mance will please a judgment so exact as your's. However, it is entirely submitted to your censure,

by

Your most humble servant,

A POEM ON Love.

Assist my doubtful Muse, propitious Love,
Let all my soul the sacred impulse prove:
For thine's a holy unpolluted flame,
Howe'er the Libertine profanes thy name;
Howe'er, with impious cant, Hypocrisy,
And senseless Supersition, blemish thee:

The pure result of sober reason thou:
Thy laws the strictest honour must allow :
Thy laws each vicious thought controul;

LINDAMOR.

From thee Devotion takes its flaming wings,
Thou giv'st the noblest motions to the soul,
And govern'st all its springs.

Το great attempts thou gen'rous minds dost move,
And only such are privileg'd to love;

Th' heroic race, the brightest names of old,
Were all thy glorious votaries enroll'd.

Without thee, human life

A tedious round of circling cares would be
A curs'd fatigue, continual strife,

And tiresome vanity.

Thy charms, our restless grief controul,
And calm the stormy motions of the soul;
Before thee, pride and enmity,
With all infernal passions, fly;

And could'st thou in the realms below

But once display thy beauteous face,
The damn'd a short redress might now,
And ev'ry terror fly the place.

From thee, one bright unclouded smile
Would all the torments there beguile;
Thy smiles th' eternal tempest could assuage,
And make the damn'd forget their rage;
The sulph'rous waves would cease to roar,
And calmly glide along the silent shore.
Had Orpheus (as 'tis fabled) through the ground
To Hell the gloomy passage found,

His warbling voice, his melting lyre,
Nor artful touches on the trembling string,

Had ne'er obtain'd his bold desire,

Nor charm'd the furies with their sullen king:
But Love his tender theme, had Love been nam'd,
That potent sound alone had all their malice tamı'd.
On thee the Graces and Delights attend,
On thy propitious influence

Our gayest hours depend;
Whatever charms the soul or sense,
Beauty and sacred harmony,
Accomplish'd Love! belongs to thee.
To thee his shining graces Strephon owes
His just ideas, and expressions fit;

To thee Cleora owes that sprightly wit,
Which from her lips in easy language flows.
The mute creation owns thy sway,

And things inanimate thy laws obey;
At thy command the first confusion ceas'd,
Chaos and wild Disorder were appeas'd;
Discord and fierce Antipathy grew mild,

The gleams of light through yielding darkness smil'd,
And warring elements were reconcil'd.

Nature begun a steady course,

Govern'd by central charms, and sympathetic force.

But in the blissful skies alone

Almighty Love! thy pow'r is fully known:

There they view thy charming face,
Painted with endless smiles, and ever-blooming grace,
Thy gentle torch burns there for ever bright,
And scatters round a mild propitious light;
All feel its pleasing influence,

While pure desires thy golden shafts dispense.
Th' immortal lovers, crown'd with fragrant flow'rs,
In rosy shades, and blissful bow'rs,
To thee devote their happy hours,

While active joys, too noble for disguise,
And vital pleasures, sparkle in their eyes;

To thee alone, great Love, their heav'n they owe,
The boundless source whence all their blessings flow,
Thy sacred flame

Does ev'ry heav'nly breast inspire,

And tune the strings of cach celestial lyre;
In flow'ry vales, to every blissful stream,
With melting notes, they celebrate thy name:
Backward they roll the long extent

Of ages infinite, and sing thy great descent.
No fabled Venus gave thee birth

At Cyprus; yet the goddesss was not nam'd,
Nor at Idalia, nor at Paphos fam'd;

Nor yet was feign'd from foaming seas to rise;
For yet no seas appear'd, or fountains flow'd,
Nor yet, distinguish'd in the skies,

Her radiant planet glow'd.

But thou wast long cre Motion sprung its race,
Ere Chaos and immeasurable Space

Resign'd their useless rights to elemental Place;
Before the sparkling lamps on high

Were kindled up, and ht g around the sky
Before the Sun led on the circling Hours,
Or vital seeds produc'd their active powers;
Before the first Intelligences strung

Their golden harps, and soft preludiums sung

Th' ineffable Divinity

His own resemblance meets in thee :"

By this thy glorious lineage thou dost prove
Thy high descent; for God himself is Love.

LETTER VIII.

From SYLVIANA, giving an account of her manner of* life before her marriage with the Earl of

Madam,

YOUR curiosity is very obliging, in desiring to know my manner of life 'till I had the honour of being married to my Lord The account, indeed, would be perfectly insignificant without that circumstance; it is only my relation to him that gives me a concern for the decorum and propriety of my conduct in the high station to which he has advanced me.

I must own, that my scrupulous dissent from some fashionable freedoms makes my behaviour appear somewhat singular and precise among the gallant part of of the world; but I hope, in this general toleration, I may, with indemnity, be a Christian, though not a prude, at sixteen. If this is an error, the prejudice of education must be my excuse, which keeps me from giving my assent to many of the genteel maxims of the age: nor will you be surprised at my nicety, when you know by what precepts the early part of my life has been governed.

My father was a country clergyman, a person of exemplary piety, who, with a benefice of three hundred a year, treated his poor parishioners with great hospitality, and made a decent provision for his own family.

My mother was bred a Dissenter, and continued such, 'till either her esteem for my father, or the force of his arguments, prevailed with her to join in communion with the national church.

I was the eldest of three daughters, which were all the children they had. We were carefully instructed in the rules of justice and truth, and bred in the greatest sanctity of manners; no excuse but sickness ever detained' us on Sundays from the public worship; nor were the intervals spent in any idle amusements; the whole day was sacred, and observed with just solemnity: through the rest of the week prayers were constantly read mornings and evenings in the family; nor would my mother ever suffer cards or dancing in the house.

My two sisters were the prettiest demure things that ever were seen; they applied themselves with great diligence to assist my mother in any of her domestic concerns: but my temper being more sprightly, house-wifery and plain-work were my aversion; reading was my prevailing attatchment, and I had turned over every book in my father's library except Latin and Greek: but here was not one play or novel for my entertainment: how