LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM

OF MISS PATTY MORE'S, SISTER OF HANNAH MOre.

In vain to live from age to age

While modern bards endeavour,
I write my name in Patty's page,
And gain my point for ever.

March 6, 1792.

W. COWPER.

SONNET TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ.

THY Country, Wilberforce, with just disdain, Hears thee by cruel men and impious call'd Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the inthral'd From exile, public sale, and slavery's chain. Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd, Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain.

Thou hast achieved a part; hast gain'd the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause; [pause
Hope smiles, joy springs, and, though cold caution
And weave delay, the better hour is near
That shall remunerate thy toils severe
By peace for Afric, fenced with British laws.

Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love
From all the just on earth, and all the blest above.
April 16, 1792.

EPIGRAM

PRINTED IN THE NORTHAMPTON MERCURY.

To purify their wine some people bleed
A lamb into the barrel, and succeed;
No nostrum, planters say, is half so good
To make fine sugar as a negro's blood.
Now lambs and negroes both are harmless things,
And thence perhaps this wondrous virtue springs,
'Tis in the blood of innocence alone-

Good cause why planters never try their own.

TO DR. AUSTIN, OF CECIL STREET, LONDON.

AUSTIN! accept a grateful verse from me,
The poet's treasure, no inglorious fee.
Loved by the muses, thy ingenuous mind
Pleasing requital in my verse may find;
Verse oft has dash'd the sithe of time aside,
Immortalizing names which else had died:
And O! could I command the glittering wealth
With which sick kings are glad to purchase health!
Yet, if extensive fame, and sure to live,
Were in the power of verse like mine to give,
I would not recompense his art with less,
Who, giving Mary health, heals my distress.
Friend of my friend!* I love thee, tho' unknown,
And boldly call thee, being his, my own.

CATHARINA:

THE SECOND PART: ON HER MARRIAGE TO GEORGE

COURTENAY, ESQ.

BELIEVE it or not, as you choose,
The doctrine is certainly true,
That the future is known to the muse,
And poets are oracles too.

I did but express a desire

To see Catharina at home,

At the side of my friend George's fire,
And lo-she is actually come.

Such prophecy some may despise,
But the wish of a poet and friend
Perhaps is approved in the skies,

And therefore attains to its end.
'Twas a wish that flew ardently forth
From a bosom effectually warm'd
With the talents, the graces, and worth
Of the person for whom it was form'd.

Maria* would leave us, I knew,

To the grief and regret of us all, But less to our grief, could we view Catharina the Queen of the Hall.

*Lady Throckmorton.

And therefore I wish'd as I did,

And therefore this union of hands
Not a whisper was heard to forbid,
But all cry-Amen-to the bans.

Since, therefore, I seem to incur
No danger of wishing in vain
When making good wishes for her,

I will e'en to my wishes again—
With one I have made her a wife,
And now I will try with another,
Which I cannot suppress for my life-
How soon I can make her a mother.
June, 1792.

EPITAPH ON FOP, A DOG BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMORTON.

THOUGH Once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one whose bones some honour claim.
No sycophant, although of spaniel race,
And though no hound, a martyr to the chase-

Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice,

Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,

He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.

"Yes," the indignant shade of Fop replies"And worn with vain pursuit man also dies.”

August, 1792.

SONNET TO GEORGE ROMNEY, ESQ.

On his Picture of me in Crayons, drawn at Eartham in the 61st year of my age, and in the months of August and September 1792.

ROMNEY, expert infallibly to trace

On chart or canvass, not the form alone
And semblance, but, however faintly shown,
The mind's impression too on every face—
With strokes that time ought never to erase
Thou hast so pencil'd mine, that though I own
The subject worthless, I have never known
The artist shining with superior grace.

But this I mark-that symptoms none of woe
In thy incomparable work appear.

Well I am satisfied it should be so,

Since, on maturer thought, the cause is clear; For in my looks what sorrow couldst thou see When I was Hayley's guest, and sat to thee? October, 1792.

MARY AND JOHN.

IF John marries Mary, and Mary alone, 'Tis a very good match between Mary and John. Should John wed a score, Oh, the claws and the scratches!

It can't be a match:-'tis a bundle of matches.