Did't wake the hollow-whifp'ring breeze
With care-confumed Eloife:

O thou, with whom in cheerlefs cell,
The midnight clock pale pris'ners tell;
O hafte thee, mild Miltonic maid,
From yonder yews fequefter'd shade ;
More bright than all the fabled nine,
Teach me to breathe the folemn line:
O bid my well-rang'd numbers rife,
Pervious to none but Attic eyes;
O give the train that madness moves,
Till every flarting sense approves.
What felt the Gallic Traveller,
When far in Arab-defert drear,
He found within the Catacomb,
Alive, the terrors of a tomb?
While many a mummy thro' the shade,
In hieroglyphic ftole array'd,

Seem'd to uprear the mystic head,

And trace the gloom with ghoftly tread;
Thou heard'ft him the ftifled groan,

pour

Horror! his foul was all thy own!"

The author was himself a descriptive poet of the first class. Mr. William Collins thought himself aimed at by this piece of ridicule. His odes had been just published; and the laft lines feemed to refer to a particular paffage in them.

I

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

KNOW the thing that's most uncommon;

(Envy be filent, and attend!)

I know a reasonable Woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a Friend.

Not warp'd by Paffion, aw'd by Rumour,

Not grave through Pride, or gay through Folly, An equal Mixture of good Humour,

And fenfible foft Melancholy.

"Has fhe no faults then (Envy fays) Sir?"
Yes, he has one, I must aver;

When all the World confpires to praise her,
The Woman's deaf and does not hear.

NOTES.

VER. 1. I know the thing] Equal in elegance to any compliment that Waller has paid to Sacchariffa, especially the last stanza, and the answer to Envy. The Lady addreft was Mrs. Howard, of Marble-hill, bed-chamber woman to Queen Caroline, and afterwards. Countess of Suffolk.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED Or

MARBLES, SPARS, GEMMS, ORES, AND MINERALS.

HOU who fhalt ftop, where Thames' translucent

THOU

wave

Shines a broad Mirror through the fhadowy Cave;
Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distil,
And pointed Crystals break the fparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gemms no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow:

Approach. Great NATURE ftudiously behold!
And eye the Mine without a wifh for Gold.

5

VARIATIONS.

Approach:

After VER. 6. in the MS.

You fee that Ifland's wealth, where, only free,
Earth to her entrails feels not Tyranny.

i. e. Britain is the only place in the globe which feels not tyranny even to its very entrails.

NOTES.

W.

On his Grotto] The improving and finishing his Grott was the favourite amusement of his declining years; and the beauty of his poetic genius, in the difpofition and ornaments of this romantic recefs, appears to as much advantage as in his best contrived

poems.

VER. 8. Eye the Mine]

"Aurum irrepertum, et fic melius fitum
Cum terra calet."

W.

HORAT. 1. 3. od. 3.

Approach: But awful! Lo! th' Aegerian Grott, 9
Where, nobly-penfive, ST. JOHN fate and thought;
Where British fighs from dying WYNDHAM stole,
And the bright flame was fhot through MARCH-
MONT'S Soul.

Let fuch, fuch only, tread this facred Floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 11. Where British fighs from dying Wyndham ftole,] In his MS. it was thus:

To Wyndham's breast the patriot paffions stole,

which made the whole allude to a certain anecdote of not much confequence to any but the parties concerned.

NOTES.

W.

VER. 9. Aegerian Grott,] These are two charming lines; but are blemished by two bad rhymes, Grott to Thought; fcarce excufable in fo short a poem, in which every syllable ought to be correct.

It is remarkable that Juvenal having mentioned this celebrated cave, takes occafion to inveigh against artificial grotto-work, and adulterating the fimple beauties of nature, in lines uncommonly poetical:

"In vallem Egeria defcendimus, et Speluncas

Diffimiles veris; quanto præftantius effet

Numen aquæ, viridi fi margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum."

Sat. iii. v. 17.

Milton, in an exquifite Latin poem, addreft to Salfillus, vol. ii. P 532. has beautifully feigned that Numa is ftill living in this dark. grove and grotto, in the perpetual enjoyment of his Ægeria.

TO MRS. M. B.

ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

H be thou bleft with all that Heav'n can send,
Long Health, long Youth, long Pleasure, and
a Friend:

Not with thofe Toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and Vanities that tire.
With added years if Life bring nothing new,
But like a Sieve let ev'ry bleffing through,
Some joy ftill loft, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, fome fad Reflection more;
Is that a Birth-day? 'tis alas! too clear,
'Tis but the Fun'ral of the former year.

Let Joy or Eafe, let Affluence or Content, And the gay Confcience of a life well spent,

10

Calm

NOTES.

VER. 10. 'Tis but] Immediately after this line were these four

following, in the original:

"If there's no hope, with kind, tho' fainter ray,
To gild the evening of our future day;

If every page of life's long volume tell

The fame dull story, Mordaunt, thou didst well!"

Colonel Mordaunt, who deftroyed himself, though not under the preffure of any ill or misfortune.