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TO A LADY ON HER BIRTH-DAY..

MARIA, now your race is run

Through gliding years to twenty-one..
That pleafing day falutes your eyes,
For which the fair so often fighs,
While miftrefs of herself she seems,
Amidst a thousand golden dreams.
But you, Maria, taught to know
How frail is happiness below,
Will meditate on moments fled, .
Irrevocable o'er your head:

You'll think, with life's fhort scene in view,,

How precious time, how feeble you,

How quickly the revolving fun.
Has led you on to twenty-one.
Accept these warmest wishes, penn'd
Not by a flatterer, but a friend.
Το you may each returning year
With an increasing bliss appear ; :
And while your earthly joys renew,.
Still keep a better scene in view;

That you, when life's weak flame is done, -
May think in peace on twenty-one..

HUDSON

SECT

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DESCRIPTION OF A LADY'S TOILET.

IF you, Belinda, would poffefs

Enchanting beauty's richest dress,
Humility, that filent grace,

Muft hold the mirror to your face;
And meek Benevolence supply
The tear benign to wash your eye.
Let Cheerfulness your lips adorn
With brighter dew than decks the morn;
While sweet Contentment shall beftow
Her fmiles to fmooth the wrinkled brow.
Let mildest Truth your voice inspire
With fofter founds than Orpheus' lyre;
And calm Attention on your ear
The brightest ornament appear.

Good Humour o'er the whole fhall fhine,

And every other charm refine.

Let Innocence, with pureft white,

Spread o'er your cheeks the tincture bright;

And Modefty, the fair one's friend,

Her rouge to all your graces lend.

When bright Aurora paints the fkies,
Thus from your toilet daily rife:
Adorn'd in fuch complete array
For all the vifits of the day,

Though Envy fneer, and Folly stare,
You'll fhine the fairest of the fair.

HUDSON.

SECT

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ON THE EQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF HAPPINESS.

ORDER is Heav'n's first law; and this confeft,

Some are, and must be, greater than the reft,

More rich, more wife; but who infers from hence,
That such are happier, fhocks all common fenfe.
Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess,

If all are equal in their happiness:

But mutual wants this happiness increase;
All nature's diff'rence keeps all nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;:
Bliss is the fame in fubject or in king;
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend':
Heav'n breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common foul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each were equal, must not all conteft?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content..
Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those ;
But Heav'n's juft balance equal will appear,
While those are plac'd in hope, and these in fear:
Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curfe,
But future views of better or of worse.

Oh, fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rife,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the fkies!
Heav'n ftill with laughter the vain toil furveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raife.

Know

Know all the good that individuals find,
Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind,
Reafon's whole pleafure, all the joys of fenfe,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.
But Health confifts with Temperance alone;
And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?
Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curst,
Which meets contempt, or which compaffion first?
'Count all th' advantage prosp'rous Vice attains,
Tis but what Virtue flies from and difdains :
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
Que they must want, which is, to pass for good..

SE C T. XCIII.

'POPE

THE PRIZE OF VIRTUE.

WHAT nothing earthly gives or can deftroy,

The foul's calm funfhine, and the heart-felt joy,

Is Virtue's prize: a better would you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and fix;

Justice a conqu'ror's fword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish Man! will Heav'n reward us there
With the fame trash mad mortals wifh for here?

Tha

The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet figh'ft thou now for applès and for cakes
Go, like the Indian, in another life

Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife;
As well as dream fuch trifles are affign'd,
As toys and empires for a godlike mind;
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be deftructive of the thing:
How oft by these at fixty are undone
The virtues of a faint at twenty-one!

To whom can riches give repute, or truft,
Content, or pleasure, but the good and juft?
Judges and fenates have been bought for gold;
Efteem and low were never to be fold.

Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover, and the love of human kind,
Whofe life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.

POPE.

To

SE C T. XCIV.

THE AMIABLE LADY.

O dazzle let the vain defign;

To raise the thought, and touch the heart be thine!
That charm fhall grow, while what fatigues the ring,
Flaunts and goes down an unregarded thing:

So when the fun's broad beam has tir'd the fight,
All mild afcends the moon's more fober light;
Serene in virgin modesty she shines,

And unobferv'd the glaring orb declines.

Oh!

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