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virtue's prize: a better would you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.

Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet sigh'st thou now for apples and for cakes?
Go, like the Indian, in another life,
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife;
As well as dream such trifles are assigned,
As toys and empires, for a godlike mind.
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing;
How oft by these at sixty are undone
The virtues of a saint at twenty-one !
To whom can riches give repute or trust,
Content, or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of humankind,
Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a-year.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
'What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl!'
I'll tell you, friend-a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk;
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow:
The rest is all but leather or prunella.

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings,
That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings:
Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece :
But by your father's worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood

Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies:
'Where, but among the heroes and the wise?'
Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole strange purpose of their lives to find,
Or make, an enemy of all mankind!

Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er 100ks forward further than his nose.
No less alike the politic and wise:

All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes:
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great!
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.

What's fame a fancied life in others' breath

A thing beyond us, even before our death.

Just what you hear, you have; and what's unknown, The same (my lord) if Tully's, or your own.

All that we feel of it begins and ends

In the small circle of our foes or friends;

To all beside as much an empty shade,

An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead;

Alike or when or where they shone or shine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can save,
As justice tears his body from the grave;
When what to oblivion better were resigned,
Is hung on high to poison half mankind.
All fame is foreign but of true desert;
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart:
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.

In parts superior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
"Tis but to know how little can be known;
To see all other faults, and feel our own:
Condemned in business or in arts to drudge,
Without a second, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

Bring then these blessings to a strict account;
Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount:
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How each for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risked, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall!
To sigh for ribbons, if thou art so silly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy:
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife;
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or ravished with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!
If all united thy ambition call,

From ancient story learn to scorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honoured, fained, and great,
See the false scale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy! those to ruin, these betray:
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that raised the hero, sunk the man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But stained with blood, or ill exchanged for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plundered provinces.
Oh, wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
Ere taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophied arches, storied halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale, that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth (enough for man to know),
'Virtue alone is happiness below.'
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequalled, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so blessed,
And but more relished as the more distressed:
The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears,
Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears:

Good, from each object, from each place acquired,
For ever exercised, yet never tired;
Never elated, while one man's oppressed;
Never dejected, while another's blest;

And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.

[From the Prologue to the Satires, Addressed to
Arbuthnot.]

P. Shut up the door, good John! fatigued I said,
Tie up the knocker; say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All bedlam or Parnassus is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide.
By land, by water, they renew the charge;
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Even Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me;

Then from the mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me just at dinner time.

Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?
Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damned works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my life! (which did you not prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped;
If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I;
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:
To laugh were want of goodness and of grace;
And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility; I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,
This saving counsel, 'Keep your piece nine years.'
'Nine years!' cries he, who high in Drury Lane,
Lulled by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Obliged by hunger, and request of friends:

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The piece, you think, is incorrect? why take it; I'm all submission; what you'd have it, make it.' Three things another's modest wishes bound, My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound. Pitholeon sends to me: You know his grace; I want a patron; ask him for a place.' Pitholeon libelled me- but here's a letter Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better. Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine, He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine.'

Bless me! a packet-Tis a stranger sues, A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.'

6

If I dislike it, furies, death, and rage!'
If I approve, commend it to the stage.'
There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The players and I are, luckily, no friends.

Fired that the house reject him, "'Sdeath! I'll print it,
And shame the fools-your interest, sir, with Lintot.'
Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much :
'Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.'

All my demurs but double his attacks:
At last he whispers, Do, and we go snacks.'

·

Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door,
'Sir, let me see your works and you no more.'
You think this cruel? Take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gallery, in convulsions hurled,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribbler? Break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew:
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again;
Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arched eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colly still his lord and whore?
His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moor?
Does not one table Bavius still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?
Still Sappho-A. Hold; for God's sake-you'll offend-
No names be calm-learn prudence of a friend:

I, too, could write, and I am twice as tall;
But foes like these-P. One flatterer's worse than all.
Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right,
It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.
A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent.
One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes:
One from all Grub-street will my fame defend,
And, more abusive, calls himself my friend.
This prints my letters, that expects a bribe,
And others roar aloud, Subscribe, subscribe!"
There are, who to my person pay their court:
I cough like Horace, and though lean, am short.
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,
Such Ovid's nose, and, Sir! you have an eye!'
Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
All that disgraced my betters, met in me.
Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,
'Just so immortal Maro held his head;'
And when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago.

·

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Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipped me in ink; my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.

I left no calling for this idle trade,
No duty broke, no father disobeyed:
The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife;
To help me through this long disease, my life;
To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserved, to bear.

But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Even mitred Rochester would nod the head,
And St John's self (great Dryden's friends before)
With open arms received one poct more.
Happy my studies, when by these approved!
Happier their author, when by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence
While pure description held the place of sense!
Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme,
A painted mistress, or a purling stream.
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;
I wished the man a dinner, and sat still.
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret ;
I never answered; I was not in debt.

If want provoked, or madness made them print,
I waged no war with bedlam or the mint.

Did some more sober critic come abroad;
If wrong, I smiled, if right, I kissed the rod.
Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.
Yet ne'er one sprig of laurels graced these ribalds,
From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds;
Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells,
Fach word-catcher, that lives on syllables,
Even such small critics some regard may claim,
Preserved in Milton's or in Shakspeare's name.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things we know are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.

Were others angry? I excused them too;
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a-year;
He who, still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these my modest satire bade translate,
And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and Templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise.
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?*

*

Cursed be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress; Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a libel, or who copies out; That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet absent wounds an author's honest fame:

*The jealousy betwixt Addison and Pope, originating in literary and political rivalry, broke out into an open rupture by the above highly-finished and poignant satire. When Atterbury read it, he saw that Pope's strength lay in satirical poetry, and he wrote to him not to suffer that talent to be unemployed.

Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray: *
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie;
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

Let Sporus tremble*-4. What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of asses' milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way;
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all seesaw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed :
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest,
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool;
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool;
Not proud nor servile: be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways;
That flattery even to kings he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralised his song;
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laughed at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head;
The blow, unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
The imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libelled person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear.
Welcome to thee, fair Virtue, all the past;
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome even the last!

The Man of Ross.+

[From the Moral Essays. Epistle III.] But all our praises why should lords engross? Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross: * Lord Hervey.

+ The Man of Ross was Mr John Kyrle, who died in 1724, aged 90, and was interred in the church of Ross, in Herefordshire. Mr Kyrle was enabled to effect many of his benevolent purposes by the assistance of liberal subscriptions. Pope had been in Ross, on his way from Lord Bathurst's to Lord Oxford.

Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost;

But clear and artless, pouring through the plain,
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught the heaven-directed spire to rise?
'The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate:
Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blessed,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, and med'cine makes and gives.
Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Baulked are the courts, and contest is no more:
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.

B. Thrice happy man, enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
O say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines to swell that boundless charity?

P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possessed five hundred pounds a-year. Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze;

Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays.

B. And what! no monument, inscription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost unknown?

P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name: Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history; Enough, that virtue filled the space between; Proved by the ends of being to have been. When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch, who living saved a candle's end; Shouldering God's altar a vile image stands, Belies his features, nay, extends his hands; That live-long wig, which Gorgon's self might own, Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone. Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend! And see what comfort it affords our end!

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies-alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Cliefden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay, at council, in a ring

Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter, left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.

The Dying Christian to his Soul.
Vital spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying-
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!

What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?

We may quote, as a specimen of the melodious versification of Pope's Homer, the well-known moonlight scene, which has been both extravagantly praised and censured. Wordsworth and Southey unite in considering the lines and imagery as false and contradictory. It will be found in this case, as in many passages of Dryden, that, though natural objects be incorrectly described, the beauty of the language and versification elevates the whole into poetry of a high imaginative order. Pope followed the old version of Chapman, which we also subjoin :

The troops exulting sat in order round,

And beaming fires illumined all the ground,
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night!
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light;
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole;
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bliss the useful light.
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field.
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose unibered arms, by fits, thick flashes send;
Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.
Chapman's version is as follows:-

This speech all Trojans did applaud, who from their
traces loosed

Their sweating horse, which severally with headstalls they reposed,

And fastened by their chariots; when others brought

from town

Fat sheep and oxen instantly; bread, wine, and hewed down

Huge store of wood; the winds transferred into the

friendly sky

Their supper's savour; to the which they sat delight

fully,

And spent all night in open field; fires round about

them shined,

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,

And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows

Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows;

And even the lowly valleys gay to glitter in their sight, When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose

her light,

And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the shepherd's heart;

Lo, many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Trojan part

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The friendship of Addison has shed a reflected light on some of his contemporaries, and it elevated them, in their own day, to considerable importance. Amongst these was THOMAS TICKELL (1686–1740), born at Bridekirk, near Carlisle, and educated at

Oxford. He was a writer in the Spectator and Guardian, and when Addison went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Sunderland, Tickell accompanied him, and was employed in public business. He published

a translation of the first book of the Iliad at the same

time with Pope. Addison and the Whigs pronounced it to be the best, while the Tories ranged under the banner of Pope. The circumstance led to a breach of the friendship betwixt Addison and Pope, which was never healed. Addison continued his patronage of Tickell, made him his under secretary of state, and left him the charge of publishing his works. Tickell had elegance and tenderness as a poet, but was deficient in variety and force. His ballad of Colin and Lucy' is worth all his other works. It has the simplicity and pathos of the elder lyrics, without their too frequent coarseness and abrupt transitions. His Elegy on the Death of Addison' is considered by Johnson one of the most elegant and sublime funeral poems in the language. author's own friend, Steele, considered it only prose in rhyme!' The following extract contains the best verses in the elegy:

:

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;
Proud names! who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood,
Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men by whom impartial laws were given,
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven.
Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade.

In what new region to the just assigned,

The

What new employments please the unbodied mind?
A winged virtue through the ethereal sky,
From world to world unwearied does he fly;
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze?
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell;
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind?
A task well suited to thy gentle mind.
Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius! lend.

When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisp'rings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart;
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part no more.
That awful form which, so the Heavens decree,
Must still be loved, and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,
Or roused by Fancy, meets my waking eyes.
If business calls, or crowded courts invite,
The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight;
If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,

I meet his soul, which breathes in Cato there;
If pensive to the rural shades I rove,
His step o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
"Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song;
There patient showed us the wise course to steer,
There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.

Thou hill! whose brow the antique structures grace, Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears, Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race;

O'er

How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears!
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore,
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.

Colin and Lucy.-A Ballad.

Of Leinster, famed for maidens fair,
Bright Lucy was the grace,
Nor e'er did Liffy's limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face;

Till luckless love and pining care
Impaired her rosy hue,

Her coral lips and damask cheeks,
And eyes of glossy blue.

Oh! have you seen a lily pale

When beating rains descend? So drooped the slow-consuming maid, Her life now near its end.

By Lucy warned, of flattering swains
Take heed, ye casy fair!
Of vengeance due to broken vows,
Ye perjured swains! beware.

Three times all in the dead of night
A bell was heard to ring,
And shrieking, at her window thrice
The raven flapped his wing.

Too well the love-lorn maiden knew
The solemn boding sound,
And thus in dying words bespoke
The virgins weeping round:

"I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.

By a false heart and broken vows
In early youth I die.

Was I to blame because his bride
Was thrice as rich as I?

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