ways:

A faithful friend is careful of your fame,
And freely will your heedless errors blame;
He cannot pardon a neglected line,
But verse to rule and order will confine.
Reprove of words the too affected sound;
Here the sense flags, and your expression's
round,

Your fancy tires, and your discourse grows vain,

Your terms improper, make them just and plain.

Thus 'tis a faithful friend will freedom use;

But authors, partial to their darling muse, Think to protect it they have just pretence, And at your friendly counsel take offence

Pray leave it out: That Sir's the properest place.

This turn I like not: 'Tis approved by all.
Thus, resolute not from one fault to fall,
If there's a syllable of which you doubt,
'Tis a sure reason not to blot it out,
Yet still he says you may his faults con.
fute,

And over him your power is absolute :
But of his feign'd humility take heed;
'Tis a bait laid to make you hear him read.
And when he leaves you happy in his

muse,

Restless he runs some other to abuse, And often finds; for in our scribbling times

No fool can want a sot to praise his rhymes :

The flattest work has ever in the court Met with some zealous ass for its sup port:

And in all times a forward scribbling fop Has found some greater fool to cry him up.

UNDER MILTON'S PICTURE.

THREE Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first, in loftiness of thought surpass'd; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she join'd the former

two.

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD

PARSON.

A PARISH priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.
Rich was his soul, though his attire was
poor

(As God hath clothed hi own ambassador);

For such, on earth, his bless'd Redeemer bore.

Of sixty years he seem'd; and well might last

To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet, had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promis'd him sincere,
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see:
But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity:
Mild was his accent, and his action free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was
arm'd;

Though harsh the precept, yet the people charm'd.

For, letting down the golden chain from high,

He drew his audience upward to the sky: And oft with holy hymns he charm'd

their ears,

(A music more melodious than the

[MARTYN PARKER. 1630.]

YE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND YE gentlemen of England

That live at home at ease,
Ah! little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.
Give ear unto the mariners,

And they will plainly shew
All the cares and the fears
When the stormy winds do blow.
When the stormy, &c.

The city full of wantonness, And both are full of pride: Then care away, and wend along with

me.

But, oh! the honest countryman Speaks truly from his heart, High trolollie, lollie, lol; high trolollie, lee;

His pride is in his tillage,

His horses and his cart:

Then care away, and wend along with

me.

Our clothing is good sheep-skins,
Grey russet for our wives,

High trolollie, lollie, lol; high trolollie, lee;

'Tis warmth and not gay clothing
That doth prolong our lives:

Then care away, and wend along with

me.

The ploughman, though he labour hard,

Yet on the holy day,

High trolollie, lollie, lol; high trolole, lee;

No emperor so merrily

Does pass his time away:

me.

[ANONYMOUS. 1700.]

None but my foe to be my guide, None but my foe to be my guide,

On fair Kirconnel Lee.

I lighted down, my sword did draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',

For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, beyond compare ! I'll make a garland of thy hair, Shall bind my heart for evermair, Until the day I die.

O that I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
Out of my bed she bids me rise,

Says, "Haste, and come to me!
O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
If I were with thee, I were blest,

Where thou lies low, and takes thy rest, On fair Kirconnel Lee.

I wish my grave were growing green, A winding sheet drawn ouer my een, And I in Helen's arms lying,

On fair Kirconnel Lee.

I wish I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
And I am weary of the skies,

For her sake that died for me.

[WILLIAM COLLINS. 1720-1756.]
THE DEATH OF THE BRAVE.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

ODE TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes is shown;
Who seest appall'd th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between :
Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear!
I see, I see thee near.

I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly
For lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who stalks his round, a hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:

And those the fiends, who, near allied, O'er Nature's wounds and wrecks preside;

While Vengeance in the lurid air
Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare:
On whom that ravening brood of Fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

Thou, who such weary lengths has
pass'd,

Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph, at last?

Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell, Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell? Or in some hollow'd seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat, Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought,

Dark pow'r, with shudd'ring meek sub. mitted Thought?

Be mine, to read the visions old,
Which thy awak'ning bards have told,
And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true;
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd,
In that thrice hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage-maids believe,
The pebbled beds permitted leave,
And goblins haunt, from fire, or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!

O thou whose spirit most possess'd
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions spoke!
Hither again thy fury deal,

Teach me but once like him to feel;
His cypress wreath my meed decree,
And I, O Fear! will dwell with thee.

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,

Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright hair'd Sun

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With braid ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weakeyed bat,

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;

Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum;

Now teach me, maid composed
To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale

May not unseemly with its stillness suit ; As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp, The fragrant Hours, and Elves Who slept in buds the day.

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,"

And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy

scene;

Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, That from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

The water-nymphs, Naiads, are so crowned.

THE PASSIONS.

WHEN music, heavenly maid, was young,

While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft to hear her shell, Throng'd around her magic cell, Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting:

By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were
fired,

Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd their instruments of
sound;

And, as they oft had heard apart,
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for Madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive
power.

First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, And back recoil'd, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made.