hanged who would take it away. It was this that made me write. The sense of my faults made me correct: besides that it was as pleasant to me to correct as to write.

At p. 9. 1. 2.-In the first place I own that I have used my best endeavours to the finishing these pieces. That I made what advantage I could of the judgment of authors dead and living; and that I omitted no means in my power to be informed of my errors by my friends and my enemies : And that I expect no favour on account of my youth, business, want of health, or any such idle excuses. But the true reason they are not yet more correct is owing to the confideration how short a time they, and I, have to live. A man that can expect but fixty years may be ashamed to employ thirty in meafuring fyllables and bringing sense and rhyme together. We spend our youth in pursuit of riches or fame, in hopes to enjoy them when we are old, and when we are old, we find it is too late to enjoy any thing. I therefore hope the Wits will pardon me, if I reserve some of my time to save my soul; and that some wise men will be of my opinion, even if I should think a part of it better spent in the enjoyments of life than in pleasing the critics.

ON MR. POPE AND HIS POEMS,

BY HIS GRACE

JOHN SHEFFIELD,

DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

5

W"
ITH Age decay'd, with Courts and bus'ness tir’d,

Caring for nothing but what Ease requir’d;
Too dully serious for the Muse's sport,
And from the Critics safe arriv'd in Port;
I little thought of launching forth agen,
Amidst advent'rous Rovers of the Pen:
And after so much undeserv'd fuccefs,
Thus hazarding at last to make it less.

Encomiums fuit not this cenforious time,
Itfelf a fubject for fatiric rhyme;
Ignorance honour'd, Wit and Worth defam'd,
Folly triumphant, and ev'n Homer blam'd!
But to this Genius, join'd with so much Art,
Such various Learning mix'd in ev'ry part,
Poets are bound a loud applause to pay;

IS
Apollo bids it, and they must obey.
And

yet

so wonderful, sublime a thing As the great ILIAD, fcarce could make me fing;

Ver. 11.] This is the common place cant of men tir'd with business and courts. “ This is mere moral babble.” Comus, p. 806.

Except I justly could at once commend
A good Companion, and as firm a Friend. 20
One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed
Can all desert in Sciences exceed.

'Tis great delight to laugh at some mens ways, But a much greater to give Merit praise.

TO MR. POPE.

ON HIS PASTORALS.

IN

n these more dull, as more censorious days,

When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A Muse sincere, that never Flatt'ry knew,
Pays what to friendship and desert is due.
Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found

5
Art strength’ning Nature, Sense improv'd by Sound.
Unlike those Wits, whose numbers glide along
So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song:
Laboriously enervate they appear,
And write not to the head, but to the ear :
Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull,
And are at best most musically dull:
So purling streams with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into sleep.
As smoothest speech is most deceitful found, 15
The smoothest numbers oft are empty sound.
But Wit and Judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as Youth, as Age consummate too:

Your

IO

Your strains are regularly bold, and please
With unforc'd care, and unaffected ease, 20
With proper thoughts, and lively images :
Such as by Nature to the Ancients fhewn,
Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own:
For great mens fashions to be follow'd are,
Altho' disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear. 25
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall;
Like some fair Shepherdess, the Sylvan Muse
Should wear those flow’rs her native fields produce;
And the true measure of the Shepherd's wit 30
Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit:
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common fwains be wrought.
So, with becoming art, the Players dress,
In filks the shepherd, and the shepherdess; 35
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely rufset of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long lost graces of Simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense

40 With virgin charms, and native excellence. Yet long her Modesty those charms concealid, 'Till by mens Envy to the world reveal'd; For Wits industrious to their trouble feem, And needs will envy what they must esteem. 45

VER. 28. Sylvan Mufe] From Boileau's Art of Poetry, Chant. 2. 1. 1. Pope seems to have corrected these lines. VOL. I.

с

Live

Live and enjoy theit spite! nor mourn that fate, Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait ; Whofe Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight; Thine shall, like his, foon take a higher flight; So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise, 50 Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.

W. WYCHERLEY.

TO MR. POPE,

ON HIS WINDSOR-FOREST.

HAIL

AIL, facred Bard! a Muse unknown before

Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore. To our dark world thy shining page is shown, And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own, The Eastern pomp had just bespoke our care, And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here: 6 A various spoil adorn'd our naked land, The pride of Persia glitter'd on our strand, And China's earth was cast on common sand: Tofs'd

up

and down the glofly fragments lay, And dress’d the rocky shelves, and pav'd the painted

bay.
Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast
A nobler cargo on our barren coast :
From thy luxuriant Forest we receive
More lasting glories than the East can give.

Where.

10

15