To the Right Hon. HENRY PELHAM, Efq;

T

HE humble Petition of the worshipful company of Poets and News-writers,

SHEWETH,

THAT your honour's petitioners (dealers in rhymes, And writers of scandal, for mending the times) By loffes in bus'nefs, and England's well-doing, Are funk in their credit, and verging on ruin.

That these, their misfortunes, they humbly conceive, Arife not from dulnefs, as fome folks believe, But from rubs in their way, that your honour has laid, And want of materials to carry on trade.

That they always had form'd high conceits of their use, And meant their last breath fhou'd go out in abuse; But now (and they speak it with forrow and tears) Since your honour has fate at the helm of affairs,

No

party will join 'em, no faction invite

To heed what they fay, or to read what they write;
Sedition, and Tumult, and Discord are fled,
And Slander fcarce ventures to lift up her head-
In fhort, publick bus'nefs is fo carry'd on,
That their country is fav'd, and the patriots undone.

Τα

To perplex 'em ftill more, and fure famine to bring (Now fatire has loft both its truth and its sting) If, in spite of their natures, they bungle at praise, Your honour regards not, and nobody pays.

YOUR Petitioners therefore most humbly entreat
(As the times will allow, and your honour thinks meet)
That measures be chang'd, and fome caufe of complaint
Be immediately furnifh'd, to end their restraint;
Their credit thereby, and their trade to retrieve,
That again they may rail, and the nation believe.
Or else (if your wisdom shall deem it all one)
Now the parliament's rifing, and bus'nefs is done,
That your honour would please, at this dangerous crifis,
To take to your bosom a few private vices,

By which your petitioners, haply, might thrive,
And keep both themselves and contention alive.
In compaffion, good Sir! give 'em fomething to say,
And your honour's petitioners ever shall pray.

An O DE

Performed in the

Senate-House at Cambridge July 1, 1749,

At the Inftallation of his Grace

THOMAS HOLLES Duke of NEWCASTLE,

CHANCELLOR of the University.

-canit errantem Permessi ad flumina Gallum

Aonas in Montes ut duxerit una fororum
Utque viro Phabi chorus affurrexerit omnis.

VIRGIL.

By Mr. MASON, Fellow of Pembroke-Hall.

Set to Music by Mr. Boyce, Composer to his Majesty.

H1

I.

ERE all thy active fires diffuse,

Thou genuin British Muse;

Hither defcend from yonder orient sky,

Cloth'd in thy heav'n-wove robe of harmony.

Recitative.

Come,

Air I.

Come, imperial queen of fong;
Come with all that free-born grace,
Which lifts thee from the fervile throng,
Who meanly mimic thy majestic pace;
That glance of dignity divine,

Which speaks thee of celeftial line;
Proclaims thee inmate of the sky,

Daughter of Jove and Liberty.
II.

Recitative. The elevated foul, who feels
Thy awful impulse, walks the fragrant ways
Of honeft unpolluted praise :

He with impartial justice deals

The blooming chaplets of immortal lays :
He flies above ambition's low carreer;

And nobly thron'd in Truth's meridian sphere,

Thence, with a bold and heav'n-directed aim, Full on fair Virtue's fhrine he pours the rays of fame.

Air II.

III.

Goddess! thy piercing eye explores
The radiant range of Beauty's ftores,
The steep afcent of pine-clad hills,
The filver flope of falling rills,
Catches each lively-colour'd grace,
The crimson of the wood-nymph's face,
The verdure of the velvet lawn,

The purple in the eastern dawn,

Or all those tints, which rang'd in vivid glow
Mark the bold sweep of the celestial bow.

IV.

But chief fhe lifts her tuneful transports high, Recitative.

When to her intellectual eye

The mental beauties rife in moral dignity :

The facred zeal for Freedom's caufe,
That fires the glowing Patriot's breaft;
The honeft pride, that plumes the Hero's creft,
When for his country's aid the fteel he draws;
Or that, the calm yet active heat,

With which mild Genius warms the fages heart,
To lift fair Science to a loftier seat,

Or ftretch to ampler bounds the wide domain of art.
These, the best bloffoms of the virtuous mind, Air I.
She culls with tafte refin'd;

From their ambrofial bloom

With bee-like skill she draws the rich perfume,
And blends the sweets they all convey,

In the foft balm of her mellifluous lay.

V.

Is there a clime, where all these beauties rife Recitative.

In one collected radiance to her eyes?

Is there a plain, whose genial foil inhales

Glory's invigorating gales,

Her brightest beams where Emulation spreads,

Her kindlieft dews where Science fheds,

Where ev'ry stream of Genius flows,
Where ev'ry flower of Virtue glows?
Thither the Muse exulting flies,
There the loudly cries-