Casts a long look where England's glories shine, And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I stray'd, from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,,
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel.
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

END OF

EPISTLES DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE.

NOTES

ON

EPISTLES

DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE.

EPISTLE I.

Page 1. DR. Evans though scarcely known but for some bitter epigrams, was once celebrated at Oxford as a Poet, and is mentioned by Pope, with whom he corresponded, together with Swift and Young. Being admitted of St. John's College, he became fellow and bursar, and was vicar of St. Gyles's in Oxford.

8.

10.

-the Epidaurian leech.] Aesculapius.
Her squares of Horticulture——

By Danby planted—

-] The Physic Garden

at Oxford, was the donation of Henry Danvers earl of Danby; who bought for the purpose five acres of ground, surrounded it with a wall which he ornamented with several handsome entrances, and annexed an annual income for its proper cultivation. The institution was further patronized by Dr. Sherard, who on his return from Smyrna, where he had been for some time consul, enriched it with a fine

collection of exotics, added a library of botanical books, and augmented the professor's stipend.

12. Wainfleetdalen College.

-] The founder of Mag

EPISTLE II.

Page 18. The Author of this Epistle was educated at Oxford, for the profession of medicine, but quitted it through a predilection for painting, which he cultivated with attention abroad, and practised for his amusement in private. He had some employment from the crown under the Duke of Buckingham who was attached to him, wrote several lives in the "English School of Painters," translated a Novel from Cervantes, and printed several little poems.— An account of VERRIO may be seen in Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.

EPISTLE HI.

Page 21. As on the winding banks of Yare I stray.} The river whence Yarmouth derives its name.

22. Nor, blest with Ridley, want Apollo's aid.] GLOSTER RIDLEY, L. L. D. of whose poetical talents several specimens will be given.

ibid. ancient Elmham- -][North] Elmham, now a small village, formerly the bishop's see, which is now at Norwich. WALPOLE.

23. Where Coke's remains, &c.] Tittleshall, a village, in the church of which is the burial-place of the noble family of Coke, and a very fine marble monument of the Right Hon. Sir Edward Coke, lord chief justice of the King's Bench in the reign of King James I. and ancestor to the last Earl of Leicester.

-Raynham-
W.

ibid. count Townshend.

W.

-] The seat of Lord Vis

25. Laocoon here in pain still seems to breathe,] The statue of Laocoon in bronze by Girardon. W.

ibid. See! the proud Rabbins, at the sumptuous board,} The picture of Mary Magdalen washing Christ's feet, by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, born at Antwerp, 1577, and died 1640. W.

ibid.

On the next cloth behold Van Dyck display
Celestial innocence, immortal day:

His pencil here no more with nature vies,] The Holy Family, with a dance of Angels, by Sir An thony Van Dyck, a scholar of Rubens, born at Antwerp 1599, and died 1641.

W.

These, as Mr. Duncombe remarks, are melancholy mementos, when we reflect that all these noble remains, to us now dead and buried in Russia, are as much lost to the English in general as if they had been carved by Phidias, and painted by Apelles.

26. Behold! where Stephen fainting yields his breath,] The stoning of St. Stephen, by Eustache Le Sueur, born at Paris 1655, and died 1677. W.