K.
Though poetry was certainly neither a point of their rivalship, nor of their ambition, it may not be unwelcome to the curious to compare these great men even in their poetic capacities. The following sonnet was written by Sir R. Walpole when a very young man; the elegy, by Lord Bolingbroke, rather past his middle age. Had they climbed no mountain but Parnassus, it is obvious how far Lord Bolingbroke would have ascended above his competitor, since, when turned of fifty, he excelled in the province of youth.
TO THE HELIOTROPE.[257]
A SONG.
1.
Hail, pretty emblem of my fate!
Sweet flower, you still on Phœbus wait;
On him you look, and with him move,
By nature led, and constant love.
2.
Know, pretty flower, that I am he,
Who am in all so like to thee;
I, too, my fair one court, and where
She moves, my eyes I thither steer.
3.
But yet this difference still I find,
The sun to you is always kind;
Does always life and warmth bestow:
—Ah! would my fair one use me so!
4.
Ne’er would I wait till she arose
From her soft bed and sweet repose;
But leaving thee, dull plant, by night
I’d meet my Phillis with delight.
TO CLARA.[258]
BY HENRY, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE.
Dear thoughtless Clara, to my verse attend,
Believe for once the lover and the friend;
Heav’n to each sex has various gifts assign’d,
And shown an equal care of human kind.
Strength does to man’s imperial race belong;
To yours, that beauty which subdues the strong.
But as our strength, when misapplied, is lost,
And what should save, urges our ruin most;
Just so, when beauty prostituted lies,
Of b***s the prey, of rakes the abandon’d prize,
Women no more their empire can maintain,
Nor hope, vile slaves of lust, by love to reign;
Superior charms but make their case the worse,
When what was meant their blessing, proves their curse.
O nymph! that might, reclin’d on Cupid’s breast,
Like Psyche, soothe the God of Love to rest;
Or if ambition move thee, Jove enthral,
Brandish his thunder, and direct its fall;
Survey thyself, contemplate ev’ry grace
Of that sweet form, of that angelic face;
Then, Clara, say, were those delicious charms
Meant for lewd brothels and rude ruffians’ arms?
No, Clara, no; that person and that mind
Were form’d by nature, and by Heav’n design’d
For nobler ends; to these return, though late;
Return to these, and so redress thy fate.
Think, Clara, think (nor may that thought be vain!)
Thy slave, thy Harry, doom’d to drag his chain,
Of love ill treated and abus’d, that he
From more inglorious chains might rescue thee.
Thy drooping health restor’d by his fond cares,
Once more thy beauty its full lustre wears.
Mov’d by his love, by his example taught,
Soon shall thy soul, once more with virtue fraught,
With kind and generous truth thy bosom warm,
And thy fair mind, like thy fair person, charm.
To virtue thus and to thyself restor’d,
By all admir’d, by one alone ador’d,
Be to thy Harry ever kind and true,
And live for him who more than died for you.
The reader will find a very ludicrous anecdote relating to Mr. Nugent, during his election at Bristol, in a letter from our Author to Richard Bentley, Esq., dated July 9th, 1754. It is printed in the publication of his correspondence with that gentleman, but we do not venture to insert it here.
END OF VOL. I.
T. C. Savill, Printer, 4, Chandos-street, Covent-Garden.