Mr. CONGREVE

то

LORD СОВНАМ,

ON IMPROVING THE PRESENT TIME.

SINCEREST Critic of my Profe or Rhyme,

Tell how the pleafing Stowe employs thy
Time.

Say, Cobham, what amufes thy Retreat?
Or Stratagems of War, or Schemes of Fate?
Doft thou recal to Mind, with Joy or Grief,
Great Marlbro's Actions, that immortal Chief,
Whose slightest Trophy, rais'd in each Campaign,
More than fuffic'd to fignalize a Reign?
Does thy Remembrance rifing warm thy Heart,
With Glory past, where thou thyself hadst Part?
Or doft thou grieve indignant now to fee
The fruitless End of all thy Victory?

To fee th' audacious Foe fo late fubdu'd.
Difpute thofe Terms for which fo long they fu'd:
As if Britannia now were funk fo low,

To beg that peace, fhe wonted to bestow.
Be far that Guilt! be never known that Shame!
That England fhould retract her rightful Claim!
Or, ceafing to be dreaded or ador'd,

Stain, with her pen, the luftre of her fword.
Or doft thou give the Winds afar to blow
Each vexing Thought and Heart-devouring Woe,

And

And fix thy mind alone on rural scenes,
To turn the levell'd lawns to liquid plains;
To raise the creeping rills from humble beds,
And force the latent fprings to lift their heads;
On wat❜ry columns, capitals to reat,

That mix their flowing curls with upper air?
Or doft thou, weary grown, thefe works neglect,
No temples, ftatues, obelisks ere&t;

But catch the morning breeze from fragrant meads,

Or fhun the noon-tide ray in wholesome fhades;
Or lowly walk along the mazy wood,

To meditate on all that's wife and good?
For nature, bountiful in thee, has join'd
A perfon pleasing with a worthy mind.
Not given the form alone, but means and art,
To draw the eye, or to allure the heart.
Poor were the praise in fortune to excel,
Yet want the way to use that fortune well;
While thus adorn'd, while thus with virtue
crown'd.

At home in peace, abroad in arms renown'd.
Graceful in form, and winning in address,
While thus you think, what aptly you express;
With health, with honour, with a fair eftate,
A table free, and elegantly neat.

What can be added more to mortal blifs?

What can he want that ftands poffefs'd of this?

What can the fondeft wishing mother more
Of heav'n, attentive, for her fon implore?
And yet a happiness remains unknown,
Or to philosophy reveal'd alone;

A Precept which unpractis'd renders vain
Thy flowing hopes, and pleafures turn to pain.
Should hope and fear thy heart alternate tear,
Or love, or hate, or rage, or anxious care,
Whatever paffions may thy mind infeft,
Where is that mind which paffions ne'er moleft?
Amidst the pangs of fuch inteftine ftrife,
Still think the prefent day the laft of life;
Defer not till to morrow to be wise,
To-morrow's Sun to thee may never rife;
Or fhould to-morrow chance to chear thy fight,
With her enlivening and unlook'd for light.
How grateful will appear her dawning rays!
As favours unexpected doubly please.

Who thus can think, & who such thoughts pursues;
Content may keep his life, or calmly lose;
All proofs of this thou may'ft thyfelf.receive,
When leifure from affairs will give thee leave.
Come, fee thy friend, retir'd without regret,
Forgetting care, or ftriving to forget;

In eafy contemplation, foothing time

With morals much, and now and then with rhyme; Not fo robuft in body, as in mind,

And always undejected, tho' declin'd;'

Not

Not won'dring at the world's new wicked ways,
Compar'd with those of our Fore-father's days;
For virtue now, is neither more or lefs,
And vice is only vary'd in the dress:
Believe it, men have ever been the fame,
And Ovid's golden age is but a dream.

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

?

DANCING and LOGIC

Α AS

COMPARED.

S logic is termed the art of thinking, so dancing may be called the art of gefture. Logic teaches us fo to order and arrange our thoughts, as to give them perfpicuity and propriety of connection, and by dancing we are taught to direct our motions in fuch a manner as to give them gracefulness, harmony, and ease. But the art of dancing is even more neceffary to gefticulation, than the art of logic is to thinking. To think elegantly and fublimely is the effect of genius alone, and the art of thinking clearly and justly may be attained by habit and obfervation; but it is quef tionable whether an elegant and graceful carriage was ever obtained without the aid of dancing. Mechanical,

L12

Mechanical, however, as this art may feem, genius Is far from being out of the queftion. The imitative arts are alone the province of genius, and no art can with more propriety be called imitative than dancing. It is a copying thofe ideas of gracefulnefs and harmony, which we borrow from nature, and in this, as in the other imitative arts, the clofeft imitation of graceful nature is the happiest execution.

ΑΝ

AFFECTING TALE.

RETURNING

ETURNING one morning from Mount Edgecumbe, a little on this fide the Tamar, Leontine faid, in a tone of voice exceedingly abrupt, and a countenance the most expreffive I ever saw on fo young a face, "Mamma, do look, what a miferable object is there! Surely the man is juft a dying!" We turned, and faw a poor failor just brought out, in an armed chair, to the door of a houfe at a little diftance from the road. He appeared to be rather turned of twenty: his head was wrapped about with a large white napkin; his left knee was greatly swoln, and carefully bandaged; a ftump only, in the fame predicament,