Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But ftain'd with blood, or ill-exchang'd for gold.
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in eafe,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
Oh wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
E'er taught to shine, or fanctifyed from shame!
What greater bliss attends their clofe of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophy'd arches, story'd halls invade,
And hauut their slumbers in the pompous

shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray,
Compute the morn and ev'ning to the day ;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,

A tale, that blends their glory with their shame ! I have extracted the whole of this sublime invective, that the particular aspect of our satirist on the circumstances of Marlborough’s life may be more distin&tly seen amidit this general cenfure of military glories.

The second clause of the first verse, and the second couplet, relate to his intrigue with the Duchess of Cleveland, for which I refer the reader to the Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 563, or Lediard's life, pp. 18 and 19.

The third and fourth couplets have a view to his supposed peculation as commander in chief, and his prolongation of the war on this account, to which we must refer also the discarded variation at his first Moral Essay, ver. 86.

Triumphant leaders, at an army's head,
Hemm'd round with glories, pilfer cloth or bread:
As meanly plunder, as they bravely fought ;

Now save a people, and now save a groat. The fixth couplet is explained by that charge of avarice which is usually brought against him, and which gave rise to that epigram upon the bridge in Blenheim-Park:

The spacious arch his vast ambition shows;

The stream an emblem of his bounty flows. The application of the following lines to his Duchess, the palace at Blenheim, and his second infancy, so finely touched by Johnson in his Vanity of Human Wishes, is too obvious to need more than a limple admonition to direct the attention of the reader.

THE

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. P. 197.

Ver. 17. What bleffings thy free bounty gives,

Let me not caft away ;
For God is paid when Man receives :

T enjoy is to obey.
Athenæus, in his compilations, ii. 3. quotes a passage from Alexis
which contains a pleasing sentiment of the fame complexion, a
follows :

Let Fortune's fav’rites in broad sunshine live,
And God's benignity display to all.
Then, only then, the bountcous Donor reap3
His recompense, when man enjoys the boon.
The niggard and penurious, who shuts up
The stores cælestial with close-handed care,
He views displeas’d, and soon withdraws the gifta

Ver. 49. To thee, whose temple is all space,

Whofe altar, earth, fea, skies.
Lucan, ix. 578. has an admirable passage of this kind :

Eftne Dei sedes, nisi terra, et pontus, et aër,
Et cælum, et virtus ? Superus quid quærimus ultrà ?
Jupiter eft quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris.
Is there a place, that God would choose to love
Beyond this earth, the feas, yon heaven above,
And virtuous minds, the nobleft throne of Jove?
Why seek we farther then ? Behold around,
How all thou seest does with the God abound;
Jove is alike in all, and always to be found.

Rowe. ·

}

MORAL

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE I. P. 207.

Ver. 256. Euclio was designed for Sir Charles Duncombe of Helmsley; who is alluded to again in Imitations of Horace, ii. Sat. ii. fin.

And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,

Slides to a scriv'ner, or a city knight: and who divided his estates in Yorkshire and Wilts

among

different branches of his family. B.

See note A. in the Biog. Brit. Art. Duncombe William.

EPISTLE II. P. 245.
Ver. 17. Come then, the colours and the ground prepare !

Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air;
Chuse a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it

Catch, e'er the change, the Cynthia of this minute. This paffage, of elegance fo exquisitely curious, is indebted for the original conception to Cowley, David. ii. 807.

This he with starry vapours spangles all,
Took in their prime, e'er they grow ripe and fall :
Of a new ruinbow, e'er it fret or fade,
The choiceft piece took out, the scarf is made.

EPISTLE III. P. 271.

Ver. 127. The crown of Poland, venal twice an age,

To just three millions ftinted modest Gage.
But nobler scenes Maria's dreams unfold,
Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold.
Congenial fouls ! whose life one av'rice joins,

And one fate buries in th' Asturian mines. A Mr. Gage, of Sir Thomas Gage's family, of Hengrave, I think, near Bury, Suffolk; and Lady Mary Herbert (daughter of the Marquis of Powis), whofe mother was a natural daughter

of

of James II. ; whence the phrase hereditary realms. In Bowles's Travels into Spain, is fome account of this scheme of working the Asturian mines. B.

Ver. 291. When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend

The wretch, who living fav'd a candle's end. Edmund Boulter, Esq. executor to Vulture Hopkins, made so fplendid a funeral for him, that the expences amounted to 76661. B.

Ver. 333. Cutler and Brutus, dying, both exclaim,

“ Virtue ! and Wealth! what are ye but a name ?" Dion Cassius, xlvii. 49. “ Brutus made an effort to force his way “ from the strong position, whither he had retreated, into the

camp; but, finding this impracticable, and learning that some “ of his soldiers had submitted to the conquerors, he abandoned “ himself to despair : but, disdaining captivity, he refolved on “ death; and desired fome of his attendants to dispatch him, “ after he had repeated with a loud voice that exclamation of “ Hercules, in the Tragedy :

“ Ab ! hapless Virtue ! deem'd a truth by me ;
" But Fortune's llave thou wert, and a mere empty name."

EPISTLE IV. P. 321.

1

Ver. 117. Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,

And half the platform just reflects the other.
An author of congenial talte ; and, on a similar subject, has made
use of this most happy couplet :

And scatter'd clumps, that nod at one another,
Each stimy waving at its formal brother.

* Landscape, ii. 6. a poem, which the elegant and ingenious author, by a few lectures on versification, relative to modes of expression too undignified for poetry, and a languishing imbecillity of numbers, would soon polish into greater excellence. The address of Sir Edward Winnington is an admirable specimen of fine taste and noble fentiment.

Ver. 149. The soft Dean is said to be Dr. Alured Clarke, Dean of Peterborough. B.

Ver. 204. These are imperial works, and worthy kings. From Dryden's Virgil, vi. 1177.

Those are imperial arts, and worthy thee.

END OF THE THIRD VOLUME,

Strahan and Preston,

Printers-Street.