WRITTEN IN LORD WESTMORLAND'S
BY GILBERT WEST, ESQ.
Nɛ gay attire, ne marble hall,
Ne arched roof, ne pictur'd wall;
Ne cook of Fraunce, ne dainty board,
Beftow'd with pyes' of perigord;
power, ne fuch like idle fancies ;
Sweet Agnes grant to father Francis.
Let me ne more myself deceive;
Ne more regret the toys I leave,
The world I quit, the proud, the vain,
Corruption's and Ambition's train ;
But not the good, perdie, nor fair,
'Gainft them I make ne vow, ne pray'r;
But fuch aye welcome to my cell,
And oft, not always, with me dwell.
Then caft, fweet faint, a circle round,
And blefs from fools this holy ground;
From all the foes to worth and truth,
From wanton old, and homely youth,
• Born 1706; dyed 1756.
The gravely dull, and pertly gay,
Oh banish these; and, by my fay,
Right well I ween that, in this age,
Mine houfe fhall prove an hermitage.
AN INSCRIPTION ON THE CELL.
E NEATH these mofs-grown roots, this rustick cell, Truth, Liberty, Content, fequefter'd dwell; Say you, who dare our hermitage difdain, What drawing-room can boaft fo fair a train?
AN INSCRIPTION IN THE CELL.
SWEET bird, that fing'ft on yonder spray,
Purfue unharm'd thy fylvan lay;
While I, beneath this breezy fhade,
In peace repofe my carelefs head;
And joining thy enraptur'd fong,
Inftruct the world-enamour'd throng,
That the contented harmless breast
In folitude itfelf is bleft.
BY GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON.*
MADE to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes;
Though meek, magnanimous; though witty, wife;
Polite, as all her life in courts had been;
Yet good, as the the world had never seen ;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin'd.
Her speech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her fong the warbling of the vernal grove ;
Her eloquence was sweeter than her song,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong;
Her form each beauty of her mind express'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces dress'd,
BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.*
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferrcus ut teneat fe? Juv,
THO' grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
When injur'd THALES bids the town farewel,
Yet ftill my calmer thoughts his choice commend,
I praife the hermit, but regret the friend,
Who now refolves, from vice and LONDON far, 5
To breathe in distant fields a purer air,
And, fix'd on Cambria's folitary fhore,
Give to St. David one true Briton more.
For who wou'd leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land,
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand? 10
There none are swept by sudden fate away,
But all whom hunger fpares, with age decay:
V. 2. THALES is Richard Savage (see vol. 1. p. 339.) who “left London in July 1739; and parted from the author with tears in his eyes." See his Life.
Here malice, rapine, accident confpire,
And now a rabble rages, now a fire;
Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay,
And here the fell attorney prowls for
Here falling houfes thunder on your head,
And here a female atheift talks you dead.
While THALES waits the wherry that contains
Of diffipated wealth the small remains,
On Thames's banks, in filent thought we flood,
Where Greenwich smiles upon the filver flood:
Struck with the feat that gave * Eliza birth,
We kneel, and kiss the confecrated earth;
In pleafing dreams the blissful age renew,
And call Britannia's glories back to view;
Behold her cross triumphant on the main,
The guard of commerce, and the dread of Spain.
Ere masquerades debauch'd, excise opprefs'd,
Or English honour grew a standing jeft.
A tranfient calm the happy scenes bestow,
And for a moment luil the fense of woe.
At length awaking, with contemptuous frown,
Indignant THALES eyes the neighb'ring town.
Since worth, he cries, in thefe degen'rate days 3.5 Wants ev'n the cheap reward of empty praise; In those curs'd walls, devote to vice and gain, Since unrewarded fcience toils in vain ; Since hope but fooths to double my distress, And ev'ry moment leaves my little less ;
* Queen Elizabeth born at Greenwich.
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