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These were the Compliments of old, While Nymphs, among the Gods enroll'd, Claim'd Love's obsequious Duty;

Thus, while each Bard had favourite Views, Each Nymph became a GRACE, or MUSE, A VENUS every Beauty.

Say, in these latter Days of ours,
When Love exerts his usual Powers,
What difference lies between us?
In CHLOE's self at once I boast,
What Bards of every age might toast,
A MUSE, a GRACE, a VENUS.

In CHLOE are a thousand charms,
Though Envy call her sex to arms,

And giggling Girls may flout her,
The MUSE inhabits in her Mind,
A VENUS in her form we find,

The GRACES all about her.

SONG.

THE

HE Beauty which the Gods bestow,
Did they but give it for a show?

No 'twas lent thee from above,
To shed its Lustre o'er thy face,
And with its pure and native grace
To charm the soul to Love.

The flaunting Sun, whose western beams,
This Evening drink of Ocean's streams,
To-morrow springs to Light.

But when thy Beauty sets, my Fair,
No morrow shall its beam repair,
'Tis all eternal Night.

See too, my Love, the virgin Rose,
How sweet, how bashfully it blows
Beneath the vernal skies!
How soon it blooms in full display,
Its bosom opening to the Day,

Then withers, shrinks, and dies.

Of mortal Life's declining Hour,

Such is the Leaf, the Bud, the Flow'r;
Then crop the Rose in Time.

Be blest and bless, and kind impart
The just return of Heart for Heart,
Ere Love becomes a Crime.

To Pleasure then, my charmer, haste,
And ere thy Youth begins to waste,
Ere Beauty dims its ray,

The proffer'd gift of Love employ,
Improve each moment into Joy,
Be happy, whilst you may.

EPISTLE

TO A FRIEND.

66

66

Do, study more-discard that Siren, Ease,
Whose fatal charms are murd'rous while they

please.

"Wit's scanty streams will fret their channel dry, "If Learning's spring withhold the fresh supply. "Turn leaf by leaf gigantic volumes o'er,

"Nor blush to know what antients wrote before. "Why not, sometimes, regale admiring friends "WithGreek and Latin sprinklings,odds and ends? "Exert your talents; read, and read to write! "As Horace says, mix profit with delight."

'Tis rare advice; but I am slow to mend,
Though ever thankful to my partial friend:
Full of strange fears-for hopes are banish'd all-
I list' no more to Phoebus' sacred call,

Smit with the Muse, 'tis true, I sought her charms;
But came no champion, clad in cumb'rous arms,
To pull each rival monarch from his throne,
And swear no lady Clio like my own.

All unambitious of superior praise,
My fond amusement ask'd a sprig of bays,
Some little fame for stringing harmless verse,
And e'en that little fame has prov'd a curse;
Hitch'd into rhime, and dragg'd through muddy

prose,

By butcher critics, worth's confed'rate foes.

If then the Muse no more shall strive to please, Lull'd in the happy lethargy of ease;

If, unadvent'rous, she forbear to sing,

Nor take one thought to plume her ruffled wing;
'Tis that she hates, howe'er by nature vain,
The scurril nonsense of a venal train.

When desp❜rate robbers, issuing from the waste,
Make such rude inroads on the land of taste,
Genius grows sick beneath the Gothic rage,
Or seeks her laurels from some worthier age.

As for Myself, I own the present charge; Lazy and lounging, I confess at large: Yet Ease, perhaps, may loose her silken chains, And the next hour become an hour of pains. We write, we read, we act, we think, by fits, And follow all things as the humour hits; For of all pleasures, which the world can bring, Variety O! dear variety's the thing!

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