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

TO MR. POPE,

ON HIS PASTORALS.

IN these more dull, as more censorious days,

When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A muse sincere, that never fatt'ry knew,
Pays what to friendship and desert is due.
Young, yet judicious ; in your verse are found

5
Art strength’ning nature, sense improv'd bý 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 tħey 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, 13
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 unforc'd care, and unaffected ease,

20 With proper thoughts, and lively images :

Such

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,
Altho' disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear. 25
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 30
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 ; 35
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

40 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 trouble seem, And needs will envy what they must esteem. 45

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;

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

W. WYCHERLEY.

50

TO MR. POPE,

ON HIS WINDSOR-FOREST.

IO

HAIL, sacred bard! a muse unknown before

Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore.
To our dark world thy shining page is shown,
And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own.
The Eastern pomp had just bespoke our care, 5
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 arrived: 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-e'er we dip in thy delightful pages
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage !
The

pompous scenes in all their pride appear, Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were.

Nor

15 Nor half so true the fair Lodona shows

20 The sylvan state that on her border grows, While she the wand'ring shepherd entertains With a new Windsor in her wat’ry plains ; Thy juster lays the lucid wave surpass, The living scene is in the muse's glass.

25 Nor sweeter notes the echoing forests cheer, When Philomela sits and warbles there, Than when you sing the greens and op'ning glades, And give us harmony as well as shades : : A Titian's hand might draw the grove, but you 30 Can paint the grove, and add the music too.

With vast variety thy pages shine; A new creation starts in

every

line. How sudden trees rise to the reader's sight, And make a doubtful scene of shade and light, 35 And give at once the day, at once the night ! And here again what sweet confusion reigns, In dreary deserts mix'd with painted plains ! And see the deserts cast a pleasing gloom, And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom : 40 Whilst fruitful crops rise by their barren side, And bearded groves display their annual pride.

Happy the man, who strings his tuneful lyre, Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields

inspire ! Thrice happy thou! and worthy best to dwell 45 Amidst the rural joys you sing so well.

I in

C 3

eternal green :

I in a cold, and in a barren climé,
Cold as my thought, and barren as my rhime,
Here on the western beach attempt to chime.
O joyless flood ! O rough tempestuous main ! 50
Border'd with weeds, and solitudes obscene!
Snatch me, ye Gods! from these Atlantic shores,
And shelter me in Windsor's fragrant bow'rs ;
Or to my much lov'd Isis' walks

convey, And on her flow'ry banks for ever lay.

55 Thence let me view the venerable scene, The awful dome, the groves Where sacred Hough long found his fam'd retreat, And brought the muses to the sylvan seat, Reform’d the wits, unlock'd the classic store, 60 And made that music which was noise before. There with illustrious bardę I spent my days, Nor free from censure, nor unknown to praise, Enjoy'd the blessings that his reign bestow'd, Nor envy'd Windsor in the soft abode. The golden minutes smoothly danc'd away, And tuneful bards beguild the tedious day : They sung, nor sung in vain, with numbers fir'd That Maro taught, or Addison inspir'd. Ev'n I essay'd to touch the trembling string : 70 Who could hear them, and not attempt to sing ? Rous'd from these dreams by thy commanding

strain, I rise and wander through the field or plain ;

Led

65