Truth and the text he labours to display,
Till both are quite interpreted away:
So frugal dames infipid water pour,
Till green, bohea, or coffee, are no more.
His arguments in giddy circles run
Still round and round, and end where they begun
So the poor turnfpit, as the wheel runs round,
The more he gains, the more he loses ground.
No parts diftinct, or general scheme we find,
But one wild shapeless monfter of the mind :
So when old Bruin teems, her children fail
Of limbs, form, figure, features, head, or tail;
Nay, though she licks the ruins, all her cares
Scarce mend the lumps, and bring them but to bears.
Ye country vicars, when you preach in town
A turn at Paul's, to pay your journey down,
If would fhun the sneer of every prig,
you
Lay by the little band, and rusty wig:
But yet be fure, your proper language know,
Nor talk as born within the found of Bow.
Speak not the phrafe that Drury-lane affords,
Nor from Change-alley steal a cant of words.
Coachmen will criticife your ftyle; nay further,
Porters will bring it in for wilful murther :
The dregs of the canaille will look askew,
To hear the language of the town from you;
Nay, my lord mayor, with merriment poffeft,
Will break his nap, and laugh among the rest,
And jog the aldermen to hear the jest.
Infcribed on a stone, that covers his Father, Mother, and Brother.
E facred fpirits! while your friends diftrefs'd
Weep o'er your ashes, and lament the blefs'd;
O let the penfive Muse inscribe that stone,
And with the general forrows mix her own:
The penfive Mufe!-who, from this mournful hour,
Shall raise her voice, and wake the ftring no more!
Of love, of duty, this laft pledge receive;
"Tis all a brother, all a fon can give.
A POEM on the DEATH of the late Earl STANHOP E. Humbly inscribed to the Countess of STANHOPE.
"At length, grim fate, thy dreadful triumphs cease: "Lock up the tomb, and seal the grave in peace."
WOW from thy riot of destruction breathe,
Call in thy raging plagues, thou tyrant death: Too mean 's the conquest which thy arms bestow, Too mean to fweep a nation at a blow.
No, thy unbounded triumphs higher run,
And feem to ftrike at all mankind in one;
Since Stanhope is thy prey, the great, the brave,
A nobler prey was never paid the grave.
We feem to feel from this thy daring crime,
A blank in nature, and a pause in time.
He ftood fo high in reason's towering sphere,
As high as man unglorify'd could bear.
In arms, and eloquence, like Cæfar, fhone
So bright, that each Minerva was his own.
How could fo vast a fund of learning lie
Shut up in fuch a short mortality?
One world of science nobly travell'd o'er,
Like Philip's glorious fon, he wept for more.
And now, refign'd to tears, th' angelic choirs,
With drooping heads, unftring their golden lyres,
Wrapt in a cloud of grief, they figh to view
Their facred image laid by death fo low:
And deep in anguish funk, on Stanhope's fate,
Begin to doubt their own immortal state.
But hold, my Muse, thy mournful transport errs.
Hold here, and liften to Lucinda's tears.
While thy vain forrows echo to his tomb,
Behold a fight that strikes all forrow dumb;
Behold the partner of his cares and life,
Bright in her tears, and beautiful in grief.
Shall then in vain those streams of forrow flow,
Dreft up in all the elegance of woe?
And fhall the kind officious Mufe forbear
To answer figh for sigh, and tell out tear for tear?
Oh! no; at fuch a melancholy scene,
The Poet echoes back her woes again.
Each weeping Muse should minister relief,
From all the moving eloquence of grief.
Each, like a Niobe, his fate bemoan,
Melt into tears, or harden into stone.
From dark obfcurity his virtues fave,
And, like pale spectres, hover round his grave.
With them the marble fhould due measures keep,
Relent at every figh, at every accent weep.
Britannia mourn thy hero, nor refuse
To vent the fighs and forrows with the Mufe:
O let thy rifing groans load every wind,
Nor let one fluggish accent lag behind.
Thy heavy fate with justice to deplore,
Convey a gale of fighs from fhore to shore.
And thou, her guardian angel, widely spread
Thy golden wings, and field the mighty dead.
Brood o'er his afhes, and illuftrious duft,
And footh with care the venerable ghost."
To guard the nobler relicks, leave a while
The kind protection of thy favourite ifle:
Around his filent tomb, thy ftation keep,
And, with thy fifter-angel, learn to weep.
Ye fons of Albion, o'er your patriot mourn,
And cool with ftreams of tears his facred urn.
His wondrous virtues, ftretch'd to diftant fhores
Demand all Europe's tears, as well as yours.
Nature can't bring in every period forth,
A finish'd hero, of exalted worth,
Whofe godlike genius, towering and fublime,
Muft long lie ripening in the womb of time:
Before a Stanhope enters on the ftage,
The birth of years, and labour of an age.
In field, and council, born the palm to fhare,
His voice a fenate, as his sword a war:
And each illuftrious action of his life,
Confpire to form the patriot, and the chief:
On either fide, unite their blended rays,
And kindly mingle in a friendly blaze.
Stand out, and witness this, unhappy Spain,
Lift up to view the mountains of thy flain:
Tell how thy heroes yielded to their fear,
When Stanhope rouz'd the thunder of the war:
With what fierce tumults of fevere delight
Th' impetuous hero plung'd into the fight.
How he the dreadful front of death defac'd,
Pour'd on the foe, and laid the battle wastes
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