She ask’d, but with an air and mien, She fear'd too much to know. The shepherd rais'd his mournful head; While I the cruel truth reveal? Which nothing from my breast should tear.; "Tis thus I rove, 'tis thus complain, Too much, Alexis, I have heard : 43 30 ΤΟ THE HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE.* OWE'ER, 'tis well, that while mankind errs, He can imagin'd pleasures find, Fancies and notions he pursues, Against experience he believes; He argues against demonstration Pleas'd, when his reason he deceives; And sets his judgment by his passion. Afterwards Earl of Halifax. 10 "He raised himself," says Mr. Walpole, "by his abilities and eloquence in the House of Commons, where he had the honour of being attacked, in conjunction with Lord Somers, and the satisfaction of establishing his innocence as clearly. Addison has celebrated this lord in his account of the greatest English poets: Steele has drawn his character in the dedication of the second volume of the Spectator, and the fourth of the Tatler; but Pope in the Portrait of Bufo in the Epistle to Arbuthnot has returned the ridicule, which his lordship, in conjunction with Prior, had heaped on Dryden's Hind and Panther." He died 19th May, 1715. + Apelles. The hoary fool, who many days Has struggled with continued sorrow, To-morrow comes: 'tis noon, 'tis night; Our hopes, like tow'ring falcons, aim Our anxious pains we, all the day, At distance through an artful glass To the mind's eye things well appear: They lose their forms, and make a mass Confus'd and black, if brought too near. If we see right, we see our woes: We wearied should lie down in death: 20 30 40 VARIATIONS IN A COPY PRINTED 1692. UR hopes, like towering falcons, aim The worthless prey but only shews So, whilst in feverish sleeps we think We taste what waking we desire, The dream is better than the drink, Which only feeds the sickly fire. To the mind's eye things well appear, At distance through an artful glass: Bring but the flattering objects near, They're all a senseless gloomy mass. Seeing aright, we see our woes : The only wretched are the wise. We wearied should lie down in death, 10 20 HYMN TO THE SUN. SET BY DR. PURCELL. AND INTENDED TO BE SUNG BEFORE THEIR MAJESTIES ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1694. WRITTEN AT THE HAGUE. year, IGHT of the world, and ruler of the career; And, as thou dost thy radiant journeys run, Through every distant climate own, That in fair Albion thou hast seen The greatest prince, the brightest queen, So may thy godhead be confest, From the blessings they bestow, As thou dost all above. Let our hero in the war Active and fierce, like thee, appear: 20 |