Smit with the love of Sister-Arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; Like friendly colours found them both unite, 15 And each from each contract new strength and

light. How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, While summer-funs roll unperceiv'd away? How oft' our flowly-growing works impart, While Images reflect from art to art ? 20 How oft review; each finding like a friend Something to blame, and something to commend? What flatt'ring scenes our wand'ring fancy

wrought, Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought! Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, 25 Fir'd with Ideas of fair Italy. With thee, on Raphael's Monument I mourn, Or wait inspiring Dreams at Maro's Um : With thee repose, where Tully once was laid, Or seck some Ruin's formidable shade 30 While fancy brings the vanifh'd piles to view, And builds imaginary Rome a-new, Here thy well-study'd marbles fix our eye; A fading Fresco here demands a ligh:

Each heav'nly piece unwearied we compare, 35
Match Raphael's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air,
Carracci's strength, Correggio's softer line,
Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divine.
How finish'd with illuftrious toil

appears This small, well-polith'd Gem, the * work of years! Yet ftill how faint by precept is exprest

41 The living image in the painter's breast? Thence endless streams of fair Ideas flow, Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow; Thence Beauty, waking all her forms, fupplies 45 An Angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes.

Muse ! at that Name thy facred sorrows shed, Those tears eternal, that embalm the dead : Call round her Tomb each object of desire, Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire : 5 Bid her be all that chears or softens life, The tender fister, daughter, friend, and wife : Bid her be all that makes mankind adore ; Then view this Marble, and be vain no more !

Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage; Her modeft cheek (hall warm a future age. 56

Beauty, frail flow'r that ev'ry season fears,
Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts surprize,
And other Beauties

envy
Worsley's eyes ;

60 Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow, And soft Belinda's blush for ever glow.

Oh lasting as those Colours may they shine, Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line ; New graces yearly like thy works display,

65 Soft without weakness, without glaring gay; Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains ; And finish'd more thro’ happiness than pains. The kindred Arts shall in their praise confpire, One dip the pencil, and one string the lyrc. 70 Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breathe an air divine on ev'ry face Yet should the Muses bid

iny

numbers roll Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgwater vie,

75 And these be sung 'till Granville's Myra die : Alas! how little from the grave we claim ! Thou but presery'ít a Face, and I a Name.

i

EPIS T L E

To Miss BLOUNT,

With the Works of VOITURE.

IM

N these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces

shine, And all the Writer lives in ev'ry line; His easy Art may happy Nature seem, Trifles themselves are elegant in him. Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate, 5 Who without fatt'ry pleas'd the fair and great; Still with esteem no less convers'd than read; With wit well-natur'd, and with books well-bred: His heart, his mistress, and his friend did share, His time, the Muse, the witty, and the fair. Thus wisely careless, innocently gay, Chearful he play'd the trifle, Life, away; "Till fate scarce felt his gentle breath supprest, As smiling Infants sport themselves to rest. Ev’n rival Wits did Voiture's death deplore,

15 And the

gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before; Vol. VI.

E

10 20

The trueit hearts for l'oiture heav'd with fighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest Eyes :
The Smiles and Loves had dy'd in Voiture's death,
But that for ever in bis lines they breathe.
Let the strict life of

graver mortals be
A long, exact, and serious Comedy;
In ev'ry scene fome Moral let it teach,
And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Let mine, an innocent gay farce

appear, 25
And more diverting still than regular,
Have Humour, Wit, a native Ease and Grace,
Tho'nct too strictly bound to Time and Place:
Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please,
Few write to those, and none can live to these. 30
Too much

your

Sex is by their forms confin’d, Severe to all, but most to Womankind; Custom, grown blind with Age, must be your

guide; Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride; By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame; 35 Mlade Slaves by honour, and made Fools by Name. Marriage may all thole petty Tyrants chase, But lets up one, a greater in their place ;

wish for change by those accurst, But the luft Tyrant ever proves the worst.

Well might you

40