SELECT POEMS.

Wich a view to comprise in one Volume the

BEAUTIES

OF

ENGLISH POETRY.

BY THOMAS TOMKINS.

THE SECOND EDITION,

The pleasing Art of Poetry's defign'd
To raise the thought, and moralize the inind;
The chaste delights of virtue to inspire,
And warın the botom with seraphic fire;
Sublime the pallions, lend devotion wings, ,
And celebrate the First great cause of things.

LONDON:

Printed for
J. WALLIS, AT YORICK'S HEAD, LUDGAT E-STREET,

M,DCC, LXXXII.

TO THE

PU B L I C.

L Poetry may be said to claiin our first attention, as it was originally intended to express our gratitude to the Deity, and teach man. kind the most important precepts of religion and virtue; by which the human soul is not only exalted and refined, but the heart is fortified against all the various assaults of human calamities, and by which we are taught, to consider happiness as entirely depending on the reflections of our own minds. We shall be sufficiently convinced of these truths, if we only consider the particular end and design of the several species of poetry.

The Epic POEM was intended to convey instructions disguised under the allegory of an