h bread. Quit, oh quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling ring, flying, Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. II. Hark! they whisper; angels say, III. The world recedes; it disappears! Lend, lend your wings! I mount? I fly! Ŏ death! where is thy sting?2 at about TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTIT BEGONE, ye critics, and restrain your spite, 1 This ode was written in imitation of the famous sonnet of rian to his departing soul.- Warburton. 2 This ode was written by the desire of Steele, and Pope sa letter to him, "You have it as Cowley calls it, just warm fro brain. It came to me the first moment I waked this mornin. you will see it was not so absolutely inspiration but that I had head not only the verses of Hadrian but the fine fragm Sappho." What though no bees around your cradle flew,1 A swarm of drones that buzzed about your head. And ponderous slugs move nimbly through the sky. [From the Letters.] ARGUS. WHEN wise Ulysses, from his native coasts The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew! 1 An allusion to the tradition about Plato. 2 and 3 Two stupid and malevolent poets in the age of Augustus, who attacked the fame of superior writers. 4 Supposed to mean Shadwell. 5 Probably Cibber. Touched with resentment of ungrateful man, TO HENRY CROMWELL, ESQ. 1708. THIS letter greets you from the shades; From me and from my holiness, How much I wish you health and happiness; And ev'ry day a double dose of coffee, A FAREWELL TO LONDON. IN THE YEAR 1715. DEAR, droll, distracting town, farewell! To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd Why should I stay? Both parties rage;1 The wits in envious feuds engage: And Homer-d -him-calls. The love of arts lies cold and dead In Halifax's urn; And not one muse of all he fed My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Poor Y And B -r's sold for fifty pounds, -ll is a jade. Why make I friendships with the great, Solicitous for other ends, Though fond of dear repose; Careless or drowsy with my friends, And frolic with my foes. 1 Johnson was probably the friend of Wilkes: he wrote sixteen very inferior plays. 2 Whigs and Jacobites. 3 Teresa Blount, Bowles thinks. 4 Pope is said to have fallen asleep at his own table when the Prince of Wales was in company.-Bowles. រ Luxurious lobster-nights farewell, Adieu to all but Gay alone, Whose soul, sincere and free, THE BASSET-TABLE. A TOWN ECLOGUE.1 CARDELIA. SMILINDA. CARDELIA. THE basset-table spread, the tallier* come; SMILINDA. Ah, madam, since my Sharper is untrue, And those feigned sighs which cheat the list'ning fair. CARDELIA. Is this the cause of your romantic strains? 1 There were six town eclogues, one written, it is believed, by Pope, five by Lady Mary W. Montagu.-Warton. Only this of all the town eclogues was Mr. Pope's; and is here printed from a copy corrected by his own hand. -The humour of it consists in this, that the one is in love with the game, and the other with the sharper.- Warburton. 2 One who keeps tally, |