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When it saw all, and said that all was good,
The creature poet was not understood:
For, were it worth the pains of six long days,
To mould retailers of dull third-day plays,
That starve out threescore years in hopes of bays?
'Tis plain they ne'er were of the first creation,
But came by mere equivocal generation;
Like rats in ships, without coition bred,
As hated too as they are, and unfed.
Nature their species sure must needs disown,
Scarce knowing poets, less by poets known.
Yet this poor thing, so scorn'd and set at nought,
Ye all pretend to, and would fain be thought.
Disabled wasting whore-masters are not
Prouder to own the brats they never got,
Than fumbling, itching rhymers of the town
T'adopt some base-born song that 's not their own.
Spite of his state, my lord sometimes descends
To please the importunity of friends.

The dullest he, thought most for business fit,
Will venture his bought place to aim at wit;
And though he sinks with his employs of state,
Till Common Sense forsake him, he 'll translate.
The poet and the whore alike complains,
Of trading quality, that spoil their gains;
The lords will write, and ladies will have swains!
Therefore all you who have male issue born
Under the starving sign of Capricorn,
Prevent the malice of their stars in time,
And warn them early from the sin of rhyme:
Tell them how Spenser starv'd, how Cowley mourn'd,
How Butler's faith and service was return'd;
And if such warning they refuse to take,
This last experiment, O parents, make!
With hands behind him see th' offender ty'd,
The parish whip and beadle by his side;
Then lead him to some stall that does expose
The authors he loves most; there rub his nose,
Till, like a spaniel lash'd to know command,
He by the due correction understand,

To keep his brain clean, and not foul the land;

Till he against his nature learn to strive, And get the knack of dulness how to thrive.

THE

BEGINNING OF A PASTORAL

ON THE DEATH OF HIS LATE MAJESTY.

WHAT horrour 's this that dwells upon the plain,
And thus disturbs the shepherds' peaceful reign?
dismal sound breaks through the yielding air,
Forewarning us some dreadful storm is near.
The bleating flocks in wild confusion stray,
The early larks forsake their wandering way,
And cease to welcome-in the new-born day.
Each nymph possest with a distracted fear,
Disorder'd hangs her loose dishevell'd hair.
Diseases with her strong convulsions reign,
And deities, not known before to pain,
Are now with apoplectic seizures slain.
Hence flow our sorrows, hence increase our fears,
Each humble plant does drop her silver tears.
Ye tender lambs, stray not so fast away,
To weep and mourn let us together stay:
O'er all the universe let it be spread,
That now the shepherd of the flock is dead.
The royal Pan, that shepherd of the sheep,
He, who to leave his flock did dying weep,

Is gone, ah gone! ne'er to return from Death's eternal sleep!

Begin, Damela, let thy numbers fly Aloft where the soft milky way does lie; Mopsus, who Daphnis to the stars did sing, Shall join with you, and thither waft our king. Play gently on your reeds a mournful strain, And tell in notes, through all th' Arcadian plain, The royal Pan, the shepherd of the sheep, He, who to leave his flock did dying weep, Is gone, ah gone! ne'er to return from Death's eternal sleep!

THE

POEMS

OF

JOHN POMFRET.

THE

LIFE OF POMFRET,

BY DR. JOHNSON.

OF Mr. JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a slight and confused account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he was the son of the rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at Cambridge'; entered into orders, and was rector of Malden in Bedfordshire, and might have risen in the church; but that, when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found a troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious interpretation of some passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife.

This reproach was easily obliterated: for it had happened to Pomfret as to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from his purpose, and was then married.

The malice of his enemies had however a very fatal consequence: the delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the small-pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.

He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own amusement.

His Choice exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.

In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponderous or entangled with intricate sentiment. He pleases many; and he who pleases many must have some species of merit.

'He was of Queen's College there, and, by the university-register, appears to have taken his bachelor's degree in 1684, and his master's 1698. H.-His father was of Trinity. C.

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