O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!

Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than Ï.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine;
Me let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,

And just as rich as when he served a queen.2
A. Whether that blessing be denied or given,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

2.- A BELLE AT THE TOILET.

AND now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed, Each silver vase in mystic order1 laid.

ment genuine and deep.

2 served a queen. Arbuthnot had been physician to Queen Anne. 8 toilet. "Toilet" is strictly the cloth covering the dressing-table.

1 O friend! . . sky. The pa- | therefore, here expressing a sentithetic sweetness of these lines is not surpassed by any thing else which Pope has written. Their effect is founded on the truth they express. Pope's filial piety is well attested, and the affectionate solicitude with which he surrounded the declining years of his aged mother held the leading place in his duties and occupations. He is,

4 mystic order. These words carry out the mock-heroic style of the poem, and describe the toilet articles as arranged in a mystical order, having some deep meaning.

4

First, robed in white, the nymph1 intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears;
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears.
The inferior priestess,3 at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear.
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems, unlocks,
And all Arabia 8 breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billets-doux.9
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;

1 nymph: that is, Miss Fermor, who, under the name of "Belinda,' is the heroine of the poem.

2 cosmetic. See Glossary. 3 inferior priestess. Who is meant? (See the last line of this extract.)

4 ope. Give the modern form. 5 various offerings, etc., the numerous articles forming the dress and adornment of a "lady of quality" in Pope's time.

6 nicely. Meaning here?

7 India's gems, an allusion to the diamonds of Golconda, in India.

8 all Arabia. A figurative expression for the perfumes, etc., brought from Arabia. Compare Shakespeare (Macbeth): "All the perfumes of Arabia shall not sweeten this little hand."

9 puffs. . . billets-doux. Note the examples of alliteration. Explain "patches." Billets doux (French), literally sweet notes, short love-letters.

Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy sylphs1 surround their darling care;
These set2 the head, and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, while others plait the gown,
And Betty's praised for labors not her own.

3. BRILLIANTS FROM POPE.

HONOR and shame from no condition rise:
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
"What differ more," you cry, "than crown and cowl!"
I'll tell you, friend, a wise man and a fool.

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow:
The rest is all but leather or prunella.

But by your father's worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood

Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;

Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.

1 sylphs, sprites of the Rosicrucian philosophy, whom the poet imagines as presiding over the "mystic rites" of the toilet.

2 set, adjust, arrange.

8 Betty, the waiting-maid, or "inferior priestess" already referred to.

What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

Know, then, this truth,-enough for man to know."Virtue alone is happiness below."

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good.

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear,- Whatever is, is right.

"Tis with our judgments as our watches: none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

A little learning is a dangerous thing!
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits, know:
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given,

That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive, divine.

Order is heaven's first law.

"Tis education forms the common mind,

And as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.