ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY

A STANDISH AND TWO PENS.

· Yes, I beheld th’ Athenian queen

Descend in all her sober charms;
• And take (she said, and smil'd serene),
Take at this hand celestial arms :

Secure the radiant weapons wield ;
This golden lance shall guard desert,
And if a vice dares keep the field,
This steel shall stab it to the heart.'

Aw'd, on my bended knees I fell,
Receiv'd the weapons of the sky,
And dipp'd them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.

• What well? what weapon? (Flavia cries)
A standish, steel, and goldenr' pen!
It came from Bertrand's, not the skies ;
I gave it you to write again.

These lines were occasioned by the poet's being threatened with a prosecution in the House of Lords, for writing the two foregoing Dialogues.

? A toy-shop at Bath.

* But, friend, take heed whom you attack;
You'll bring a house (I mean of peers)
Red, blue, and green, nay, white and black,
L** and all about your ears.

• You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run on ivory so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.

• Athenian queen! and sober charms !
I tell ye, fool! there's nothing in't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.

• Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,
That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll
Of those that sing of these poor eyes.'

Celia, we know, is sixty-five,

Yet Celia's face is seventeen;
Thus winter in her breast must live,

While summer in her face is seen.

How cruel Celia's fate! who hence

Our heart's devotion cannot try;
Too pretty for our reverence,

Too ancient for our gallantry:

1740. A POEM.

O WRp.tched B...,? jealous now of all,
What god, what mortal shall prevent thy fall ?
Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,
And see what succour from the patriot race.
C...,his own proud dupe, thinks monarchs things
Made just for him, as other fools for kings;
Controls, decides, insults thee every hour,
And antedates the hatred due to power.

Through clouds of passion P.•'s 4 views are clear; 1 "I shall here,” says Dr. Warton, " present the reader with a valuable literary curiosity, a Fragment of an unpublished Satire of Pope, entitled, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty ; communicated to me by the kindness of the learned and worthy Dr. Wilson, formerly fellow and librarian of Trinity College, Dublin ; who speaks of the Fragment in the following terms :

“ This poem I transcribed from a rough draft in Pope's own hand. He left many blanks for fear of the Argus eye of those who, if they cannot find, can fabricate treason; yet, spite of his precaution, it fell into the hands of his enemies. To the hieroglyphics there are direct allusions, I think, in some of the notes on the Dunciad. It was lent me by a grandson of Lord Chetwynd, an intimate friend of the famous Lord Bolingbroke, who gratified his curiosity by a boxful of the rubbish and sweepings of Pope's study, whose executor he was, in conjunction with Lord Marchmont.” But see Memoir prefixed to these volumes, p. cxiv.

2 Britain. 3 Cobham. 4 Pulteney's.

He foams a patriot to subside a peer ;
Impatient sees his country bought and sold,
And damns the market where he takes no gold.

Grave, righteous S. • 1 jogs on till, past belief, He finds himself companion with a thief.

To purge and let thee blood with fire and sword, Is all the help stern S..? would afford.

That those who bind and rob thee would not kill, Good C..3 hopes, and candidly sits still.

Of Ch.'s W. 4 who speaks at all, No more than of Sir Har y or Sir P..,5 Whose names once up, they thought it was not

wrong To lie in bed, but sure they lay too long.

G••r, C••m, B••t,6 pay thee due regards, Unless the ladies bid them mind their cards.

with wit that must And C...d7 who speaks so well and writes, Whom (saving W.) every S. harper bites,

must needs Whose wit and ........ equally provoke one, Finds thee, at best, the butt to crack his joke on.

As for the rest, each winter up they run, And all are clear, and something must be done.

· Sandys.

2 Shippen.
3 Perhaps the Earl of Carlisle.
* Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.
5 Sir Henry Oxenden and Sir Paul Methuen,
6 Lords Gower, Cobham, and Bathurst.
7 Lord Chesterfield.

Then urged by C••t,1 or by C••t stopp'd,
Inflamed by P..,? and by P.. dropp'd ;
They follow reverently each wondrous wight,
Amazed that one can read, that one can write :
So geese to gander prone obedience keep,
Hiss if he hiss, and if he slumber, sleep.
Till having done whate'er was fit or fine,
Utter'd a speech, and ask'd their friends to dine ;
Each hurries back to his paternal ground,
Content but for five shillings in the pound,
Yearly defeated, yearly hopes they give,
And all agree Sir Robert cannot live.

Rise, rise, great W..,3 fated to appear,
Spite of thyself a glorious minister!
Speak the loud language princes ....
And treat with half the ...........
At length to B.. kind, as to thy ....
Espouse the nation, you ........

What can thy H..4..............
Dress in Dutch ......

Though still he travels on no bad pretence, To show .......

Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue, Veracious W...5 and frontless Young ;6 . 1 Lord Carteret.

William Pulteney, created in 1742 Earl of Bath. 3 Walpole.

+ Either Sir Robert's brother Horace, who had just quitted his embassy at the Hague, or his son Horace, who was then on his travels. 5 W. Winnington.

6 Sir William Young.