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Your chamber is the sole retreat
Of chaplains every Sunday night;
Of grace, no doubt, a certain sign,
When layman herds with man divine;
For if their fame be justly great,
Who would no Popish nuncio treat;
That his is greater, we must grant,
Who will treat nuncios Protestant.
One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
In politics, I hear, you're stanch,
Directly bent against the French;
Deny to have
your free-born toe
Dragooned into a wooden shoe;
Are in no plots, but fairly drive at
The public welfare, in your private;
And will, for England's glory, try
Turks, Jews, and Jesuits to defy,
And keep your places till
you die.
For me, whom wandering Fortune threw
From what I loved, the town and you;
Let me just tell you how my time is
Past in a country-life.-Imprimis,
As soon as Phoebus' rays inspect us,
First, Sir, I read, and then I breakfast;
So on, till foresaid God does set,
I sometimes study, sometimes eat.
Thus, of your heroes and brave boys,

With whom old Homer makes such
noise,

The greatest actions I can find,

Are, that they did their work, and dined.

The books of which I'm chiefly fond, Are such as you have whilom conned;

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That treat of China's civil law,

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And subjects' rights in Golconda;

Of highway-elephants at Ceylon,

That rob in clans, like men of the Highland;

Of

apes that storm, or keep a town,

As well almost as count Lauzun;

Of unicorns and alligators,

Elks, mermaids, mummies, witches, satyrs,
And twenty other stranger matters;

Which, though they 're things I've no concern in,
Make all our grooms admire my learning.

Critics I read on other men,

And hypers upon them again;

From whose remarks I give opinion

On twenty books, yet ne'er look in one.
Then all your wits, that fleer and sham,
Down from Don Quixote to Tom Tram;
From whom I jests and puns purloin,
And slily put them off for mine:
Fond to be thought a country wit:

The rest, when fate and you think fit.
Sometimes I climb my mare, and kick her
To bottled ale and country vicar;
Sometimes at Stamford take a quart,

Squire Shephard's health, with all my heart.
Thus, without much delight, or grief,

I fool away an idle life;

Till Shadwell from the town retires,
(Choked up with fame and sea-coal fires,)
To bless the wood with peaceful lyric;
Then hey for praise and panegyric;
Justice restored, and nations freed,

And wreaths round William's glorious head.

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TO THE COUNTESS OF DORSET,

WRITTEN IN HER MILTON, BY MR BRADBURY.

SEE here how bright the first-born virgin shone,
And how the first fond lover was undone.

Such charming words our beauteous mother spoke,
As Milton wrote, and such as yours her look.
Yours, the best copy of the original face,
Whose beauty was to furnish all the race.
Such chains no author could escape but he;
There's no way to be safe, but not to see.

TO THE LADY DURSLEY.1

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

HERE reading how fond Adam was betrayed,
And how by sin Eve's blasted charms decayed;
Our common loss unjustly you complain;
So small that part of it, which you sustain.
You still, fair mother, in your offspring trace
The stock of beauty destined for the race:
Kind nature, forming them, the pattern took
For Heaven's first work, and Eve's original look.
You, happy saint, the serpent's power control:
Scarce any actual guilt defiles your soul;
And hell does o'er that mind vain triumph boast,
Which gains a Heaven, for earthly Eden lost.

With virtue strong as yours had Eve been armed,
In vain the fruit had blushed, or serpent charmed:
Nor had our bliss by penitence been bought;
Nor had frail Adam fallen, nor Milton wrote.

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1 Elizabeth, daughter of Baptist Noel, Viscount Campden, and wife of Charles Earl of Berkeley, who had been envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the States of Holland.

TO MY LORD BUCKHURST,1

VERY YOUNG, PLAYING WITH A CAT.

THE amorous youth, whose tender breast
Was by his darling cat possest,
Obtained of Venus his desire,
Howe'er irregular his fire.

Nature the power of love obeyed;
The cat became a blushing maid;
And, on the happy change, the boy
Employed his wonder, and his joy.

Take care, O beauteous child, take care,
Lest thou prefer so rash a prayer:
Nor vainly hope, the queen of love
Will e'er thy favourite's charms improve.
O quickly from her shrine retreat;
Or tremble for thy darling's fate.

The queen of love, who soon will see
Her own Adonis live in thee,
Will lightly her first loss deplore;
Will easily forgive the boar:

Her

eyes with tears no more will flow; With jealous rage her breast will glow; And on her tabby rival's face

She deep will mark her new disgrace.

AN ODE.

1 WHILE from our looks, fair nymph, you guess

The secret passions of our mind,

My heavy eyes, you say, confess

A heart to love and grief inclined.

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1 Lionel, Duke of Dorset, to whom Prior dedicated the first edition of his

pocms.

2 There needs, alas! but little art, To have this fatal secret found;

With the same ease you threw the dart, "Tis certain you may show the wound.

3 How can I see you, and not love,

While you as opening east are fair? While cold as northern blasts you prove, How can I love, and not despair!

4 The wretch in double fetters bound
Your potent mercy may release;
Soon, if my love but once were crowned,
Fair prophetess, my grief would cease.

A SONG.

IN vain you tell your parting lover,
You wish fair winds may waft him over.
Alas! what winds can happy prove,

That bear me far from what I love!
Alas! what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain,
From slighted vows, and cold disdain!
Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempests loose:
That, thrown again upon the coast,
Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain;
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows, and cold disdain.

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