IMPROVISO TRANSLATION OF THE FOLLOWING DISTICH ON THE DUKE OF MODENA'S RUNNING AWAY FROM THE COMET IN 1742 OR 1743. SE al venir vostro i principi sen' vanno IF at your coming princes disappear, MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. TRANSLATION OF THE FOLLOWING LINES, WRITTEN UNDER A PRINT REPRESENTING PERSONS SKATING. SUR un mince cristal l'hiver conduit leurs pas, Le précipice est sous la glace: Telle est de nos plaisirs la légère surface: Glissez, mortels; n'appuyez pas. O'ER ice the rapid skater flies, With sport above, and death below; IMPROMPTU TRANSLATION OF THE SAME. O'ER crackling ice, o'er gulfs profound, TO MRS. THRALE, ON HER COMPLETING HER THIRTY-FIFTH YEAR. VOL. I. AN IMPROMPTU. OFT in danger, yet alive, Time his hours should never drive O'er the bounds of thirty-five. High to soar, and deep to dive, OF A SPEECH OF AQUILEIO, IN THE ADRIANO OF GROWN old in courts, thou surely art not one To sink the fatal precipice before him, And then lament his fall, with seeming friendship: • The character of Cali, in Irene, is a masterly sketch of the old and practised dissembler of a despotic court.-ED. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Open to all, true only to thyself, Thou know'st those arts, which blast with envious praise, Which aggravate a fault, with feign'd excuses, And drive discountenanc'd virtue from the throne; BURLESQUE OF THE MODERN VERSIFICATIONS OF ANCIENT LEGENDARY TALES. AN IMPROMPTU. THE tender infant, meek and mild, Fell down upon the stone: The nurse took up the squealing child, FRIENDSHIP; AN ODE. FRIENDSHIP, peculiar boon of heaven, To men and angels only given, To all the lower world deny'd. While love, unknown among the blest, The savage and the human breast Torments alike with raging fires*; This ode originally appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1743. See Boswell's Life of Johnson, under that year. It was afterwards printed in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, in 1766, with several variations, which are pointed out, below.-J. B. " Parent of rage and hot desires.-Mrs. W. * Inflames alike with equal fires. With bright, but oft destructive, gleam, Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys Directress of the brave and just2, O! guide us through life's darksome way! On selfish bosoms only prey. Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow", ON SEEING A BUST OF MRS. MONTAGUE. HAD this fair figure, which this frame displays, Her statue would have breath'd an added grace, "This is Minerva, cast in virtue's mould." y In vain for thee the monarch sighs. This stanza is omitted in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, and instead of it, we have the following, which may be suspected, from internal evidence, not to have been Johnson's; When virtues, kindred virtues meet, a O! shall thy flames then cease to glow. |