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ON MR. POPE AND HIS POEMS,

BY HIS GRACE

JOHN SHEFFIELD,

DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

WITH Age decay'd, with Courts and bus'ness tir'd,
Caring for nothing but what Ease requir'd;
Too dully serious for the Muse's sport,
And from the Critics safe arriv'd in Port;
I little thought of launching forth agen,
Amidst advent'rous Rovers of the Pen:
And after so much undeserv'd success,
Thus hazarding at last to make it less.
Encomiums suit not this censorious time,
Itself a subject for satiric rhyme;

Ignorance honour'd, Wit and Worth defam'd,
Folly triumphant, and ev'n Homer blam'd!
But to this Genius, join'd with so much Art,
Such various Learning mix'd in ev'ry part,
Poets are bound a loud applause to pay;
Apollo bids it, and they must obey.

And yet so wonderful, sublime a thing

As the great ILIAD, scarce could make me sing;

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Ver. 11.] This is the common-place cant of men tired with business and courts.

"This is mere moral babble." Comus, p. 806.

Except I justly could at once commend
A good Companion, and as firm a Friend.
One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed
Can all desert in Sciences exceed.

'Tis great delight to laugh at some men's ways, But a much greater to give Merit praise.

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TO MR. POPE,

ON HIS PASTORALS.

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In these more dull, as more censorious days,
When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A Muse sincere, that never Flatt'ry knew,
Pays what to friendship and desert is due.
Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found
Art strengthening Nature, Sense improv'd by Sound.
Unlike those Wits, whose numbers glide along
So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song;
Laboriously enervate they appear,

And write not to the head, but to the ear:
Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull,
And are at best most musically dull:
So purling streams with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into sleep.
As smoothest speech is most deceitful found,
The smoothest numbers oft are empty sound.
But Wit and Judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as Youth, as Age consummate too:
Your strains are regularly bold, and please
With unfore'd care, and unaffected ease,

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With proper thoughts, and lively images:
Such as by Nature to the Ancients shewn,
Fancy improves and judgment makes your own:
For great men's fashions to be follow'd are,
Atho' disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear.
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall;
Like some fair Shepherdess, the Sylvan Muse
Should wear those flow'rs her native fields produce;
And the true measure of the Shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit:
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common swains be wrought.
So, with becoming art, the Players dress,
In silks the shepherd, and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely russet of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify

The long lost graces of Simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her Modesty those charms conceal'd,
'Till by Men's envy to the world reveal'd;
For Wits industrious to their troubles seem,

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And needs will envy what they must esteem.

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Live and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate,

Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait;
Whose Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight;
Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight;

Ver. 28. Sylvan Muse] From Boileau's Art of Poetry, Chant. 2. 1. 1. Pope seems to have corrected these lines.

So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.

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W. WYCHERLEY.

TO MR. POPE,

ON HIS WINDSOR-FOREST.

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HAIL, sacred Bard! a Muse unknown before
Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore.
To our dark world thy shining page is shewn,
And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own.
The Eastern pomp had just bespoke our care,
And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here:
A various spoil adorn'd our naked land,
The pride of Persia glitter'd on our strand,
And China's earth was cast on common sand:
Toss'd up and down the glossy fragments lay,
And dress'd the rocky shelves, and pav'd the painted

bay.

Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast

A nobler cargo on our barren coast:

From thy luxuriant Forest we receive

More lasting glories than the East can give.
Where'er we dip in thy delightful page,
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage!

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Ver. 16. Where'er we dip] There are several lines in this copy of verses, which would not be endured in a common monthly magazine. So much is the public ear and public taste improved!

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