LADY CHUDLEIGH.

1656-1710.

Daughter of Richard Lee, Esq. of Winslade, Devonshire: She published a volume of Poems 1709, and Essays, in prose and verse, 1710.

To Amystrea.

I.

PERMIT Marissa in an artless lay

To speak her wonder, and her thanks repay :
Her creeping Muse can ne'er like your's ascend
She has not strength for such a touring flight.
Your wit, her humble fancy does transcend;
She can but gaze at your exalted height :
Yet she believed it better to expose
Her failures than ungrateful prove ;

And rather chose

To shew a want of sense then want of love: But taught by you, she may at length improve,

;

And imitate those virtues she admires.
Your bright example leaves a track divine,
She sees a beamy brightness in each line,
And with ambitious warmth aspires,
Attracted by the glory of your name,

To follow you in all the lofty roads of fame.

II.

Merit, like yours, can no resistance find,
But like a deluge, overwhelms the mind;
Gives full possession of each part,
Subdues the soul, and captivates the heart.
Let those whom wealth, or interest unite,
Whom avarice, or kindred sway,

Who in the dregs of life delight;
And every dictate of their sense obey,
Learn here to love at a sublimer rate,

To wish for nothing but exchange of thoughts, For intellectual joys,

And pleasures more refined

Than earth can give, or can create.

Let our vain sex be fond of glitt'ring toys,

Of pompous titles, and affected noise,
Let envious men by barbarous custom led
Descant on faults,

And in destruction find

Delights unknown to a brave generous mind,

While we resolve a nobler path to tread,
And from tyrannick custom free,

View the dark mansions of the mighty dead,
And all their close recesses see;

Then from those awful shades retire,
And take a tour above,

And there, the shining scenes admire,
of eternal love;

The

opera

View the machines, on the bright actors gaze,
Then in a holy transport, blest amaze,
To the great Author our devotion raise,
And let our wonder terminate in praise.

The Resolve.

L.

FOR what the world admires I'll wish no more,
Nor court that airy nothing of a name :
Such fleeting shadows let the proud adore,
Let them be suppliants for an empty fame.

II.

If Reason rules within, and keeps the throne,
While the inferior faculty obey,

And all her laws without reluctance own,

Accounting none more fit, more just than they.

III.

If Virtue my free soul unsully'd keeps,
Exempting it from passion and from stain :
If no black guilty thoughts disturb my sleeps
And no past crimes my vext remembrance pain.

IV.

If, tho' I pleasure find in living here,

I yet can look on Death without surprise : If I've a soul above the reach of Fear,

And which will nothing mean or sordid praise.

V.

A soul, which cannot be depressed by grief,
Nor too much raised by the sublimest joy;
Which can, when troubled, give itself relief,
And to advantage all its thoughts employ.

VI.

Then am I happy in my humbler state,
Altho' not crown'd with glory nor with bays:
A mind, that triumphs over Vice and Fate,
Esteems it mean to court the world for praise.

RICHARD DUKE.

Died 1710.

It is to be hoped that no collection of the English Poets will ever again be disgraced by the verses of this rhymester, who, notwithstanding Dr. Anderson's vindication of his morals against the censure of Johnson, did not write. decently, in any sense of the phrase.

An Epistle*

TO MR. OTWAY.

DEAR TOM how melancholy I am grown
Since thou hast left this learned dirty town†,
To thee by this dull letter be it known.
Whilst all my comfort, under all my care,
Are duns, and puns, and logick, and small beer.
Thou seest I'm dull as Shadwell's men of wit,
Or the top scene that Settle ever writ:

* In answer to one in Otways Poems.
+ Mr. Duke was then in Cambridge.