Works

THE DESIGN.
...

ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HIMSELF AS AN INDIVIDUAL.
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ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY.
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ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.
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What is prudery?

'Tis a bledam,
Seen with wit and beauty seldom.
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows.
Tis, (no, 'tisn't) like Miss Meadows.
'Tis a virgin hard of feature,...

As when that hero, who, in each campaign,
Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!
Wept by each friend, forgiven by every foe:...

What beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis she!'but why that bleeding bosom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?...

Friend, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,
Where still so much is said;
One half will never be believed,
The other never read.

DESIGNED FOR MRS OLDFIELD.

Prodigious this! the frail one of our play
From her own sex should mercy find to-day!
You might have held the pretty head aside,...

In these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,
And all the writer lives in every line;
His easy art may happy nature seem,
Trifles themselves are elegant in him.
Sure, to charm all was his peculiar fate,...

This verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
This from no venal or ungrateful Muse.
Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
Where life awakes, and dawns at every line;...

As some fond virgin, whom her mother's care
Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;...

Such were the notes thy once-loved Poet sung,
Till Death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh just beheld and lost! admired and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!...

Erected By Their Father The Lord Digby, In The Church Of Sherborne, In Dorsetshire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate,...

Thy relics, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust,
And sacred place by Dryden's awful dust:
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes....

Here rests a woman, good without pretence,
Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense:
No conquests she, but o'er herself, desired,
No arts essay'd, but not to be admired....

Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation in a low estate,...

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great:...

The First Epistle

Awake, my St. John!(1) leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.
Let us (since Life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)...

The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth,
So would I draw: but, oh! 'tis vain to try,
My narrow genius does the power deny;
The equal lustre of the heavenly mind,...