"With less regret my claim I now decline, "The world will think his English Iliad mine." E. FENTON. TO MR. POPE. TO praise, and still with just respect to praise The learn'd to show, the sensible commend, O might thy genius in my bosom shine, 5 10 Horace himself would own thou dost excel In candid arts to play the critic well. Ovid himself might wish to sing the dame How flame the glories of Belinda's hair, Made by the Muse the envy of the fair! Less shone the tresses Egypt's princess wore, 15 RECOMMENDATORY POEMS. 81 888 20 Which sweet Callimachus so sung before. Mock the grave frenzy of the chemic fool. But know, ye fair, a point conceal'd with art, 25 The sylphs and gnomes are but a woman's heart. In fame's fair temple, o'er the boldest wits, To place thee near him might be fond to chuse : Parent of flow'rets, oid Arcadia, hail! Be hush'd ye winds, while Pope and Virgil sing. 30 35 40 45 In English lays, and all sublimely great, Himself unknown, his mighty name admir'd ; 50 56 And shepherds only say, "The mines were here;” 60 How vast, how copious, are thy new designs! 65 How ev'ry music varies in thy lines! Still, as I read, I feel my bosom beat, And rise in raptures by another's heat. Thus in the wood, when summer dress'd the days, 70 The shades resound with song....O softly tread, This to my friend....and when a friend inspires, 75 Far from the joys that with my soul agree, 80 85 Whose dull brown Naiads ever sleep in mud: T. PARNELL. TO MR. POPE. LET vulgar souls triumphal arches raise, Or speaking marbles, to record their praise; And picture (to the voice of fame unknown) The mimic feature on the breathing stone; Mere mortals, subject to death's total sway, Reptiles of earth, and beings of a day! 'Tis thine, on every heart to grave thy praise, A monument which worth alone can raise ; Sure to survive, when time shall whelm in dust The arch, the marble, and the mimic bust: Nor, till the yolumes of th' expanded sky Blaze in one flame, shalt thou and Homer die : Then sink together in the world's last fires, What Heaven created, and what Heaven inspires. 5 10 If aught on earth, when once this breath is fled, 15 With human transport touch the mighty dead, Shakespeare rejoice! his hand thy page refines; Now every scene with native brightness shines; Just to thy fame, he gives thy genuine thought: So Tully publish'd what Lucretius wrote : Prun'd by his care, thy laurels loftier grow, And bloom afresh on thy immortal brow. 20 Thus when thy draughts, O Raphael! time invades, And the bold figure from the canvas fades, |