III.
When Ilia bore the future fates of Rome,
And the long honours of her race began,
Thus, to prepare the graceful age to come,
They from thy stores in happy order ran.
Heroes elected to the list of fame,
Fix’d the sure columns of her rising
state:
Till the loud triumphs of the Julian name
Render’d the glories of her reign
compleat,
Each year advanc’d a rival to the
rest,
In comely spoils of war, and great achievements
drest.
Florelio, a Pastoral, lamenting the death of the marquis of Blandford.
Part of the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah Paraphrased.
Verses on the
Union.
Cupid and Hymen.
Olivia, a small Poem of humour against a Prude.
The fair Nun, a Tale.
An Epistle addressed to Mr. Southern, written in the year 1711.
The eleventh Book of Homer’s Odyssey, translated in Milton’s stile.
The Widow’s Will; a Tale.
A-La-Mode, a very humorous representation of a fond, doating Husband, injured by his Wife.
Sappho to Phaon. A Love Epistle, translated from Ovid.
Phaon to Sappho.
A Tale devised in the pleasant manner of Chaucer; in which the Poet imitates that venerable old Bard, in the obsolete Language of his Verse.
Verses addressed to Mr. Pope.
The Platonic Spell.
Marullus de Neaera.
Marullus imitated.
Joannis Secundi Basium I.
Kisses. Translated from Secundus. I know not if all poetry ever exceeded the smoothness and delicacy of those lines. They flow with an irresistable enchantment, and as the inserting them will shew the spirit both of the original and translation, we shall make no further apology for doing it.
When Venus, in the sweet Idalian shade,
A violet couch for young Ascanius made;
Their op’ning gems, th’ obedient
roses bow’d
And veil’d his beauties with a damask
cloud:
While the bright goddess with a gentle
show’r,
Of nectar’d dews, perfum’d
the blissful bow’r;
Of sight insatiate, she devours his charms.
Till her soft breast re-kindling ardour
warms:
New joys tumultuous in her bosom rowl,
And all Adonis rusheth on her soul.
Transported with each dear resembling
grace,
She cries, Adonis!—Sure I see
thy face!
Then stoops to clasp the beauteous form,
but fears
He’d wake too soon, and with a sigh
forbears;
Yet, fix’d in silent rapture, stands
to gaze,
Kissing each flow’ring bud that
round him plays.
Swell’d with the touch, each animated
rose
Expands; and strait with warmer purple
glows:
Where infant kisses bloom, a balmy store!
Redoubling all the bliss she felt before.
Sudden, her swans career along the skies,
And o’er the globe the fair celestial
flies.
Then, as where Ceres pass’d, the
teeming plain,