RECOMMENDATORY POEMS. .

ON 113 WINDSOR-FOREST.

TO MR. POPE,

For wits industrious to their trouble seem,

And needs will envy what they must esteem.
ON HIS PASTORALS.

Live, and enjoy their spite ! nor mourn that fate,

Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait; Is those more dull, as more cenforious days,

Whose muse did once, like thine, in plains delight;

Thine snall, like his, foon take a higher flight: When few dare give, and fewer merit praise, A mufe Gincere, chat never flattery knew,

So larks, which first from lowly fields arise, Pays what to friendship and desert is due.

Mount by degrees, and reach ac last the skies. Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found,

W. WYCHERLEY. Art strengthening nature, sense improv'd by found. Unlike those wits, whose numbers glide along So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song: Laborioully enervate they appear,

TO MR. POPE, And write not to the head, but to the car : Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull, And are at beft most musically dull : So porling freams with even murmurs creep, HAIL! sacred bard! a muse unknown before And hush the heavy hearers into feep.

Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore. As smootheft speech is most deceitful sound, To our dark world thy shining page is shewn, The smoczbeft numbers oft are empty sound. And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own. But wit and judgment join at once in you,

The eastern pomp had just bespoke our care, Sprightly as youth, as age consummate too : And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here: Your Brains are regularly bold, and please A various spoil adorn'd our naked land, With unfore'd care, and unaffected case,

The pride of Persia glitter'd on our strand, With proper thoughts, and lively images;

And China's earth was cast on common sand : Such as by nature to the ancients shewn,

Toss’d up and down the glossy fragments lay, Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own : And dress’d the rocky shelves, and pav'd che paintFor grea: men's fashions to be follow'd are,

ed bay. Although disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear. Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast Some, in a polish'd style, write paftoral:

A nobler cargo on our barren coast :
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall.

From thy luxuriant forest we receive
Like omfair shepherdess, the Sylvan muse More lasting glories than the cast can give.
Shoula w ar those Aowers her native fields pro Where'er we dip in thy delightful page,
dice;

What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engaged
And the true measure of the shepherd's wit The pompous scenes in all thcir pride appcar,
Should, like his garb, be for the country fit : Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were:
Yet muft his pure and unaffected thought

Nor half so true the fair Lodona shews More nicely than the common swain's be wrought ; The fylvan state that on her border grows, So, with becoming art, the players dress

While she the wond'ring shepherd entertains, In fiks the shepherd, and the shepherdess; With a new Windfor in her watery plains; Yet fill unchang'd the form and mode remain, The juster lays the lucid wave surpass, Shap'd like the homely russet of the fwain. The living scene is in the muse's glass. Your rural muse appears to justify

Nor sweeter notes the echoing forests cheer, The long-lost graces of fimplicity :

When Philomela fits and warbles there, So rural beauties captivate our sense

Than when you fing the greens and opening glades, With virgin charms, and native excellence : And give us harmony as well as shades : Yet long her modefty those charms conceald, A Titian's hand might draw the grove; but yo!! Till by men's envy to the world reveald; Can paint the grore, and add the music too,

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With valt variety thy pages shine;

Peace, sung by thee, shall please ev'n Britons more A new creation itarts in every line.

Than all their shouts for victory before.
How sudden trees risc to the reader's fight, Oh! could Britannia imitate thy Itream,
And make a doubtful scene of thade and light, The world should tremble at her awful name;
And give at once the day, at once the night! From various springs divided waters glide,
And here again what sweet confusion reigns, In different colours roll a different tide,
Ju dreary deserts mix'd with painted plains ! Murmur along their crooked banks a while,
And fee! the deserts cast a pleasing gloom, At once they murmur and enrich the ille;
And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom ; A while distinct thr«ugh many channels run,
Whilst fruitful crops rise by their barren fide, But meet at last, and sweetly flow in one;
And bearded groves display their annuai pride. There joy to lose their long-diftinga th'd names,

Happy the man, who ftrings his tuneful lyre And make one glorious and immortal Thames.
Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields
inspire !

FR. KNAP.
Thrice happy you! and worthy best to dwell
Amidst the rural joys you sing so well.
I in a cold, and in a barren clime,

TO MR. POPE,
Cold as my thought, and barren to my rhyme,
Here on the western beach attempt to chime,
O joyless flood : O rough tempestuous main!

By the Right Honourable
Border'd with weeds, and fo.itudes obscene!

ANNE COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA.
Snatch me, ye gods! from these Atlantic shores,
And shelter me in Windsor's fragrant bowers;

The muse, of every heavenly gift allow'd
Or to my much-lov'd Isis' walk convcy,

To be the chief, is public, though not proud. And on her flowery banks for ever lay.

Widely extensive is the poet's aim, Thence let me view the venerable scene,

And in each verfe he draws a bill on fame.
The awful dome, the groves eternal green,

For none have wit (whatever they pretend)
Where facred Hough lung found his fam'd retreat, Singly to raise a patron or a friend;
And brought the muses to the sylvan seat; But whatsoe'er the theme or object be,
Reform'd the wits, unlock'd the clasic store, Some commendations to themselves foresce.
And made that music which was noise before. Then let us find, in your foregoing page,
There, with illustrious bards, I spent my days, The celebrating poems of the age;
Not free from censure, nor unknown to praise : Nor by injurious scruples think it fit,
Enjoy'd the blessings that his reign bestow'd, To hide their judgments who applaud your wit :
Nor envy'd Windsor in the soft abode.

But let their pens to yours the heralds prove,
The golden minutes smoothly danc'd away, Who strive for you, as Greece for Homer ftrove;
And tuneful bards beguild the tedious day : Whilft he who best your poetry asserts,
They fung, nor sung in vain, with oumbers fir'd, Aflerts his own, by sympathy of parts.
That Maro taught, or Addison inspir’d.

Me panegyric verle does not inspire,
Ev'n I essay'd to touch the trembling string : Who never well can praise what I admire,
Who could hear them, and not attempt to fing? Nor in those lofty trials dare appear,
Rous'd from thele dreams by thy commanding But gently drop this counsel in your car :
Itrain,

Go on, to gain applauses by desert;
I rise and wander through the field or plain; Inform the head, whilft you dissolve the heart;
Led by thy muse, from sport to sport I run, Inflame the soldier with harmonious rage,
Mark the tretch'd line, or hear the thundering gun. Elate the young, and gravely warm the sage:
Ah! how I melt with pity, when I spy

Allure, with tender verse, the female race;
On the cold earth the fluttering pheasant lie! And give their darling passion, courtly grace :
His gaudy robes in dazzling lines appear, Describe the forest still in rural strains,
And every feather shines and varies there. With veroalsweets fresh-breathing from the plains:

Nor can I pass the generous courser by ; Your tales be easy, natural, and gay,
But while the prancing steed allures my eye, Nor all the poet in that part display;
He farts, he's gone! and now I see him fiy Nor let the critic there his skill unfold,
O'er hills and dales ; and now I lose the course, For Boccace thus and Chaucer tales have told :
Nor can the rapid f'ght pursue the flying horse. Soothe, as you only can, each different taste,
Oh, could thy Virgil from his orb loisk down, And for the future charm us in the past.
He'd view a courier that might match his own! Then, should the verse of every artful hand
Fir’d with the sport, and eager for the chace, Before your numbers eminently stand;
Lodona's murmurs stop me in the race.

In you no vanity could thence be shewn,
Who can refuse Lodona's melting tale?

Unless, since short in beauty of your own, The lost complaint thall over time prevail ; Some envious scribbler might in spite declare, The talc be told when shades forsake her fhore, That for comparison you plac'd them there. The nymph be fung when he can flow no more. But envy could not against you succeed :

Nor all the song, old Thames. forbear to thine, 'Tis not from friends that write, or foes that read; At once the subject and the long divine. Censure or prailc mut from ourselves proceed.

Now light as air th' enlivening numbers move, TO MR. POPE,

Soft as the downy plumes of fabled love,

Gay as the freaks that stain the gaudy bow, ST MISS JUD. COWPER, AFTERWARDS MRS. MADAN, Smooth as Meander's crystal mirrors flow.

But, when Achilles, panting for the war, O Pope! by what commanding wondrous art Joiny the fleet courfers to the whirling car; Doft thou each passion to each breaft impart? When the warm hero, with celestial might, Our beating hearts with sprightly measures move, Augments the terror of the raging fight, Or melt os with a tale of hapless love!

From his fierce eyes refulgent lightnings stream Th' clated mind's impetuous starts control, (As Sol emerging darts a golden gleam); Or gently footh to peace the troubled soul! In rough hoarse verse we see th' embattled foes; Graces till now that fingly met our view,

In each loud train the fiery onser glows; And fingly charm’d, unite at once in you : With strength redoubled here Achilles shines, A ftyle polite, from affectation free,

And all the battle thunders in thy lines. Virgil's currectness, Homer's majesty!

So the bright magic of the painter's hand Soft Waller's ease, with Milton's vigour wrought, Can cities, itrearns, rall towers, and far-stretch'd And Spenser's bold luxuriancy of thought.

plains, command; In each bright page, Arength, beauty, genius shine, Here spreading woods embrown the beauteous While nervous judgment guides each flowing line.

scene, No borrow'd tinsel glitters o'er these lays, Therethe wide landscape smiles with livelier green; And to the mind a false delight conveys:

The foaring glass reflects the diftant sky, Throughout the whole with blended power is found, And o'er the whole the glancing sun-beams fly; The weight of sense, and elegance of sound : Buds open, and disclose the inmost shade; A lavish sancy, wit, and force, and fire,

The ripen'd harvest crowns the level glade. Graces each motion of th' immortal lyre.

But when the artist does a work design, The matchless strains our ravish'd senses charm : Where bolder rage infirms each breathing line ; How great the thought ! the images how warm! When the stretch'd cloth a rougher stroke receives, How beautifully just the turns appear :

And Cæfar awful in the canvas lives; The language how majestically clear!

When art like lavith nature's self supplies, With energy divine each period (wells,

Grace to the limbs, and spirit to the eyes; And all the bard th' inspiring God reveals. When ev'n the pallions of the mind are seen, Loft in delights, my dazzled eyes I turn,

And the soul speaks in the exalted mien; Where Thames leans hoary o'er his ample urn ; When all is juit, and regular, and great, Where his rich waves fair Windsor's towers sur

We own the mighty Master's skill, as boundless as round,

complete.
And bountcous rush amid poetic ground,
O Windsor! sacred to thy blissful scais,
Thy fylvan shades, the muses' lov'd retreats ;

LORD MIDDLESEX TO MR. POPE,
Thy riêng hills, low vales, and waving woods,
Thy funny glades, and celebrated fools ! On reading Mr. Addison's Account of the Eaglifo Peetso
But chief Lodona's filver tides, that flow
Cold and unfullied as the mountain snow;

If all who e'er invok'd the tuneful Nine, Whose virgin name no time nor change can hide, In Addison's majestic numbers thine, Though ev'n her spotless waves should cease có Why then thould Pope, ye bards, ye critics, tell, glide:

Remain unfung, who fings himself so well? In mighty Pope's immortalizing strains, Hear then, great bard, who can alike inspire Still fall the grace and range the ver ant plains ; With Waller's foftneis, or with Milton's tire; By him selected for the muses' theme, [itreain. Whild I, the meanet of the mules throng, Still shine a blooming maid, and roll a limpid To thy just praises tune th’adventurous song. Go on, and, with thy rare refiftless art,

How am 1 fill’d with rapture and delight, Rule each emotion of the various heart;

When gnds and mortals, mix'd, sustain the fight! The spring and test of verse unrival'd reign, Like Milton then, though in more polith'd strains, And the full honours of thy youth maintain ; Thy chariots rattle o'er the fmoking plains. Soothe, with thy wonted ease and power divine, What though archangel 'gainst archangel arms, Our souls, and our degenerate tastes refine; And highett Heaven resounds with dire alarnis! In judgment o'er our favourite follies fit,

Doth not the reader with like dread survey And lotten Wisdom's harsh reproofs to wit. The wounded gods repuls'd with foul dilmay?

Now war and arms thy mighty aid demand, But when fome fair one guides your softer verse, And Horaer wakes beneath thy powerful hand; Her charms, her godlike features, to rehearse; His vigour, genuine heat, and manly force, See how her eyes with quicker lightnings arm, In thee rise worthy of their sacred source ; And Waller's thoughts in imoother numbers charm! His spirit heighten'd, yet his sense entire,

When fools provoke, and dences urge thy rage, As godt runs parer from the trying fire.

Flecknoe improv'd bites keener in each page. O, for a male like thine, while i rehearse

Give o'er, great bard, your fruitless toil give o'cr, TL'ia.olortal beautics of thy various verse ! For Nillking Tibbald scribbles as before;

BY MR. BARTE.

Poor Shakspeare suffers by his pen each day, (From the proud epic, down to those that shade While Grub-freet alleys own his lawful sway. The gentler brow of the soft Lesbian maid)

Now turn, my muse, thy quick, poetic eyes, Go to the good and just, an awful train, And view gay scenes and opening prospects rise. Thy soul's delight, and glory of the fane : Hark! how his rustic numbers charm around, While through the earth thy dear remembrance While groves to groves, and hills to hills resound!

flies, The listening beasts stand fearless as he sings, “ Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies." And birds attentive close their useless wings. The swains and satyrs trip it o'er the plain,

SIMON HARCOURT. And think old Spenser is reviv'd again. But when once more the godlike man begun In words smooth flowing from his tuneful tongue,

TO MR. POPE, Ravilh'd they gaze, and Oruck with wonder say, Sure Spenser's self ne'er sung so sweet a lay : Sure once again Eliza glads the ille, That the kind mules thus propitious smile To move the springs of nature as we please; Why gaze ye thus? Why all this wonder, swains? - To think with spirit, but to write with ease; 'Tis Pope that fings, and Carolina reigns. With living words to warm the conscious heart,

But hold, my muse! whoseawkward verfe betrays Or please the soul with nicer charms of art; Thy want of skill, nor shews the poet's praise ; For this the Grecian soar'd in epic strains, Cease then, and leave some fitter bard to tell And softer Maro left the Mantuan plains : How Pope in every Itrain can write, in every Melodious Spenser felt the lover's fire, Itrain excel.

And awful Milton Itrung his heavenly lyre.

l'is yours, like these, with curious toil to trace

The powers of language, harmony, and grace; TO MR. POPE,

How Nature's self with living lustre fhines,

How judgment strengthens, and how are refines; ON THE PUBLISHING HIS WORKS,

How to grow bild with conscious sense of fame,

And force a pleasure which we dare not blame ; He comes, he comes ! bid every bard prepare To charm us more through negligence than pains, The song of triumph, and attend his car.

And give ev'n life and action to the strains: Great Sheffield's muse the long procession heads, Led by some law, whose powerful impulse guides And throws a lustre o'er the pomp she leads ; Each happy froke, and in the foul prelides; First gives the palm the fir'd him to obtain, Some fairer image of perfection given Crowns his gay brow, and shews him how to reign. T'inspire mankind, itself deriv'd from heaven. Thus young Alcides, by old Chiron taught, O ever worthy, ever crown'd with praile, Was form'd for all the miracles he wrought : Bleft in thy life, and bleft in all thy lays ! Thus Chiron did the youth he taught applaud, Add that the Sisters every thoughe refine, Pleas'd to behold the earnest of a God.

Or ev’n thy life be faultless as thv line; But hark! what shouts, what gathering crowds Yet Envy still with fiercer rage pursues, rejoice!

Obscure the virtue, and defames the muse. Unstain'd their praise by any venial voice, A foul like thine, in pains, in grief resign'd, Such as th' ambitious vainly think their due, Views with vain scorn the malice of mankind : When prostitutes, or needy flatterers sue.

Not critics, but their planets, prove unjust; And see the chief! before him laurels borne; And are they blam'd who fin because they must ? Trophies from undeserving temples torn :

Yet sure not so muft all peruse thy lays : Here Rage enchain'd reluctant raves; and there I cannot riyal-and yet dare to praise. Pale Envy dumb, and sick'ning with despair, A thousand charms at once my tho'ghts engage ; Prone to the earth she bends her lothing eye, Sappho's soft sweetness, Pindar's warmer rage, Weak to support the blaze of majesty.

Statius' free vigour, Virgil's studious ca.e, But what are they that turn the sacred page! And Homer's force, and Ovid's calier air. Three lovely virgins, and of equal age;

So seems some pidure, where exact design, Intent they read, and all enamour'd leem,

And curious pains, and trength, and sweetness join; As he that met his likeness in the stream :

Where the free thought its pieasing grace bestowe, The Graces these ; and see how they contend, And each warm stroke with living colour glows; Who most hall praise, who best shall recommend. Soft without weakness, with ut labour fair,

The chariot now the painful feep ascends, Wrought up at once with happiness and care ! The Pæans cease; thy glorious labour ends.

How bleit the man that from the world removes, Here fix'd, the bright eternal temple stands, To joys that Merdaunt", or his Pope, approves ; Its prospect an unbounded view commands: Whose tatte exact each author can explore, Say, wondrous youth, what column wilt thou And live the present and past ages o'er ; choose,

Who, free from pride, from penitence, or ftrife, What laurel'd arch for thy triumphant muse? Moves calmly forward to the verge of life : Though each great ancient court thee to his fhrine, Though every laurel through the dome be thing, * Earl of Peterborough.

Such be my days, and such my fortunes be,
To live by reason, and to write by thee!

THE TRIUMVIRATE OF POETS, Nor deem this verse, though humble, a disgrace :

BY MRS. TOLLET. All are not born the glory of their race : Yet all are born t'adore the great man's name, BRITAIN with Greece and Rome contended long And trace his footsteps in the paths to fame. For lofty genius and poetic song, The muse, who now this early homage pays, Till this Augustan age with Three was blest, First learn'd from thee to animate her lays : To fix the prize, and finish the contest. A mufe as yet unhonour'd, but unftain'd, In Addison, immortal Virgil reigns; Who prais'd no vices, no preferment gain'd; So pure his numbers, so refin'd his strains : Unbials'd or to censure or commend,

Of nature full, with more impetuous heat, Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend; in Priór Horace shines, sublimely great. Perhaps too fond to make those virtues known, Thy country, Homer! we dispute no more And fix her fame immortal on thy own.

For Pope has fix'd it to his native shore,

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