The last can ne'er the reafon prove,
Elfe wherefore with good will
Do ye my nat❜ral lays approve,
And help me up the hill?

By your affiftance unconstrain'd,
To courts I can repair,
And by your art my way I've gain'd
To closets of the fair.

Had I a muse like lofty Pope,
For tow'ring numbers fit,

Then I th' ingenious mind might hope
In trueft light to hit.

But comic tale, and fonnet flee,

Are caften for my fhare,

And if in these I bear the gree,
I'll think it very fair.

1721.

TO SIR WILLIAM BENNET.

WHILE now in difcord giddy changes reel,
And fome are rack'd about on fortune's wheel,
You, with undaunted ftalk and brow ferene,
May trace your groves, and prefs the dewy green;
No guilty twangs your manly joys to wound,
Or horrid dreams to make your fleep unfound.

To fuch as you who can mean care despise, Nature's all beautiful 'twixt earth and skies. Not hurried with the thirft of unjust gain, You can delight yourself on hill or plain, Obferving when those tender sprouts appear, Which crowd with fragrant fweets the youthful

year.

Your lovely scenes of Marlefield abound

With as much choice as is in Britain found:
Here fairest plants from nature's bosom start
From foil prolific, ferv'd with curious art;
Here off the heedful gazer is beguil'd,
And wanders thro' an artificial wild,

While native flow'ry green, and crystal strands,
Appear the labours of ingenious hands.

Most happy he who can these sweets enjoy With tafte refin'd, which does not eafy cloy. Not fo plebeian fouls, whom fporting fate Thrusts into life upon a large eftate, While spleen their weak imagination fours, They 're at a lofs how to employ their hours: The sweetest plants which fairest gardens show Are loft to them, for them unheeded grow: Such purblind eyes ne'er view the fon'rous page, Where shine the raptures of poetic rage; Nor thro' the microscope can take delight T'observe the tusks and briftles of a mite; Nor by the lengthen'd tube learn to descry Those shining worlds which roll around the sky. Bid fuch read hift'ry to improve their skill, Polite excufe! their memories are ill :

Moll's maps may in their dining-rooms make show,

But their contents they 're not oblig'd to know; And gen'rous friendship 's out of fight too fine, They think it only means a glass of wine.

But he whofe cheerful mind hath higher flown,

And adds learn'd thoughts of others to his own;

Has feen the world, and read the volume Man,
And can the fprings and ends of action scan;
Has fronted death in service of his king,
And drunken deep of the Caftalian spring;
This man can live, and happiest life 's his due;
Can be a friend-a virtue known to view;
Yet all fuch virtues ftrongly fhine in you.

1721.

TO A FRIEND AT FLORENCE.

YOUR fteady impulfe foreign climes to view,
To study nature, and what art can fhew,
I now approve, while my warm fancy walks
O'er Italy, and with your genius talks;

We trace, with glowing breast and piercing look,
The curious gall'ry of th' illustrious duke,
Where all those masters of the arts divine,
With pencils, pens, and chiffels greatly fhine,
Immortalizing the Augustan age,

On medals, canvas, stone, or written page.
Profiles and bufts originals express,

And antique fcrolls, old ere we knew the prefs.
For 's love to science, and each virtuous Scot,
May days unnumber'd be great Cofmus' lot!

The

* Mr. Smibert, a painter. Mr. Walpole, in his "Anec"dotes of Painting," characterises him as an ingenious artist, and a modeft worthy man. He died at Boston, in New England, in 1751. Allan Ramfay, the painter, was a scholar of Smibert's.