If, tho' I pleasure find in living here, I yet can look on death without surprise; If I've a soul above the reach of fear, And which will nothing mean or sordid prize; A soul which cannot be depress'd by grief, Nor too much rais'd by the sublimest joy; Which can, when troubled, give itself relief, And to advantage all its thoughts employ; Then, am I happy in my humbler state, Although not crown'd with glory nor with bays; A mind, that triumphs over vice and fate, Esteems it mean to court the world for praise. THE HON. MARY MONK, died 1715, Daughter of Lord Molesworth, and wife of George Monk, Esq., wrote various poems, which were printed soon after her death, and entitled, Marinda; Poems and Translations upon several occasions. In the dedication to the Princess of Wales, written by her father, we are told "most of them are the product of the leisure hours of a young gentlewoman lately deceased; who, in a remote country retirement, without omitting the daily care due to a large family, not only perfectly acquired the several languages here made use of, but the good morals and principles contained in those books, so as to put them in practice, as well during her life and languishing sickness, as the hour of her death; in short, she died not only like a Christian, but like a Roman lady, and so became at once the object of the grief and comfort of her relations." On Providence. (From Filicaia.) As a kind mother with indulgent eye * Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French. And one's dear face imprints with kisses sweet, One to her bosom clasps, one on her knee Softly sustains in pleasing dignity, And one permits to cling about her feet; And reads their various wants, and each request In look, or action, or in sigh express'd: This little supplicant in gracious stile She answers; that she blesses with a smile; One feeds, one comforts, does to all incline, Verses, written on her Death-bed at Bath, to her Husband in London. THOU who dost all my worldly thoughts employ, At length the conqueror death asserts his right, ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA, died 1720, Was the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, of Sidmonton, in the county of Southampton. She was maid of honour to the Dutchess of York, second wife of James II.; and married Heneage, second son of Heneage, earl of Winchelsea, to which title he succeeded on the death of his nephew. A collection of her poems was printed in 1713; several still remain unpublished. "It is remarkable that, excepting a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, and some delightful pictures in the Poems of Lady Winchelsea, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature."-WORDSWORTH (Essay in his Miscellaneous Poems). The Atheist and the Acorn. METHINKS the world is oddly made, A dull, presuming Atheist said, As stretch'd he lay beneath a shade ; |