Then bravely, fair dame,

Resume the old claim,

Which to your whole sex does belong;
And let men receive,

From a second bright Eve,

The knowledge of right and of wrong.
But if the first Eve,

Hard doom did receive,

When only one apple had she,

What a punishment new

Shall be found out for you,

Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree!

EPISTLE IV, OF BOOK I, OF HORACE'S EPISTLES.*

A modern Imitation.

SAY,† St. John, who alone peruse
With candid eye, the mimic muse,
What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws!
Is then a greater work in hand,
Than all the tomes of Haines's band?
'Or shoots he folly as it flies?

Or catches manners as they rise?'t

Or, urged by unquench'd native heat,

Does St. John Greenwich sports repeat?

* This satire on Lord Bolingbroke, and the praise bestowed on him in a letter to Mr. Richardson, where Mr. Pope says,

The sons shall blush their fathers were his foes: being so contradictory, probably occasioned the former to be suppressed. S.

t

Ad Albium Tibullum.

Albi, nostrorum sermonum, candide judex,
Quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana?
Scribere, quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat.
The lines here quoted occur in the Essay on Man.
An tacitum silvas inter reptare salubres?

Where (emulous of Chartres' fame)
E'en Chartres' self is scarce a name.
*To you (the all-envied gift of heaven)
The indulgent gods, unask'd, have given
A form complete in every part,

And, to enjoy that gift, the art.

1 What could a tender mother's care
Wish better to her favourite heir,
Than wit, and fame, and lucky hours,
A stock of health, and golden showers,
And graceful fluency of speech,
Precepts before unknown to teach?
Amidst thy various ebbs of fear,
And gleaming hope, and black despair;
Yet let thy friend this truth impart;
A truth I tell with bleeding heart
(In justice for your labours past,)

That every day shall be your last,
That every hour you life renew
Is to your injured country due.

In spite of tears, of mercy spite,
My genius still must rail, and write.
Haste to thy Twickenham's safe retreat,
And mingle with the grumbling great:

There, half devour'd by spleen, you'll find
The rhyming bubbler of mankind;
There (objects of our mutual hate)
We'll ridicule both church and state.

Di tibi formam

Di tibi divitias dederunt, artemque fruendi. Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, Qui sapere, et fari possit quæ sentiat, et cui Gratia, fama, valetudo contingat abunde, non deficiente crumena? 1 Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras. Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. Me pinguem et nitidum bene curat cute visos, Cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum.

EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS,

A handsome Woman with a fine Voice, but very covetous and proud.*

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song,
As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along
But such is thy avarice and such is thy pride,
That the beasts must have starved, and the poet
have died.

EPIGRAM,

On one who made long Epitaphs.†
FRIEND, for your epitaphs I'm grieved;
Where still so much is said,

One half will never be believed,

The other never read.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER,
On his painting for me the Statues of Apollo,
Venus, and Hercules.

WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move
When Kneller painted these?

'Twas Friendship-warm as Phœbus, kind as Love, And strong as Hercules.

*This epigram, first printed anonymously in Steele's Collection, and copied in the Miscellanies of Swift and Pope, is ascribed to Pope by sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music-Mrs. Tofts, who was the daughter of a person in the family of Bishop Burnet, is celebrated as a singer little inferior, either for her voice or manner to the best Italian women. She lived at the introduction of the opera into this kingdom, and sung in company with Nicolini; but, being ignorant of Italian, chanted her recitative in English, in answer to his Italian; yet the charms of their voices overcame the absurdity.

It is not generally known that the person here meant was Dr. Robert Friend, head master of West minster-school

A FAREWELL TO LONDON.

In the Year 1715.

DEAR, damn'd distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll tease:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,

Ye harlots, sleep at ease.

Soft B*** and rough C*****, adieu!

Earl Warwick make your moan,

The lively H*****k and you

May knock up whores alone.

To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Till the third watchman toll;
Let Jervis gratis paint, and Frowde
Save three-pence and his soul.
Farewell Arbuthnot's raillery
On every learned sot,

And Garth, the best good christian he,
Although he knows it not.

Lintot, farewell; thy bard must go!

Farewell, unhappy Tonson!

Heaven gives thee, for thy loss of Rowe,

Lean Philips, and fat Johnson.

Why should I stay? Both parties rage;

My vixen mistress squalls;

The wits in envious feuds engage;

And Homer (damn him!) calls.

The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed,

Has yet the grace to mourn.

My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Betray, and are betray'd:

Poor Y***r's sold for fifty pound,

And B******ll is a jade.

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls seven hours in eight ?—
I need but once a week.

Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake alive.
Solicitous for others' ends,

Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.

Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For salads, tarts, and pease!

Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul sincere and free,

Loves all mankind, but flatters none,

And so may starve with me.

Pope.

A DIALOGUE.

SINCE my old friend is grown so great
As to be minister of state,

I'm told (but 'tis not true I hope)
That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope.
Craggs. Alas! if I am such a creature,

To grow the worse for growing greater,
Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,
'Tis Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.