TO

MISS CHARLOTTE COLLINS,

OF WINCHESTER,

ON HER DRAWING THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.

O matre pulchra, filia pulchrior!

How true the mimic forms appear,
The ebon shield, and glitt'ring spear !
The piercing eye, the steady mien,
As erst in Athens she was seen ;
Or rising from her borrow'd guise,
She struck th' astonish'd Grecian's eyes,
And in celestial radiance drest,
The martial goddess stood confest.

With brow indignant and severe,
See Juno, jealous Queen, appear;
Stern, as when slighted by her God,
She made Heav'n tremble at her nod.
But these are Fancy's airy train,
That fir’d old Homer's epic strain ;
Made heroes fight and deities jar,
And kept alive a ten years war.

Charlotte, thy pencil's skilld to trace
Superior forms and easier

grace ;
Why copy then what Fiction drew,
When Nature holds herself to view !
Cease on this Cyprian form to gaze,
And trust thy faithful mirror's rays ;
By its reflected aid, you'll know
More vivid tints, the warmer glow :-
The auburn ringlet-brilliant eye-
Dimples—where Loves in ambush lie
Teeth-as the Ceylon ivory white-
Lips with the Persian coral dight-
The graceful neck—and swelling breast-
Here Fancy blushing paints the rest.

TO
A YOUNG LADY,

WITH

FONTENELLE's PLURALITY OF WORLDS.

BY

EDIVARD ROLLE, B. D.

In this small work, all Nature's wonders see,
The soften'd features of philosophy.
In truth by easy steps you here advance,
Truth as diverting as the best romance.
Long had these arts to sages been confin’d,
None saw their beauty, 'till by poring blind;
By studying spent, like men that cram too full,
From Wisdom's feast they rose not chear'd, but

dull:

The gay and airy smild to see 'em grave,
And Aed such wisdom like Trophonius' cave.
Justly they thought they might those arts despise,
Which made inen sullen, ere they could be wise.

Brought down to sight, with ease you view 'em

here,
Though deep the bottom, yet the stream is clear.
Your flutt’ring sex still valued science less;
Careless of any but the arts of dress.
Their useless time was idly thrown away
On empty novels, or some new-born play :
The best, perhaps, a few loose hours might spare
For some unmeaning thing, miscall’d a prayer.
In vain the gliet'ring orbs, each starry night,
With mingling blazes shed a flood of light:
Each nymph with cold indiff'rence saw 'em rise ;
And, taught by fops, to them preferr’d her eyes.
None thought the stars were suns so widely sown,
None dreamt of other worlds, besides our own.
Well Inight they boast their charms, when every

fair
Thought this world all; and her's the brightest here.
Ah! quit not the large thoughts this book inspires,
For those thin trifles which your sex admires :
Assert your claim to sense, and shew mankind,
That reason is not to themselves confin'd.
The haughty belle, whose beauty's awful shrine
*Twere sacrilege t'imagine not divine,
Who thought so greatly of her eyes before,
Bid her read this, and then be vain no more.
How poor evin you, who reign without control,
If we except the beauties of your soul!
Should all beholders feel the same surprise :
Should all who see you, see you with my eyes ;

Were no sick blasts to make that beauty less ; Should you be what I think, what all confess : 'Tis but a narrow space those charms engage; One island only, and not half an age !