Why, fair one, would you not rely

On Reason's force with Beauty's joined? Could I their prevalence deny,

I must at once be deaf and blind.

Alas! not hoping to subdue,

I only to the fight aspired:
To keep the beauteous foe in view
Was all the glory I desired.

But she, howe'er of victory sure,
Contemns the wreath too long delayed;
And, armed with more immediate power,
Calls cruel silence to her aid.

Deeper to wound, she shuns the fight:

She drops her arms, to gain the field: Secures her conquest by her flight;

And triumphs, when she seems to yield. So when the Parthian turned his steed, And from the hostile camp withdrew; With cruel skill the backward reed

He sent; and as he fled, he slew.

AN ODE.

The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Chloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Chloe noted her desire,

That I should sing, that I should play.

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise ;
But with my numbers mix my sighs:
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,

I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.

Fair Chloe blushed: Euphelia frowned:

I sung and gazed: I played and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around

Remarked, how ill we all dissembled.

७

CUPID MISTAKEN.

As after noon, one summer's day,
Venus stood bathing in a river;
Cupid a-shooting went that way,

New-strung his bow, new-filled his quiver.

With skill he chose his sharpest dart :
With all his might his bow he drew:
Swift to his beauteous parent's heart
The too-well-guided arrow flew.

I faint! I die! the goddess cried;

O cruel, could'st thou find none other
To wreck thy spleen on? Parricide!

Like Nero, thou hast slain thy mother.
Poor Cupid sobbing scarce could speak;
Indeed, mamma, I did not know ye:
Alas! how easy my mistake!

I took you for your likeness, Chloe.

A BETTER ANSWER1.

Dear Chloe, how blubbered is that pretty face!
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurled:
Pr'ythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaff says)
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.
How can'st thou presume, thou hast leave to destroy
The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy:
More ordinary eyes may serve people for weeping.

1 ie. than the 'Answer to Chloe jealous,' which usually precedes it.

To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ,

Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong: You take that for fact, which will scarce be found wit: Od's life! must one swear to the truth of a song? What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shews The difference there is betwixt nature and art:

I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:

And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart.
The god of us verse-men (you know Child) the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest:
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run ;
At night he reclines on his Thetis's breast.

So when I am wearied with wandering all day;
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come :
No matter what beauties I saw in my way:
They were but my visits, but thou art my home.
Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war;
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:

For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
As he was a poet sublimer than me.

A SIMILE.

Dear Thomas, did'st thou never pop
Thy head into a tin-man's shop?
There, Thomas, did'st thou never see
('Tis but by way of Simile!)
A squirrel spend his little rage,

In jumping round a rolling cage?

The cage, as either side turned up,
Striking a ring of bells a-top?-

Moved in the orb, pleased with the chimes,

The foolish creature thinks he climbs:

But here or there, turn wood or wire,

He never gets two inches higher.

So fares it with those merry blades,
That frisk it under Pindus' shades.
In noble songs, and lofty odes,

They tread on stars, and talk with Gods;
Still dancing in an airy round,

Still pleased with their own verses' sound; Brought back, how fast soe'er they go, Always aspiring, always low.

EPIGRAM.

To John I owed great obligation ;
But John, unhappily, thought fit

To publish it to all the nation :

Sure John and I are more than quit.

ANOTHER.

Yes, every poet is a fool:

By demonstration Ned can show it: Happy, could Ned's inverted rule

Prove every fool to be a poet.

FOR MY OWN TOMB-STONE.

To me 'twas given to die: to thee 'tis given To live alas! one moment sets us even. Mark! how impartial is the will of Heaven!

LADY WINCHILSEA.

[ANNE FINCH, Countess of Winchilsea, was born about 1660, at Sidmonton, Hants, the residence of her father, Sir William Kingsmill. She married Heneage Finch, fourth Earl of Winchilsea, who survived her six years. She died on the 5th of August, 1720, leaving no issue. Her works consist of The Spleen, a pindaric ode, 1701; The Prodigy, 1706; Miscellany Poems, 1713; and Aristomenes, a tragedy.]

In that invaluable Essay which Wordsworth appended to his Lyrical Ballads in 1815, he says that 'excepting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchilsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature.' This remark, although rather acute than exact, since the poet forgets both Gay and Parnell, did eminent service in restoring to the list of English poets a name entirely and unworthily forgotten. Since Wordsworth's mention of Lady Winchilsea, the one piece that he cites has been often reprinted in collections of verse, but it cannot be said that any further effort has been made to investigate the claims of the neglected authoress. Her poems have never been edited or described, and we believe that our present selection will reveal to almost all our readers a writer positively unknown to them. Yet she was a poetess of singular originality and excellence; her lines To the Nightingale have lyrical qualities which were scarcely approached in her own age, and would do credit to the best, while her odes and more weighty pieces have a strength and accomplishment of style which make the least interesting of them worth reading.

Lady Winchilsea was one of the last pindaric writers of the school of Cowley. Her odes display that species of writing in the