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With added years, if Life bring nothing new,
But like a Sieve let every bleffing thro',
Some joy ftill loft, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, fome fad reflection more;
Is that a Birth-Day? 'tis alas! too clear,
'Tis but the Fun'ral of the former year.

Let Joy or Eafe, let Affluence or Content,
And the gay Confcience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, infpirit ev'ry grace,
Glow in thy heart, and fmile upon thy face,
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a Pain, a Trouble, or a Fear;
Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In fome foft dream, or Ecftacy of joy,
Peaceful fleep out the Sabbath of the Tomb,
And wake to Raptures in a Life to come,

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To Mr. THOMAS SOUTHERN, on his BIRTH-DAY, 1742.

RESIGN'D to live, prepar❜d to die,

With not one fin, but poetry,

This day Tom's fair Account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one,
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet fingers,
Prefents her harp + ftill to his fingers,
The feaft, his tow'ring genius marks
In yonder wild goofe and the larks!

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• He was invited to dine on his birth-day with this Nobleman, who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill of fare is here fet down.

etc.

↑ The harp is generally wove on the Irish Linen; fuch as Table-cloths,

The

The mushrooms fhew his wit was fudden!

And for his judgment, lo a pudden !

Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him ftout,

And grace, altho' a bard, devout.

May Toм, whom Heav'n fent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays*,
Be ev'ry birth-day more a winner,
Digeft his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And fcorn a rafcal and a coach.

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*This alludes to a story Mr. Southern told of Dryden, about the fame time, to Mr. P. and Mr. W. When Southern firft wrote for the stage, Dryden was fo famous for his Frologues, that the players would act nothing without that decoration. His ufual price till then had been four guineas: But when Southern came to him for the Prologue he had bespoke, Dryden told him he must have fix guineas for it; "which (faid he) young man, "is out of no difrefpect to you; but the players have had my goods too "cheap."-We now look upon thefe Prologues with the fame admiration that the Virtuosi do on the Apothecaries pots painted by Raphael.

VOL. III.

H

EPITAPHS.

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DORSET, the Grace of Courts, the Mufe's Pride,
Patron of Arts, and judge of Nature, dy'd.
The scourge of Pride, tho' fanctified or great,
Of Fops in Learning, and of Knaves in State :

*Thefe little compofitions far exceed any thing we have of the fame kind from other hands; yet, if we except the Epitaph on the young Duke of Buckingham, and perhaps one or two more, they are not of equal force with the reft of our Author's writings. The nature of the Composition itself is deliCate; and generally it was a task imposed on him; though he rarely complied with requests of this nature, as we may fee by the fmall number of these poems, but where the subject was worthy of his pen.

For random praise the Work would ne'er be done:

Each Mother afks it for ber booby Son:

Each Widow afks it for the beft of Men;

For bim fhe weeps, for him she weds again.

Yet when these elegiac movements came freely from the heart, he mourns in fuch ftrains as fhew he was equally a mafter of this kind of Compofition with every other he undertook, as the following lines in the Epistle to Jervas may witness; which would have made the fineft Epitaph in the world:

Call round her Tomb each object of defire,
Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire:
Bid her be all that chears or softens life,
The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife:
Bid her be all that makes mankind adore;
Then view this marble, and be vain no more.

Yet

Yet foft his Nature, tho' fevere his Lay,
His Anger moral, and his Wifdom gay.
Bleft Sat'rift! who touch'd the Mean fo true,
As fhow'd, Vice had his hate and pity too.
Bleft Courtier! who could King and Country please,
Yet facred keep his Friendships, and his Ease.
Bleft Peer! his great Forefathers ev'ry grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his Race;

Where other BUCKHURSTS, other DORSETS fhine,
And Patrons ftill, or Poets, deck the Line.

II.

On Sir WILLIAM TRUMBA L,

One of the principal Secretaries of State to King WILLIAM III. who, having refigned his place, died in his Retirement at Easthamfted, in Berkshire, 1716.

A Pleafing Form; a firm, yet cautious Mind ;
Sincere, tho' prudent; conftant, yet refign'd;

Honour unchang'd, a Principle profest,

Fix'd to one fide, but mod'rate to the reft;
An honeft Courtier, yet a Patriot too;
Juft to his Prince, and to his Country true :
Fill'd with the Senfe of Age, the Fire of Youth,
A Scorn of wrangling, yet a Zeal for Truth;
A gen'rous Faith, from Superftition free;

A love to Peace, and hate of Tyranny;

Such this Man was; who now, from Earth remov'd,
At length enjoys that Liberty he lov'd.

III.

On the Hon. SIMON HARCOURT,

Only Son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT, at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt in Oxfordshire, 1720.

T

O this fad fhrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near,

Here lies the Friend moft lov'd, the Son moft dear:
Who ne'er knew Joy, but Friendship might divide,
Or gave his Father Grief but when he dy'd.

How vain is Reason, Eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what HARCOURT cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-lov'd Friend infcribe thy Stone,
And, with a Father's forrows, mix his own!

On

IV.

JAMES CRAGGS, Efq;

In WESTMINSTER-ABBEY,

JACOBUS CRAGGS

REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SECRETIS
ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS,

PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIÆ;
VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR

ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, XXXV.

OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

Statefman, yet Friend to Truth! of Soul fincere,
In Action faithful, and in Honour clear!
Who broke no Promise, ferv'd no private End,
Who gain'd no Title, and who loft no Friend,
Ennobled by Himself, by All approv'd,
Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the Mufe he lov'd..

Intended

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