweet complaining notes thy passion vent,
And not in sighs, but words explaining sighs, lament.

ALEXIS.

Wild be my words, Menalcas, wild my thought,
Artless as Nature's notes in birds untaught;
Boundless my verse, and roving be my strains,
Various as flowers on unfrequented plains.
And thou, Thalia, darling of my breast,
By whom inspir'd, I sung at Comus' feast;
While, in a ring, the jolly rural throng
Have sat and smil'd to hear my cheerful song:
Begone, with all thy mirth and sprightly lays,
My pipe no longer now thy power obeys;
Learn to lament, my Muse, to weep, and mourn,
Thy springing laurels all to cypress turn;
Wound with thy dismal cries the tender air, [hair;
And beat thy snowy breast, and rend thy yellow
Far hence, in utmost wilds, thy dwelling choose,
Begone, Thalia; Sorrow is my Muse.

I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn,
And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn.
No more these woods shall with her sight be
bless'd,

[stood,

Nor with her feet these flowery plains be press'd;
No more the winds shall with her tresses play,
And from her balmy breath steal sweets away;
No more these rivers cheerfully shall pass,
Pleas'd to reflect the beauties of her face;
While on their banks the wondering flocks have
Greedy of sight, and negligent of food.
No more the nymphs shall with soft tales delight
Her ears, no more with dances please her sight:
Nor ever more shall swain make song of mirth,
To bless the joyous day that gave her birth;
Lost is that day which had from her its light,
For ever lost with her, in endless night:
In endless night and arms of Death she lies,
Death in eternal shades has shut Pastora's eyes.
Lament, ye nymphs, and mourn, ye wretched
swains;

Stray, all ye flocks, and desert be, ye plains;
Sigh, all ye winds, and weep, ye crystal floods;
Fade, all ye flowers, and wither, all ye woods.

I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn, And sable clouds her chalky clits adorn. Within a dismal grot, which damps surround, All cold she lies upon th' unwholesome ground; The marble weeps, and, with a silent pace, Its trickling tears distil upon her face.

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Falsely ye weep, ye rocks, and falsely mourn;
For never will you let the nymph return!
With a feign'd grief the faithless tomb relents,
And, like the crocodile, its prey laments.

O she was heavenly fair, in face and mind!
Never in nature were such beauties join'd:
Without, all shining; and within, all white;
Pure to the sense, and pleasing to the sight;
Like some rare flower, whose leaves all colours yield,
And, opening, is with sweetest odours fill'd.
As lofty pines o'ertop the lowly reed,

So did her graceful height all nymphs exceed;
To which excelling height, she bore a mind
Humble, as osiers bending to the wind.
Thus excellent she was

Ah wretched fate! she was, but is no more:
Help me, ye hills and vallies, to deplore.

I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn,
And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn.
From that blest earth, on which her body lies,
May blooming flowers with fragrant sweets arise.
Let Myrrha, weeping aromatic gum,

And ever-living laurel, shade her tomb.
Thither let all th' industrious bees repair,
Unlade their thighs, and leave their honey there:
Thither let fairies with their train resort,
Neglect their revels and their midnight sport;
There in unusual wailings waste the night,
And watch her by the fiery glow-worm's light.
There may no dismal yew nor cypress grow,
Nor holly-bush, nor bitter elder's bough;
Let each unlucky bird far build his nest,
And distant dons receive each howling beast;
Let wolves be gone, be ravens put to flight,
With hooting owls, and bats that hate the light,

But let the sighing doves, that sorrows bring,
And nightingales, in sweet complainings sing;
Let swans from their forsaken rivers fly,
And, sickening at her tomb, make haste to die,
That they may help to sing her elegy.
Let Echo too, in mimic moan, deplore,
And cry with me, "Pastora is no more!"

I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn,
And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn.
And see, the Heavens to weep in dew prepare,
And heavy mists obscure the burthen'd air;
A sudden damp o'er all the plain is spread,
Each lily folds its leaves and hangs its head:
On every tree the blossoms turn to tears,
And every bough a weeping moisture bears.
Their wings the feather'd airy people droop,
And flocks beneath their dewy fleeces stoop.

The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills
Furrow the brows of all th' impending hills:
The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn,
And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his want-
ing urn.
[grove,
The fawns forsake the woods, the nymphs the
And round the plain in sad distraction rove;
In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear,
And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair.
With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs
wound,
[the ground.
And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief
Lo, Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak,
Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke.
See, Pales weeping too, in wild despair,
And to the piercing winds her bosom bare.

And see you fading myrtle, where appears The queen of love, all bath'd in flowing tears;

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