STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY.

A Fragment.

IN silent gaze the tuneful choir among, Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire,

While Bentley leads her sister-art along, And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.

See, in their course, each transitory thought

Fix'd by his touch a lasting essence

take;

Each dream, in fancy's airy coloring wrought,

To local symmetry and life awake!

The tardy rhymes that used to linger on, To censure cold, and negligent o

fame,

In swifter measures animated run, And catch a lustre from his genuine flame.

Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace,

His quick creation, his unerring line; The energy of Pope they might efface, And Dryden's harmony submit to mine.

But not to one in this benighted age
Is that diviner inspiration giv'n,
That burns in Shakespeare's or in Mil-
ton's page,

The pomp and prodigality of heav'n.

As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze,

The meaner gems that singly charm

the sight,

Together dart their intermingled rays, And dazzle with a luxury of light.

Enough for me, if to some feeling breast My lines a secret sympathy "impart ;"

And as their pleasing influence "flows confest,"

A sigh of soft reflection "heaves the heart."

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARAC

TER.

Written in 1761, and found in one of his pocket-books.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,

He had not the method of making a fort

une:

Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;

No very great wit, he believed in a God: A post or a pension he did not desire, But left Church and State to Charles Townshend and Squire.

AMATORY LINES.

WITH beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish

To weep without knowing the cause of my anguish :

To start from short slumbers, and wish for the morning

To close my dull eyes when I see it returning ;

Sighs sudden and frequent, looks ever dejected

Words that steal from my tongue, by no meaning connected!

Ah! say, fellow-swains, how these symptoms befell me?

They smile, but reply not.-Sure Delia will tell me!