After a Life of gen'rous Toils endur'd,
The Gaul fubdu❜d, or Property fecur'd,
Ambition humbled, mighty Cities storm'd,

e

f

Or Laws establish'd, and the World reform'd;

Clos'd their long Glories, with a figh, to find Th' unwilling Gratitude of bafe mankind!

All human Virtue, to its latest breath,

h

' Finds Envy never conquer'd, but by Death.
The great Alcides, ev'ry Labour past,
Had ftill this Monster to fubdue at last.
Sure fate of all, beneath whofe rifing ray
Each star of meaner merit fades away!
Opprefs'd we feel the beam directly beat,
Thofe Suns of Glory please not till they set.
To thee, the World its prefent homage pays,
The Harvest early, but mature the praise :
Great Friend of LIBERTY! in Kings a Name
Above all Greek, above all Roman Fame*:
Whofe Word is Truth, as facred and rever'd,
i As Heav'n's own Oracles from Altars heard.
Wonder of Kings! like whom, to mortal eyes
k None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise.
Just in one instance, be it yet confeft
Your People, Sir, are partial in the rest:
Foes to all living worth except your own,
And Advocates for folly dead and gone.

、

10

15

20

25

30

Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old; 35 It is the Ruft we value, not the Gold.

'Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote, And beaftly Skelton Heads of Houses quote: One likes no language but the Fairy Queen;

A Scot will fight for Chrift's Kirk of the Green; 40 And each true Briton is to Ben fo civil,

"He fwears the Mufes met him at the Devil.

NOTES.

'Tho'

knowe for fuffycyent to expowne and Englyfshe every dyf"ficulte that is therein, for he hath late tranflated the Epyftles "of Tullye and the Book of Dyodorus Syculus, and diverse "other Workes, out of Latyn into Englifshe, not in rude and "old langage, but in polyfhed and ornate terms, craftily, as he "that hath redde Vyrgyle, Ouyde, Tullye, and all the other "noble Poets and Oratours, to me unknowen: and also he hath "redde the 1x Mufes, and understands their muficalle feyences, "and to whom of them eche feyence is appropred: I fuppofe he "hath dronken of Elycon's well!" Skelton was rector of Dis in Norfolk, and patronized by the Earl of Northumberland. He wrote against Wolfey. Erafmus ftyled him, very ftrangely, Bri tannicarum Literarum Lumen et Decus. A moft curious and accurate account, accompanied with remarks on the poetry and tafte of this country in the reign of Henry VII. is given in the 15th fection of the History of English Poetry. WARTON. VER. 40. Chrifl's Kirk of the Green;] A Ballad made by a King of Scotland.

POPE.

It was printed at Oxford 1691, in quarto, by Gibson, who was then a young man, at the end of Polemo Middinia, a Macaronic Poem by W. Drummond of Hawthornden. WARTON.

VER. 40. Chrift's Kirk of the Green;] The old popular fong of Chrift's Kirk on the Green, written by James the First of Scotland, was republished in a handsome manner by Allan Ramfay 1714, in two vols. called the Evergreen.

Mr. Ellis fays, it is ftill popular in Scotland; the first stanza is, "Was nevir in Scotland herd or fene

"Such dancing and deray,

"Nowthir at Falkland on the Greene,

"Nor Pebills at the play,

* It

VER. 37. Chaucer's wort do not at all anfwer to Cle to Spenfer and Ben Jonfo". through a hoop, to lučłamu to Achivis uncis, and says Greek artists; the pra agonistic trials, and that for the thing itself. VER. 38. And be Henry VIII. a volut. confifting almost wi language.

His Poems, fa Title of "Pithy Skelton, Poete other Writers, or whether it

Greece her eldest fons admires,

We be wifer than our fires?

.. Virtue we excel;

· paint, " we fing, we dance as well,
Athens to our art must stoop,
old us tumbling through a hoop.
improve our Wit as well as Wine,
age a Poet grows divine?

fhall we not, account him fo,
perhaps, a hundred years ago?
spute; and fix the year precise
ridith Bards begin t'immortalize?

lafts a' century can have no flaw, d that Wit a Claffic, good in law.”

ofe he wants a year, will you compound?

45

50

55

ll we deem him Ancient, right and found,

"n to all Eternity at once,

*y-nine, a Modern and a Dunce?

Te fhall not quarrel for a year or two;

courtesy of England, he may

do."

бо

1, by the rule that made the "Horse-tail bare, ck out year by year, as hair by hair,

NOTES.

And

VER. 55. can have no flaw,] A very reprehenfible expreffion; alfo the words below, verse 58, right and found. On the contrary, look in Stowe, verse 66, is very happy. WARTON.

VER. 63. the Horfe tail bare,] Lambinus fays this paffage relates to a story mentioned in Plutarch of a foldier of Sertorius.

WARTON.