The sprightly court that wander up and down For once * a squirt was raised by Windsor wall). Then thee we name; this heard, cried James, For him, * Sir Samuel Moreland. Crosses attend the man who dares to flinch, Great as that man deserves who drinks not Finch. But these are empty joys without you two, We drink your names, alas! but where are you? Than by thy own soft muse can be exprest; Else I shall grow, from him thou loved'st before, A greasy blockhead fellow in a gown, (Such as is, Sir, a cousin of your own); With my own hair, a band, and ten long nails, And wit that at a quibble never fails. EDMUND SMITH. Hanley, near Tenbury, 1668-1710. The author of Phædra and Hippolitus. He has left but two poems in English. A POEM TO THE MEMORY OF MR. JOHN PHILIPS. SIR, To a Friend. SINCE Our Isis silently deplores The bard who spread her fame to distant shores : Oh! had no summons from the noisy gown Oh! might I paint him in Miltonian verse, With strains like those he sung on Glo'sters herse; But with the meaner tribe I'm forc'd to chime, And wanting strength to rise, descend to rhyme. With other fire his glorious Blenheim shines, And all the battle thunders in his lines: His nervous verse great Boileau's strength transcends, And France to Philips, as to Churchill, bends. Oh! various bard, you all our powers controul, You now disturb, and now divert the soul: So thy grave lines extort a juster smile, What sounding lines his abject themes express! What shining words the pompous shilling dress! There, there my cell, immortal made, outvies The frailer piles which o'er its ruins rise. In her best light the Comic Muse appears, When she, with borrowed pride, the buskin wears. So when nurse Nokes, to act young Ammon tries, With shambling legs, long chin, and foolish eyes, With dangling hands he strokes the imperial robe, And, with a cuckold's air, commands the globe; The and sound the whole buffoon display'd, And Ammon's son more mirth than Gomez made. pomp Forgive, dear shade, the scene my folly draws; Thy strains divert the grief thy ashes cause: When Orpheus sings, the ghosts no more complain, But, in his lulling music, lose their pain: So charm the sallies of thy Georgic Muse, So calm our sorrows, and our joys infuse: |