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Fertur; Tartareïque monstra regni,
Primo in limine Cerberum, Chimeram,
Lernæamque videt comes sororem :
Alcidemque iterum novus per umbram
Terret advena, ne repentè secto
Crescens corpore centiceps resurgat.
At vobis malè sit, malæ paludes
Orci, quæ omnia mira devoratis ;
Tam mirum mihi Polypum abstulistis
O! mors insipiens, inelegansque;
Tuâ nunc operâ meus sodalis
Convivam sibi, amiculumque dulcem
Amisit, queriturque deesse Wraius,
Et solatiolum rogat doloris,

Jam cœnâ, salibusque, cantibusque,
Noctem vincere gestiens morantem."

A Version of the Monody

On the POLYPUS of WRAY.

Apollos, droop with bows unbent;

Ye tiny Mercuries, lament;

Ye unseen, Moles with murder'd sleep,
Ye Fairies of the learned, weep;

The Polypus at length is dead,

The Fates have snapt their toughest thread.

Though he had little worms to eat

When WRAY Coquetted with his meat,

WRAY, a competitor in jokes

Of that Athenian jester-FOLKES,

Bereft of all his vermian store

The Polypus will eat no more

More lov'd by WRAY, -the Wit profess'd,
Than his own mirth-commanding jest:

For,

For, patient of the cutting steel,

The sever'd parts could move, and feel;
Could give to all their scraps, with ease
A lock that puzzled human keys;
Form'd on a more enduring plan
Than such a biped wretch as man,
Who, when he thoroughly is dead,
No thought of life has in his head :
But of the Polypus's vein
You have a cut-and-come-again;
Yet when the ferry 's ripe for him
These lively parts resign their whim.
Now, past the Lake of Stygian gloom,
For him Cerberian heads make room:
He visits the Lernaan Sister,

Indeed he could not well have miss'd her;

But Hercules the labour dreads

Of cutting off a hundred heads.
Accurs'd be those infernal pools,

Who take the wise, and spare the fools!
With WRAY's accomplish'd non-descript
They are at his expence equipp'd;
O death, insipid, coarse, and rude!
No more by WRAY to be renew'd.
His plaything now for ever lost,
He rushes upon lavish cost,
And suppers elegantly gay
Deceive his ling'ring nights away;

Despair his frantic bosom swells,

But, veil'd in mirth, he charms the belles.

At this time it was that Mr. WRAY, who was eager in all his pursuits, had begun to occupy himself in the purchase of old, and scarce books; called

RUMS

RUMS by his friends, and by himself. My father, conceiving it an excellent theme of the Sermoni propriora in the manner of Horace, wrote perhaps the very best of his Latin Poems, to indulge a laugh at his friend's cost. If this Poem had not been universally admired by those who have seen it, I should not have presumed upon your kind prejudice in my favour to offer it, as I am naturally partial to the writer of it, and should therefore discredit my own judgment with such a bias upon it.

Of these too I have attempted an English imitation, which, however, you will not offend me in the least by rejecting, and the less, because I cannot endure it myself, in comparison to the original.

Dialogue between Mr. WRAY and Mr. HARDINGE, on the subject of collecting old and scarce Books, which are called RUMS; written at Canbury-house, near Kingston, the Country-seat of the latter, 1743: extracted from the Latin Poems of the late NICHOLAS HARDINGE, Esq. W. Hoc erat in votis: Librorum non ità magna Copia, quæ veterum velamina pellicularum

Servaret, mecum nova temneret-auctiùs Osborn,
Et Whiston fecere ; bene est ;-non mentior;-horum
Semper ego optârim ditissimus esse bonorum.
H. Felices tinea! quibus hæc convivia Wraius
Apparat, oblitus cœnæ, noctisque puellis
Promissæ, vobis ultrò meliora reponens !

Et vos, Scriptorum manes gaudete sepulti,
Quos omnes tenebris clausos, ventumque ad inanem
Suspensos, ignemque timentes, emptor amicus
Evocat in diäs, tanto agmine, luminis oras!

W. Rides, et ridet me Yorkius t—at mihi plaudo

Ipse domì, simul ac RUMMOS contemplor. H. At idem

* He alludes to them by that name in one of his Letters to Lord Hardwicke, and represents the shelves in his library as gaping for them.

+ Hon. Philip Yorke, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke. Hospitio

Hospitio veneres Graias, Latiasque solebas Excipere, et patrios non fastidire lepores. Cur tuus exilium Cicero formidat, opemque Sordidus, implorat mutatâ veste, Platoque Multa dolens, miseris, quos expulit ipse, Poetis Cogitur ire comes? Quid magua sonantis Homeri Carmina? quid dulces Sapphús meruere querela? Cur sedem Camoëns audet temerare Maronis, Pindaricæque lyræ Casimir te judice poscit Præmia? cur Batava Siculam vicere Camœnæ ? Quò Flacci tibi pulsus amor? propriumne* poema Dedecoras? Flaccone pudet lusisse magistro? W. Mene, fori primo jam limina manè colentem, Mene, in versiculis thesaurum, næniolisque Quærere vis, Jani↑ numerisque, modisque relictis? H. Quorsum igitur pilas inter, cæcasque tabernas, Per loca senta situ properas, spissisque cathedris Quò te cunque rapit præconis malleus, acer Advigilas, inhians libris, ut RUM teneas, — RUM; Si possis, parvo, si non, quovis pretio RUM? Scilicet ut scriptis pluteï rumpantur Iberis, Suaresique gemant sub pondere, Vasquesiïque ! W. Suaresio nondum cœnacula, Vasquesioque Nostra patent, nondum angustas se magnus in ædes Intulit immanem, centena volumina jactans, Tostatus molem, tectis decora ampla futuris : Quanquam ô!-sed teneant quibus hæc Fortuna dedisti

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* This alludes evidently to the humourous Letter from the house of Lord King in Devonshire to Mr. Wollaston, from which extracts have been copied in these memoirs, pp. 26–32, The word proprium in its double sense is a high compliment. It was lost upon me till I had access to that Horatian Letter. †This, I apprehend, alludes to the Stock Exchange.

Munera ;

Munera ;-fabellæ saltem Cervantis amoni

Sit locus, Hercilla sedes sua, Lopesioque. H. Tene, salutantem, Consul non unius anni, Granvillus*, raptis jam lætus ovansque sigillis, Admonuit, verbis ut sesquipedalibus aptos, Grandiloquæ fastus linguæ, vatesque sonoros Ediscas, Keenumque † ipsum superare labores ? ̧ W. Ambitio est mihi nulla-sed heus tu! nullane apud te

Pulvere fœda latent ævi monumenta prioris ; Relliquiæ legum, Magnæque oracula Charte, Fletaque, Bractonusque, et adhuc Glanvilla superstes, Barbaricumque sonans Henghamus uterque, Brilonque, Annalesque Fori, vafrique ænigmata juris

Herberto quæcunque satus-Stathamusque, Brocus

que

Tergeminusque Crocus || memorat, Rollusque, Dyerque,
Ploudenique fides, et acuti dogmata Coki?
H. At tibi Yorkiada gemini periisse pudorem
Clamabunt, ea si tibi sit ridere libido,

Quæ pater **, antiquæ laudis studiosus, et artis,
Perdidicit, meritis nunc auctus honoribus, et quæ

* This alludes to Lord Granville's knowledge of the Spanish authors, and in part also to his political conduct in that year.

I should here observe, as a part of Mr. WRAY's life, that he was in general accredited as an admirable master of the living, as well as the dead languages. In honour to the Satire, we are to suppose that Spanish just then interested him the most. That he could read it, appears from a Letter to Mr. Yorke.

+ Sir Benjamin Keene, K. B. long the British Ambassador in Spain.

1 Fitzherbert's Abridgment.

§ Year-books.

Croke's Reports in three Volumes. There is at this period infinite pleasantry in this retort courteous upon the rage of my father for those antient writers. He had read them diligently, and had written very ample notes upon some of them.

Philip and Charles Yorke. ** The first Earl of Hardwicke.

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