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244   Poetical Essays for May, 1773.]

What was the mirth of the preceding night? 
Perhaps, amidst the fulness oof my joys, 
I gloried, shameless, in the jeft obccene,
Or to the wanton fonnet rais'd my voice. 

Perhaps I forg'd the libel on my friend, 
An absent friend----O misery to fay! 
Yet what a contrast will not Bacchus form, 
Or what is man when Reason is away! 

Oh Temperance! thou fun to beauty's bud, 
Parent of health, and foe to dark disease, 
Thou cheapest physic to the fickly frame,
For all may buy thy manna when they please;
Come, spotless maid, and teach me how to think, 
The brain will teem by the prolific ray; 
By thee supported memory grows memory grows strong, N
or fears the horrors of a flow decay. 
Let us with pity view the human bark, 
(Securely moor'd upon contentment's shore) 
Toss'd by the waves of a luxurious sea, 
Till down she sinks, alas! to rife no more.

The MINUTE.
THRO' all creation, whatfoe'er we call, 
By due distinction, either great or small, 
Obtains its proper and specific name 
Just as comparison may fix its claim. 
Hence various things their true importance lose, 
When seen in partial or contracted views; 
And Truth inn vain holds up her faithful glass, 
To thew each object in its proper class, 
Whilst Prejudice distorts the passing rays, 
And robs true merit of its right to praise. 
In the wide sphere of Time's extended race, 
The Minute seems to hold a trifling place: 
Thro' drowsy Sloth, sworn foe to watchful 
It loses the regard it ought to share: [Care, 
And unimprov'd the quick succession flies, 
Which heedless Folly knows not how to prize. 
Would ye, through life, in Reason's balance weigh 
The short-liv'd Minutes as they glide away, 
Reason would shew that Fortune those befriends, 
Who're watchful to fissure the gifts she sends; 
And strongly urge the danger of neglect, 
Where nought can rectify the past defect: 
For acts once done no wishes can recal, 
By their own worth we either stand or fall; 
Repenting Folly comes, alas! too late
To hear our sorrow, or avert our fate.
Observe the Gamestet, desperate in play,
At once to other and himself a prey--
Fearful to lose, yet confident to get,
He risques his fortune on a single bett;
His whole estate on one great stake depends,
And one short Minute the decision ends:
He's mad or lost, as luck should chance to draw
The highest number, or the longest straw.
The Minute, seen in other views, appears
The truest measure of our jobs and fears;
For, as alternate passions sink or rise, [flies.
That lags soft flow, or wing'd with rapture
Tortur'd with pain, incapable of sleep,
We count the lazy Minutes as they creep
And keen Impatience, ever on the wing,
Till Fate some long-expected good shall bring,
Watches the progress of the circling hand,
And thinks it seems, not only seems, to stand,
By diff'rent laws the fleeting Minutes roll,
When Pleasure holds in bonds the captive and foul:
Attention, now no more with woes opprest,
By wit diverted, or with love possest,
No leisure finds with watchful eye to trace
The flow-pac'd Minute thro' its ling'ring race:
While sportive mirth, and joy succeeding joy,
Fill the whole heart, and ev'ry though employ.

On FULVIA, the Wife of Mark Anthony. By Aug. Cæsar. [From Duncombe's Letters.]
WHILE from his spouse the false Antonius flies,
And doats on Glaphyra's* far brighter eyes,
Falvia, provok'd, her female arts prepares,
Reprisals seeks, and spreads for me her snares.
The husband's false: but why must I endure
This nauseous plague, and her revenge procure?
What tho' the ask, How happy were my doom, }
Should all the discontented wives of Rome }
Repair, in crowds, to me, when scorn'd at home? }
"Tis war, she says, if I refuse her charms:"
Let's think--she'd ugly--trumpets! found to arms!

*The poetical name for Citherida, an actress on whom Anthony doated.

From POPE's MESSIAH, &c.
Mason's Yard Academy, Duke-street, St. Jame's.
YE Nymphs of Solyma begin the song:
To heav'nly these sublimer strains belong:
The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus, and th' Aonian maids,
Delight no more.--O, Thou! my voice inspire,
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire.
Rapt into future times, the bard begun,
"A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a son."

[In the translation from the Illiad in the December Mag, line 14, for acro read aera; line 24, for levibus read levibusque; for umboribus read unibenibus.

FESTIVOS Nymphæ SOlymarum fundite cantus:
Grandes ora fonos meditantur: grandia rerum
Dicturo, ingentes animus consurgic in ausus.
Muscosæ sedes, & aquosa palatia, sontes,
Vosque, poetarum veterum figmenta, Camænæ
Este procul, vanique procul medacia Pindi.
Adsis, O! facilsque velis accendere vocem,
Vera sonaturam, quo quondam asslante, Prophetæ
Os volucri prina & slammic lustralibus arsit.
Fatidico, raptus ventura in fæcula vates,
Nil mortale movens, hæc pectore rupit anhelans:
Concipiet Virgo; Virgo dabit innuba prolem,
Virgo Deo dives, magnique puerpera cæli.