And while the youths in fprightly contest try,
With humorous tale, or appofite reply,
Or amorous fong, or inoffenfive jest,

(The test of wit) to glad the lengthen'd feast;
My foul, faid I, depend upon their truth,
For fraud inhabits not the breast of youth;
Indulge thy genius here, be free, be fafe,
Mirth is their aim, they covet but to laugh ;
Pure from deceit, as ignorant of care,

Their friendship and their joys are both fincere.
I judg'd their nature, like their humour good;
As if the foul depended on the blood;
And that the feeds of honefty must grow
Wherever health refides, or spirits flow.
I fee my error: but I fee too late :
'Tis vain infpection to look back on Fate.-
What are the men who most efteem'd we find,
But fuch whofe vices are the most refin'd ?

Blind preference! for vice like poifon fhews,
The fureft death is in the fubtleft dose.

To fuch reflections when I turn my mind,

I loath my being, and abhor mankind.
What joy for truth, what commerce for the juft,
If all our fafety's founded on distrust :

If all our wifdom is a mean deceit,

And he who profpers, but the ablest cheat!

ATTICUS.

O early wife! how well haft thou defin'd

The worth, the joys, the friendship of mankind!
EUGENIO.

Bleft be the pow'rs! I know their abject state.
ATTICUS.

Yet beag with this, and hope a better fate.
Thrice happy they, who view with stable eyes
The shifting scene, who temp'rate, firm, and wife,
Can bear its forrows, and its joys despise;
Who look on disappointments, fhocks, and strife,
And all the confequential ills of life,
Not as feverities the gods impofe,
But eafy terms indulgent Heav'n allows
To man, by fhort probation to obtain
Immortal recompence for tranfient pain.
Th' intent of Heav'n thus rightly understood,
From every
evil we extract a good :

This truth divine implanted in the heart,
Supports each drudging mortal through his part;
Gives a delightful prospect to the blind :

The friendless thence a conftant fuccour find;
The wretch by fraud betray'd, by pow'r opprefs'd,
With this restorative ftill foothes his breast;
This fuffering Virtue chears, this Pain beguiles,
And decks Calamity herfelf in fmiles.

When Mead and Freind have ranfack'd every rule,
Taught in Hippocrates' and Galen's school,

To

a

To quiet ills that mock the leech's art,'
Which opiates fail to deaden in the heart,
This cordial ftill th' incurable fuftains:
He triumphs in the sharp instructive pains ;
Nor like a Roman hero, falfely great,
With impious hand anticipates his fate;

But waits refign'd the flow approach of death,

'Till that great Power, who gave, demands his breath.

Such are thy folid comforts, love divine:

Such folid comforts, O my friend, be thine!
On this firin bafis thy foundation lay,

Of happiness unsubject to decay.

On man no more, that frail fupport, depend,
The kindest patron, or the warmest friend;
The warmest friend may one day prove untrue,
And intereft change the kindest patron's view.
Hear not, my friend, the fondness they profess,
Nor on the trial grieve to find it less :

With patience each capricious change endure;
Careful to merit where reward is fure.
To Providence implicitly refign'd,

Let this grand precept poise thy wavering mind :
With partial eyes we view our own weak caufe,
And rafhly scan her upright equal laws :
For undeserv'd she ne'er inflicts a woe,
Nor is her recompence unfure, though flow.

3 i. e. the phyfician's. An ancient word, now almoft obfolete.

Unpunish'd none tranfgrefs, deceiv'd none trust,
Her rules are fixt, and all her ways are just.

To MRS. BINDO N at BATH.

By the Honourable Sir C. H. WILLIAMS.

APOLLO of old on Britannia did fmile,

And Delphi forfook for the fake of this ifle.
Around him he lavishly fcatter'd his lays,
And in every wilderness planted his bays;
Then Chaucer and Spenser harmonious were heard,
Then Shakspeare, and Milton, and Waller appear'd,
And Dryden, whofe brows by Apollo were crown'd,
As he fung in fuch strains as the God might have own'd:
But now, fince the laurel is given of late

To Cibber, to Eufden, to Shadwell and Tate,
Apollo hath quitted the isle he once lov'd,
And his harp and his bays to Hibernia remov'd;
He vows and he fwears he'll infpire us no more,
And has put out Pope's fires which he kindled before;
And further he says, men no longer shall boast
A science their flight and ill treatment hath lost;
But that women alone for the future fhall write ;
And who can refift, when they doubly delight?
And, left we fhould doubt what he said to be true,
Has begun by infpiring Sapphira and You.

a

a The name by which Mrs. Barber was generally known among her friends.

Mrs.

Mrs. B INDO N's

ANSWER.

WHEN home I return'd from the dancing last night,

WHEN

And elate by your praises attempted to write,

I familiarly call'd on Apollo for aid,

And told him how many fine things you had faid.
He fmil'd at my folly, and gave me to know,
Your wit, and not mine, by your writings you fhew:
And then, fays the God, ftill to make you more vain,
He hath promis'd that I fhall enlighten your brain;
When he knows in his heart, if he speak but his mind,
That no woman alive can now boast I am kind:
For fince Daphne to fhun me grew into a laurel,
With the fex I have fworn ftill to keep up the quarrel.
I thought it all joke, till by writing to you,

I have prov'd his refentment, alas! but too true.

SIR

CHARLES's

REPLY.

"'LL not believe that Phœbus did not smile,

I'

Unhappily for you I know his ftyle;

To strains like yours of old his harp he strung,

a

And while he dictated Orinda a fung.

a A name given to Mrs. Catharine Philips.

2

Did