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BY MONSIEUR FONTENELLE.

MA petite âme, ma mignonne,

Tu t'en vas donc, ma fille, et Dieu sçache où tu vas:
Tu pars seulette, nuë, et tremblotante, helas!
Que deviendra ton humeur folichonne!

Que deviendront tant de jolis ébats!

IMITATED.

1 Poor little, pretty, fluttering thing, Must we no longer live together?

And dost thou prune thy trembling wing;

To take thy flight thou know'st not whither?

2 Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly

Lies all neglected, all forgot;

And pensive, wavering, melancholy,

Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what!

A PASSAGE IN THE MORIE ENCOMIUM OF ERASMUS IMITATED.

IN awful pomp, and melancholy state,

See settled Reason on the judgment seat;

Around her crowd Distrust, and Doubt, and Fear,
And thoughtful Foresight, and tormenting Care;
Far from the throne, the trembling Pleasures stand,
Chained up, or exiled by her stern command.
Wretched her subjects, gloomy sits the queen;
Till happy Chance reverts the cruel scene;
And apish Folly with her wild resort
Of wit and jest disturbs the solemn court.
See the fantastic minstrelsy advance,

To breathe the song, and animate the dance.
Blest the usurper! happy the surprise!
Her mimic postures catch our eager eyes;

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Her jingling bells affect our captive ear;

And in the sights we see, and sounds we hear,
Against our judgment she our sense employs;
The laws of troubled Reason she destroys;
And in her place rejoices to indite

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Wild schemes of mirth, and plans of loose delight. 20

TO DR SHERLOCK,1

ON HIS PRACTICAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING DEATH.

FORGIVE the Muse, who, in unhallowed strains,
The saint one moment from his God detains;
For sure, whate'er you do, where'er you are,
'Tis all but one good work, one constant prayer.
Forgive her; and intreat that God, to whom
Thy favoured vows with kind acceptance come,
To raise her notes to that sublime degree,
Which suits a song of piety and thee.

Wondrous good man! whose labours may repel
The force of sin, may stop the rage of hell;
Thou, like the Baptist, from thy God was sent,
The crying voice, to bid the world repent.

Thee Youth shall study, and no more engage
Their flattering wishes for uncertain age;
No more with fruitless care, and cheated strife,
Chase fleeting Pleasure through this maze of life:
Finding the wretched all they here can have,
But present food, and but a future grave:
Each, great as Philip's victor son, shall view
This abject world, and weeping, ask a new.
Decrepit Age shall read thee, and confess,
Thy labours can assuage, where medicines cease;

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1 Dr William Sherlock, Master of the Temple; father of Dr Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London.

Shall bless thy words, their wounded soul's relief, 23
The drops that sweeten their last dregs of life;
Shall look to Heaven, and laugh at all beneath;
Own riches gathered, trouble, fame a breath,
And life an ill, whose only cure is death.

Thy even thoughts with so much plainness flow,
Their sense untutored infancy may know:
Yet to such height is all that plainness wrought,
Wit may admire, and lettered Pride be taught;
Easy in words, thy style in sense sublime,

On its blest steps each age and sex may rise; 'Tis like the ladder in the Patriarch's dream,

Its foot on earth, its height above the skies.
Diffused its virtue, boundless is its power,
'Tis public health, and universal cure;
Of heavenly manna 'tis a second feast;
A nation's food, and all to every taste.

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To its last height mad Britain's guilt was reared; 40 And various death for various crimes she feared.

With your kind work her drooping hopes revive;
You bid her read, repent, adore, and live.
You wrest the bolt from Heaven's avenging hand,
Stop ready death, and save a sinking land.

O! save us still; still bless us with thy stay;
O! want thy Heaven, till we have learned the way;
Refuse to leave thy destined charge too soon:
And for the church's good, defer thy own..
O live: and let thy works urge our belief;
Live to explain thy doctrine by thy life;
Till future infancy, baptized by thee,
Grow ripe in years, and old in piety;
Till Christians, yet unborn, be taught to die.
Then in full age, and hoary holiness,

Retire, great teacher! to thy promised bliss;

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Untouched thy tomb, uninjured be thy dust,
As thy own fame among the future just;
Till in last sounds the dreadful trumpet speaks;
Till Judgment calls, and quickened Nature wakes:
Till through the utmost earth and deepest sea,
Our scattered atoms find their destined way;
In haste to clothe their kindred souls again,
Perfect our state, and build immortal man.
Then fearless thou, who well sustain'st the fight,
To paths of joy, or tracts of endless light,
Lead up all those who heard thee, and believed;
'Midst thy own flock, great shepherd, be received;
And glad all Heaven with millions thou hast saved.

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CARMEN SECULARE, FOR THE YEAR MDCC.

TO THE KING.

Adspice, venturo lætentur ut omnia sæc❜lo:
O mihi tam longæ maneat pars ultima vitæ,
Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!

VIRG. Eclog. 4.

THY elder look, great Janus, cast
Into the long records of ages past;
Review the years in fairest action dressed.
With noted white, superior to the rest;
Æras derived, and chronicles begun,

From empires founded, and from battles won;
Show all the spoils by valiant kings achieved;
And groaning nations by their arms relieved;
The wounds of patriots in their country's cause,
And happy power sustained by wholesome laws;
In comely rank call every merit forth;
Imprint on every act its standard worth;
The glorious parallels then downward bring
To modern wonders, and to Britain's king.

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With equal justice and historic care,

Their laws, their toils, their arms with his compare;
Confess the various attributes of fame

Collected and complete in William's name.
To all the listening world relate,
(As thou dost his story read),
That nothing went before so great,

And nothing greater can succed.

Thy native Latium was thy darling care,
Prudent in peace, and terrible in war;
The boldest virtues that have governed earth
From Latium's fruitful womb derive their birth.
Then turn to her fair written page,

From dawning childhood to established age,
The glories of her empire trace;

Confront the heroes of thy Roman race,

And let the justest palm the victor's temples grace.

The son of Mars reduced the trembling swains,
And spread his empire o'er the distant plains;
But yet the Sabines' violated charms
Obscured the glory of his rising arms.
Numa the rights of strict religion knew;
On every altar laid the incense due;
Unskilled to dart the pointed spear,
Or lead the forward youth to noble war.
Stern Brutus was with too much horror good,
Holding his fasces stained with filial blood.
Fabius was wise, but with excess of care
He saved his country, but prolonged the war.
While Decius, Paulus, Curius, greatly fought,
And by their strict examples taught,
How wild desires should be controlled,

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