The great and small but rarely meet
On terms of amity complete :

The attempt would scarce be madder,
Should any, from the bottom, hope
At one huge stride to reach the top
Of an erected ladder.

Courtier and patriot cannot mix
Their heterogeneous politics,
Without an effervescence,
Such as of salts with lemon-juice,
But which is rarely known to induce,
Like that, a coalescence.

Religion should extinguish strife,

And make a calm of human life:
But even those who differ

Only on topics left at large,

How fiercely will they meet and charge!

To

No combatants are stiffer.

prove,

alas! my main intent, Needs no great cost of argument,

No cutting and contriving;
Seeking a real friend, we seem
To adopt the chymist's golden dream,
With still less hope of thriving.

Then judge, or ere you choose your man, As circumspectly as you can,

And, having made election, See that no disrespect of yours, Such as a friend but ill endures,

Enfeeble his affection.

It is not timber, lead, and stone,
An architect requires alone,

To finish a great building;

The palace were but half complete,
Could he by any chance forget

The carving and the gilding.

As similarity of mind,

Or something not to be defined,
First rivets our attention;
So manners, decent and polite,
The same we practised at first sight,
Must save it from declension.

The man who hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,

Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed,

To pardon or to bear it.

Some friends make this their prudent plan

66

Say little, and hear all you can ;"

Safe policy, but hateful:

So barren sands imbibe the shower,

But render neither fruit nor flower,
Unpleasant and ungrateful,

They whisper trivial things, and small;
But, to communicate at all

Things serious, deem improper;
Their feculence and froth they show,
But keep the best contents below,

Just like a simmering copper.

These samples (for, alas! at last
These are but samples, and a taste
Of evils yet unmention'd ;)

May prove the task, a task indeed,
In which 'tis much if we succeed,
However well-intention'd.

Pursue the theme, and you shall find
A disciplined and furnish'd mind
To be at least expedient;
And, after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.

True friendship has, in short, a grace
More than terrestrial in its face,

That proves it Heaven-descended;

Man's love of woman not so pure,
Nor, when sincerest, so secure
To last till life is ended.

TO MRS. THROCKMORTON,

ON HER BEAUTIFUL TRANSCRIPT OF HORACE'S ODE,

"AD LIBRUM SUUM.'

[February, 1790.]

MARIA, Could Horace have guess'd

What honour awaited his ode

To his own little volume address'd,

The honour which you have bestow'd,

Who have traced it in characters here,

So elegant, even, and neat,

He had laugh'd at the critical sneer

Which he seems to have trembled to meet.

And sneer, if you please, he had said,

A nymph shall hereafter arise

Who shall give me, when you are all dead,
The glory your malice denies ;
Shall dignity give to my lay,

Although but a mere bagatelle;

And even a Poet shall say,

Nothing ever was written so well.

ON A MISCHIEVOUS BULL,

WHICH THE OWNER OF HIM SOLD AT THE AUTHOR'S INSTANCE.

Go-thou art all unfit to share

The pleasures of this place
With such as its old tenants are,
Creatures of gentler race.

The squirrel here his hoard provides,

Aware of wintry storms,

And woodpeckers explore the sides

Of rugged oaks, for worms.

The sheep here smoothes the knotted thorn

With frictions of her fleece;

And here I wander, eve and morn,

Like her, a friend to peace.

Ah!-I could pity thee exiled
From this secure retreat-
I would not lose it to be styled
The happiest of the great.

But thou canst taste no calm delight;
Thy pleasure is to show

Thy magnanimity in fight,

Thy prowess-therefore go

I care not whether east or north,
So I no more may find thee;
The angry Muse thus sings thee forth,
And claps the gate behind thee.

ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO LONDON,

THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTEENTH OF MARCH,

1789.

WHEN, long sequester'd from his throne,

George took his seat again,

By right of worth, not blood alone,

Entitled here to reign,