That courage, which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you exprefs

?

For vice in all its glitt'ring drefs;
That patience under tort'ring pain,
Where ftubborn ftoicks wou'd complain:
Must these like empty fhadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glafs?
Or mere chimæras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind ?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago
And, had it not been ftill fupply'd,
It must a thousand times have dy'd.
Then who with reafon can maintain
That no effects of food remain ?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continu'd by the last?
Then, who with reafon can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you fhow
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends,
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.

For

For virtue in her daily race,

Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where fhe has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on.
She at your fickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better ftate.

O then, whatever heav'n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, furely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly wou'd your fuff'rings fhare;
Or give my fcrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whofe care fo oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you fo.

* TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

Sent on her Birth-Day, June 15.

OH

H, be thou bleft with all that heav'n can fend,

Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend!

Not with those toys the female race admire, Riches that vex,

and vanities that tire;

Not as the world its pretty flaves rewards, A youth of frolicks, an old-age of cards Fair to no purpose, artful to no end; Youngwithout lovers, old without a friend; A fop their paffion, but their prize a fot; Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot!

Let joy, or ease, let affluence, or content, And the gay confcience of a life well spent, Calm ev'ry thought, infpirit ev'ry grace, Glow in thy heart, and fmile upon thy face; Let day improve on day, and year on year, Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear; Till death unfelt that tender frame destroy, In fome foft dream, or extafy of joy, Peaceful fleep out the fabbath of the tomb, And wake to raptures in a life to come!

*SON G.

By a Perfon of Quality.

SAID to my heart, between fleeping

and waking,

Thou wild thing, that always art leaping or aking,

What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,

By turns has not taught thee a pit--a--pat

ation ?

Thus

Thus accus'd, the wild thing gave this fober

reply:

See the heart without motion, though Celia pass by !

Not the beauty fhe has, or the wit that she borrows,

Gives the eye any joys, or the heart any forrows.

When our Sappho appears, fhe whose wit's fo refin'd,

I am forc'd to applaud with the rest of mankind;

Whatever she says, is with spirit and fire; Ev'ry word I attend; but I only admire.

Prudentia as vainly would put in her claim, Ever gazing on heaven, tho' man is her aim: 'Tis love, not devotion, that turns up her

eyes;

Those stars of this world are too good for the fkies.

But Cloe fo lively, fo eafy, fo fair,
Her wit fo genteel, without art, without care;
When she comes in my way, the motion,
the pain,

The leapings, the akings, return all again.

O wonderful creature! a woman of reafon! Never grave out of pride, never gay out of feafon!

When so easy to guess who this angel should be,

Would one think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was fhe?

*BALLA D.

OF all the girls that e'er were feen,

There's none fo fine as Nelly,

For charming face, and fhape, and mien, And what's not fit to tell

ye:

Oh! the turn'd neck and fmooth white skin

Of lovely deareft Nelly!

For many a fwain it well had been,
Had the ne'er pafs'd by Calai-.

For when as Nelly came to France,
(Invited by her coufins)
Acrofs the Tuilleries each glance'
Kill'd Frenchmen by whole dozens:
The king, as he at dinner fate,
Did beckon to his buffar,

And bid him bring his tabby-cat,
For charming Well to bufs her.

The