14.

While thus he fpake, Erminia husht and still
His wife difcourfes heard, with great attention,
His fpeeches graue thofe idle fancies kill,
Which in her troubled foule bred fuch diffention;
After much thought reformed was her will,
Within those woods to dwell was her intention,
Till fortune fhould occafion new afford,

To turne her home to her defired Lord.

15.

She faid therefore, O fhepherd fortunate!
That troubles fome didft whilom feele and proue,
Yet liueft now in this contented state,
Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,
To entertaine me as a willing mate

In thepherds life, which I admire and loue;
Within these pleasant groues perchance my hart,
Of her discomforts, may vnload fome part.

16.

If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,
If iewels rich, thou diddeft hold in prife,
Such ftore thereof, fuch plentie haue I feen,
As to a greedie minde might well fuffice :
With that downe trickled many a filuer teare,

Two chriftall streames fell from her watrie eies;
Part of her fad misfortunes than fhe told,

And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.

17.

With fpeeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plaft her by her fide.
The Princeffe dond a poore paftoraes geare,
A kerchiefe courfe vpon her head the tide;
T 2

But

But yet her gestures and her lookes (I geffe)
Were fuch, as ill befeem'd a fhepherdeffe.
18.

Not those rude garments could obfcure, and hide,
The heau'nly beautie of her angels face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought difparag'de, by thofe labours bace;
Her little flocks to pafture would she guide,

And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could fhe make, and frame
Her felfe to please the fhepherd and his dame,

POM

1

POMFRE T.

O

F Mr. JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a flight and confufed account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he was the fon of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at Cambridge; entered into orders, and was rector of Malden in Bedfordshire, and might have rifen in the Church; but that, when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a living of confiderable value, to which he had been prefented, he found a troublesome obftruction raised by a malicious interpretation of fome paffage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he confidered happinefs as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife †.

This

*He was of Queen's College there, and, by the University regifter, appears to have taken his Bachelor's degree in 1684, and his Mafter's in 1698.

The paffage here meant, is the following:

And as I near approach'd the verge of life,
Some kind relation (for I'd have no wife)
T3

Should

This reproach was eafily obliterated: for it had happened to Pomfret as to all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from his purpose, and was then married.

The malice of his enemies had however a very fatal confequence the delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the fmall-pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-fixth year of his age.

He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that clafs of readers, who, without vanity or criticifin, feek only their own amufement.

His Choice exhibits a fyftem of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclufion of intellectual pleafures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.

Should take upon him all my worldly care,
While I did for a better ftate prepare.

* If my memory does not greatly mislead me, in the earlier edi tions the last line but one above-cited stood thus :

Should take upon her all my worldly care.

This has been frequently mentioned as the only passage in the pcem that could obftruct his inftitution, and the interpretation thereof is here, as elsewhere, ftigmatifed as malicious, and the rather, for that at the time of his application to the bifhop he was married; a circumfiance that revokes the fentiment no otherwise than by fhewing that the author had changed his opinion.

But the preceding part of the poem contains a wish to have near him an "obliging fair one to converfe with, conftant to herself and

to him, whofe converfation fhould infpire him with new joys, and "who fhould be faid, even by envy, to go the least of womankind aftray." The lines are too filly to be worth inferting, but, if not capable of a bad conftruction, they must be owned to be at least ambiguous.

In his other poems there is an eafy volubility; the pleasure of finooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppreffed with ponderous or entangled with intricate fentiment. He pleases many, and he who pleases many muft have fome fpecies of merit.

*

*Whoever will be at the pains of comparing the most admired of Pomfret's poems, his Choice, with Dr. Pope's With, will be convinced how much the manly fenfe of the latter outweighs the puerile inanity of the former: Of Pomfret's Poems, few have ever been readers but the illiterate, and fuch as are delighted with trite fentiments and vulgar imagery; and as thefe are the moft numerous of thofe that can read at all, it is no wonder that by fuch they have been often perufed,