Was spread the fame of thy disastrous love; To me resign the vocal shell, And teach my sorrows to relate Their melancholy tale so well, As may ev'n things inanimate, Rough mountain oaks and desert rocks, to pity move.

What were, alas! thy woes compar'd to mine?
To thee thy mistress in the blissful band

Of Hymen never gave her hand;

The joys of wedded love were never thine:
In thy domestic care

She never bore a share,

Nor with endearing art

Would heal thy wounded heart

Of every secret grief that fester'd there:
Nor did her fond affection on the bed

Of sickness watch thee, and thy languid head
Whole nights on her unwearied arm sustain,
And charm away the sense of pain:
Nor did she crown your mutual flame

With pledges dear, and with a father's tender name.

We were the happiest pair of human kind:
The rolling year its varying course perform'd,
And back return'd again;

Another and another smiling came,
And saw our happiness unchang'd remain:
Still in her golden chain
Harmonious Concord did our wishes bind:
Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.
O fatal, fatal stroke,

That all this pleasing fabric Love had rais'd
Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton Vice with envy gaz'd,
And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd,
With soothing hope, for many a future day,
In one sad raoment broke!--
Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay;

Ev'n love itself, if rising by degrees Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state, Whose fleeting joys so soon must end, It does not to its sovereign good ascend. Rise then, my soul, with hope elate, And seek those regions of serene delight, Whose peaceful path and ever-open gate No feet but those of harden'd Guilt shall miss. There Death himself thy Lucy shall restore, There yield up all his power ne'er to divide you more.

ON THE SAME LADY.
To the

Memory of Lucy Lyttelton,

Daughter of Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh
In the county of Devon, esq.
Father to the present earl of Clinton,
By Lucy his wife,

The daughter of Matthew lord Aylmer, Who departed this life the 19th of Jan. 1746-7, Aged twenty-nine,

Having employed the short time assigned to
her here

In the uniform practice of religion and virtue.

Made to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes;
Though meek, magnanimous; though witty, wise;
Polite, as all her life in courts had been;
Yet good, as she the world had never seen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin'd.
Her speech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her song the warbling of the vernal grove;
Her eloquence was sweeter than her song,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong;
Her form each beauty of her mind express'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces dress'd.

HORACE, BOOK IV. ODE IV.
WRITTEN AT OXFORD 1725'.
Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem, &c.
As the wing'd minister of thundering Jove,
To whom he gave his dreadful bolts to bear,
Faithful assistant 2 of his master's love,
King of the wandering nations of the air,

1 First printed with Mr. West's translation of Pindar. See the preface to that gentleman's poems. In the rape of Ganymede, who was carried up

ADDITION, EXTEMPORE,

BY EARL HARDWICKE.

FAME heard with pleasure-straight replied,
"First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride;
My trumpet oft I 've rais'd, to sound
Her modest praise the world around!
But notes were wanting-Canst thou find
A Muse to sing her face, her mind?
Believe me, I can name but one,
A friend of yours-'tis Lyttelton."

LETTER TO EARL HARDWICKE:

OCCASIONED BY THE FOREGOING VERSES.

MY LORD,

A THOUSAND thanks to your lordship for your addition to my verses. If you can write such extempore, it is well for other poets, that you chose to be lord chancellor, rather than laureat. They explain to me a vision I had the night before.

Methought I saw before my feet,
With countenance serene and sweet,
The Muse, who, in my youthful days,
Had oft inspir'd my careless lays.

..

She smil'd, and said, Once more I sec
My fugitive returns to me;

Long had I lost you from my bower,
You scorn'd to own my gentle power;
With me no more your genius sported,
The grave historic Muse you courted;
Or, rais'd from Earth, with straining eyes;
Pursued Urania through the skies;
But now, to my forsaken track,
Fair Egremont has brought you back:
Nor blush, by her and Virtue led,
That soft, that pleasing path, to tread;
For there, beneath to morrow's ray,
Ev'n Wisdom's self shall deign to play.
Lo! to my flowery groves and springs
Her favourite son the goddess brings,
The council's and the senate's guide,
Law's oracle, the nation's pride:
He comes, he joys with thee to join,
In singing Wyndham's charms divine:
To thine he adds his nobler lays;
Ev'n thee, my friend, he deigns to praise.
Enjoy that praise, nor envy Pitt
His fame with burgess or with cit;
For sure one line from such a bard,
Virtue would think her best reward."

HYMEN TO ELIZA.

MADAM, before your feet I lay
This ode upon your wedding-day,

The first ind ed I ever made,
For writing odes is not my trade:
My head is full of household cares,
And necessary dull affairs;
Besides that sometimes jealous frumps
Will put me into doleful dups.
And then no clown beneath the sky
Was c'er more ungallant than 1;

For you alone I now think fit
To turn a poet and a wit-

For you whose charms, I know not how,
Have power to smooth my wrinkled brow,
And make me, though by nature stupid,
As brisk, and as alert, as Cupid.
These obligations to repay,
Whene'er your happy nuptial day
Shall with the circling years return,
For you my torch shall brighter burn
Than when you first my power ador'd,
Nor will I call myself your lord,
But am, (as witness this my hand)
Your humble servant at command.

SUCH were the notes that struck the wondering ear
Of silent Night, when, on the verdant banks
Of Siloe's hallow'd brook, celestial harps,
According to seraphic voices, sung
Glory to God on high, and on the earth
Peace and good-will to men! -Kesume the lyre,
Chauntress divine, and every Briton call
Its melody to hear-so shall thy strains,
More powerful than the song of Orpheus, tame
The savage heart of brutal Vice, and bend
At pure Religion's shrine the stubborn kuces
O bold Impiety.-Greece shall no more
Of Lesbian Sappho boast, whose wanton Muse,
Like a false Syren, white she charm'd, seduc'd
To guilt and ruin. For the sacred head
Of Britain's poetess, the Virtues twine

A nobler wreath, by them from Eden's grove
Unfading gather'd, and direct the hand
to fix it on her brows.

Of

With every charm her mind I grae'd,

I her prudence, knowledge, taste." gave "Hold, madam," interrupted Venus, "The lady must be shar'd between us: And surely mine is yonder grove, So fine, so dark, so fit for love; Trees, such as in th' Idalian glade, Or Cyprian lawn, my palace shade."

Then Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, came; Each nymph alleg'd her lawful claim. But Jove, to finish the debate, Thus spoke, and what he speaks is fate: "Nor god nor goddess, great or small, That dwelling his or her's may call; I made-Mount Edgecumbe for you all."

INVITATION.

TO THE DOWAGER DUTCHESS D'AIGUILLON.

WHEN Peace shall, on her downy wing,
To France and England Friendship bring,
Come, Aiguilion, and here receive
That homage we delight to give
To foreign talents, foreign charms,
To worth which Envy's self disarms
Of jealous hatred: come and love
That nation which you now approve.
So shall by France amends be made
(If such a debt can e'er be paid)
For having with seducing art
From Britain stoi'n her Hervey's heart.

EPITAPH ON CAPTAIN GRENVILLE';

YE

KILLED IN LORD ANSON'S ENGAGEMENT IN 1747.

E weeping Muses, Graces, Virtues, tell
If, since your all-accomplish'd Sydney fell,
You, or afflicted Britain, e'er deplor'd

A loss like that these plaintive lays record!
Such spotless honour; such ingenuous truth;
Such ripen'd wisdom in the bloom of youth!
So mild, so gentle, so compos'd a mind,
To such heroic warmth and courage join'd;
He too, like Sydney, nurs'd in Learning's arms,
For nobler War forsook her softer charms:
Like him, possess'd of every pleasing art,
The secret wish of every female's heart:
Like him, cut off in youthful glory's pride,
He, unrepining, for his country dy d.

ΤΟ

COLONEL DRUMGOLD.

DRUMGOLD, whose ancestors from Albion's shore
Their conquering standards to Hibernia bore,
Though now thy valour, to thy country lost,
Shines in the foremost ranks of Gailia's host,
Think not that France shall borrow ali thy fame-
From British sires deriv'd thy genius came:
Its force, its energy, to these it ow'd,

But the fair polish Gallia's clime bestow'd:
The Graces there each ruder thought refiu'd,
And liveliest wit with soundest sense combin'd.
They taught in sportive Fancy's gay attire
To dress the gravest of th' Aonian choir,
And gave to sober Wisdom's wrinkled cheek
The smile that dwells in Hebe's dimple sleek.
Pay to each realm the debt that each may ask:
Be thine, and thine alone, the pleasing task,
In purest elegance of Gallic phrase
To clothe the spirit of the British lays.
Thus every flower which every Muse's hand
Has rais'd profuse in Britain's favourite land,
By thee transplanted to the banks of Seine,
Its sweetest native odours shall retain.
And when thy noble friend, with olive crown'd,
In Concord's golden chain bas firmly bound
The rival nations, thou for both shalt raise
The grateful song to his immortal praise.
Albion shall think she hears her Prior sing;
And France, that Boileau strikes the tuncial string,

ON GOOD-HUMOUR.

WRITTEN AT ETON-SCHOOL, 1729.

TELL me, ye sons of Phoebus, what is this
Which all admire, but few, too few, possess?
A virtue 'tis to ancient maids unknown,
And prudes, who spy all faults except their own.
Lov'd and defended by the brave and wise,
Though knaves abuse it, and like fools despise.
Say, Wyndham, if 'tis possible to tell,
What is the thing in which you most excel?
Hard is the question, for in all you please;
Yet sure good-nature is your noblest praise;
Securd by this, your parts no envy move,
For none can envy him whom all must love.
This magic power can make ev'n folly please,
This to Pitt's genius adds a brighter grace,
And sweetens every charm in Cælia's face.

These verses having been originally written when the author was in opposition, concluded thus, (much better, perhaps, than at present):

But nobler far, and greater is the praise

So bright to shine in these degenerate days:
An age of heroes kindled Sidney's fire;
His inborn worth alone could Grenville's deeds in-
Spire.

But some years after, when his lordship was with ministry, he erased these four lines. Sec Gent. Mag. vol. xlix. p. 601. N.

TO A YOUNG LADY.

WITH THE TRAGEDY OF VENICE PRESERVED.

IN tender Otway's moving scenes we find
What power the gods have to your sex assign'd:
Venice was lost, if on the brink of fare
A woman had not propt her sinking state:
In the dark danger of that dreadful hour,
Vain was her senate's wisdom, vain its power;
But, sav'd by Belvidera's charming tears,
Still o'er the subject main her towers she rears,
And stands a great example to mankind,
With what a boundless sway you rule the mind,
Skilful the worst or noblest ends to serve,
And strong alike to ruin or preserve.

In wretched Jaffier, we with pity view
A mind, to honour false, to virtue true,
In the wild storm of struggling passions tost,
Yet saving innocence, though fame was lost;
Greatly forgetting what he ow'd his friend-
His country, which had wrong'd him, to defend.
But she, who urg'd him to that pious deed,
Who knew so well the patriot's cause to plead,
Whose conquering love her country's safety won,
Was, by that fatal love, herself undone.

1.66

Hence may we learn, what passion fain would
hide,

That Hymen's bands by prudence should be tied,
Venus in vain the wedded pair would crown,
If angry Fortune on their union frown:
Soon will the flattering dreams of joys be o'er,
And cloy'd imagination cheat no more;
Then, waking to the sense of lasting pain,
With mutual tears the bridal couch they stain:
And that fond love, which should afford relief,
Does but augment the anguish of their grief:
While both could easier their own sorrows bear,
Than the sad knowledge of each other's care."

May all the joys in Love and Fortune's power
Kindly combine to grace your nuptial hour!
On each glad day may plenty shower delight,
And warmest rapture bless each welcome night!
May Heaven, that gave you Belvidera's charms,
Destine some happier Jaffier to your arms,
Whose bliss misfortune never may allay,
Whose fondness never may through care decay;
Whose wealth may place you in the fairest light,
And force each modest beauty into sight!
So shall no anxious want your peace destroy,
No tempest crush the tender buds of joy;
But all your hours in one gay circle move,
Nor Reason ever disagree with Love!

ELEGY.

TEIL me, my heart, fond slave of hopeless love,
And doom'd its woes, without its joys to prove,
Canst thou endure thus calmly to erase
The dear, dear image of thy Delia's face?

The twelve following lines, with some small variations, already have been printed in Advice to a Lady, p. 175; but, as lord Lyttelton chose to introduce them here, it was thought more eligible to repeat these few lines, than to suppress the rest of the poem.