Yes, Brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honor in its source,

Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste;
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?

Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And vast Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound?

Ev'n now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways;

Where beasts with man divided empire claim,

And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,

And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,

Casts a long look where England's glories shine, And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I stray'd, from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows ?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel.
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

END OF

EPISTLES DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE.

NOTES

ON

EPISTLES

DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE.

EPISTLE I.

Page 1. DR. Evans though scarcely known but for some bitter epigrams, was once celebrated at Oxford as a Poet, and is mentioned by Pope, with whom he corresponded, together with Swift and Young. Being admitted of St. John's College, he became fellow and bursar, and was vicar of St. Gyles's in Oxford.

8.

10.

-the Epidaurian leech.] Aesculapius.

Her squares of Horticulture

By Danby planted- -] The Physic Garden at Oxford, was the donation of Henry Danvers earl of Danby; who bought for the purpose five acres of ground, surrounded it with a wall which he ornamented with several handsome entrances, and annexed an annual income for its proper cultivation. The institution was further patronized by Dr. Sherard, who on his return from Smyrna, where he had been for some time consul, enriched it with a fine

collection of exotics, added a library of botanical books, and augmented the professor's stipend.

12. Wainfleetdalen College.

-] The founder of Mag.

EPISTLE II,

Page 18. The Author of this Epistle was educated at Oxford, for the profession of medicine, but quitted it through a predilection for painting, which he cultivated with attention abroad, and practised for his amusement in private. He had some employment from the crown under the Duke of Buckingham who was attached to him, wrote several lives in the "English School of Painters," translated a Novel from Cervantes, and printed several little poems.— An account of VERRIO may be seen in Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.

EPISTLE III.

Page 21. As on the winding banks of Yare I stray.] The river whence Yarmouth derives its name.

22. Nor, blest with Ridley, want Apollo's aid.] GLOSTER RIDLEY, L. L. D. of whose poetical talents several specimens will be given.

ibid. ancient Elmham- -] [North] Elmham, now a small village, formerly the bishop's see, which is now at Norwich. WALPOLE