EPISTLES. ΤΟ ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND SUCH were the notes thy once-lov'd poet sung, 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; Dextrous 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) Recal those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, Still hear thy Parnell 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. 1 Sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr. Parnell's poems, published by our author after the Earl's imprisonment in the Tower and retreat into the country, in the year 1721. And sure if aught below the seats divine In vain to deserts thy retreat is made, The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade: "Tis her's the brave man's latest steps to trace, Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace. When Interest calls off all her sneaking train, And all the' oblig'd desert, and all the vain, She waits, or to the scaffold or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. Ev'n now she shades thy evening walk with bays; (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise) Ev'n now, observant of the parting ray, Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day, Through fortune's cloud one truly great can see, Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he. A SOUL, as full of worth as void of pride, And strikes a blush through frontless fiattery. All this thou wert; and being this before, Know kings and fortune cannot make thee more. TÓ MR. JERVAS, WITH MR. DRÝDEN'S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY'S THIS verse be thine, my friend! nor thou refuse This epistle, and the two following, were written some years before the rest, and originally printed in 1717. Like friendly colours found them both unite, How oft review; each finding, like a friend, 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, Here thy well-studied marbles fix our eye; years! Fresnoy employed above 20 years in finishing his poem. 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 flow'r, 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 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: New graces yearly like thy works display, Soft without weakness, without glaring gay: Led by some rule that guides, but not constrains, And finish'd more through happiness than pains. The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire, One dip the pensil, and one string the lyre. Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breathe an air divine on every face; Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie, And these be sung till Granville's Myra die: Alas! how little from the grave we claim ! Thou but preserv'st a face, and I a name. |