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To Mr. THOMAS SOUTHERN,

R

On his Birth-day, 1742.

ESIGN'D to live, prepar'd to die,

With not one fin, but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;

And Ireland, mother of fweet fingers,
Prefents her harp ftill to his fingers.
The feast, his tow'ring genius marks
In yonder wild goofe and the larks!

The mushrooms fhew his wit was fudden!

And for his judgment, lo a pudden!

Roaft beef, tho' old, proclaims him stout,

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5

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VER. 5. A table] He was invited to dine on his birth-day with this Nobleman, who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill of fare is here fet down.

VER. 8 Prefents her har The Harp is generally wove on the Irish Linen; such as Table-cloths, etc.

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May Toм, whom heav'n fent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,

Be ev'ry birth-day more a winner,

Digeft his thirty-thoufandth dinner;

Walk to his

grave

without reproach,

And fcorn a rafcal and a coach.

15

20

NOTES.

VER. 16. The price of prologues and of plays,] This alJudes to a flory Mr. Southern told of Dryden, about the same time, to Mr. P. and Mr. W. When Southern first wrote for the ftage, Dryden was fo famous for his Prologues, that the players would act nothing without that decoration. His ufual price till then had been four guineas: But when Southern came to him for the Prologue he had befpoke, Dryden told him he muft have fix guincas for it; "which (faid he) young man, "is out of no difrefpect to you; but the Players have had my "goods too cheap."--We now look upon thefe Prologues with the fame admiration that the Vir.uofi do on the Apothecaries' pots painted by Raphael.

EPITAPHS.

EPITAPH S.

His faltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani

Munere !

VIRG.

I.

On CHARLES Earl of Dorset, In the Church of Withyam in Suffex.

ORSET, the Grace of Courts, the Mufes'
Pride,

DORSE

Patron of Arts, and judge of Nature, dy'd. The scourge of Pride, tho' fanctify'd or great, Of Fops in Learning, and of Knaves in State:

NOTFS.

Epitaphs.] Thefe little compofitions far exceed any thing we have of the fame kind from other hands; yet, if we except the Epitaph on the young Duke of Buckingham, and perhaps one or two more, they are not of equal force with the rest of our Author's writings. The nature of the Compofition itself is delicate; and generally it was a task imposed on him; tho' he rarely complied with requests of this nature, as we may fee by the fmall number of thefe poems, but where the fubject was worthy of his pen.

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