O SHIELD me from his rage, celestial Powers!
This tyrant that embitters all my hours.
Ah, Love! you've poorly play'd the hero's part,
You conquer'd, but you can't defend my heart.
When first I bent beneath your gentle reign,
I thought this monster banish'd from your train:
But you would raise him to support your throne,
And now he claims your empire as his own;
Or tell me, tyrants, have you both agreed
That where one reigns, the other shall succeed?
Received from Dryden the poetical name of Corinna. The part which she took in that mysterious business, the publication of Pope's Letters, procured for her a place in the Dunciad.
Predestination, or the Resolution.
[In her fifteenth year, her mind was disturbed, by attending her grandmother to meetings, and reading to her the works of Dr. Goodwin, a rigid predestinarian. "In this perplexity," says Corinna, speaking of herself in the third person, "she languished for some time; when hearing Bishop Burnet's Exposition of the 39 Articles was in the press, she waited the publication with the utmost impatience. But, alas! never the near, the Bishop having stated the different opinion of each sect with such candour that it was impossible to find out which he most leaned to himself. Being thus frustrated in her long expectations, she retired to her closet, where, after a most serious discussion of this point with herself, she formed the following poem. this afforded her great consolation, and the oftener she read it, the more she was composed and confirmed in her resolution."-Life of Mrs. T., prefixed to Pylades and Corinna, 2 vols. 2d edit. 1736.]
АH! strive no more to know what fate
Is preordain'd for thee:
"Tis vain in this my mortal state,
For Heaven's inscrutable decree Will only be reveal'd in vast Eternity. Then, O my soul!
Remember thy celestial birth,
And live to Heaven, while here on earth: Thy God is infinitely true,
All Justice, yet all Mercy too:
To Him, then, thro' thy Saviour, pray
For Grace, to guide thee on thy way,
And give thee Will to do.
But humbly, for the rest, my soul !
Let Hope, and Faith, the limits be
Of thy presumptuous curiosity!
An Irishwoman of extraordinary erudition.
says Mrs. Barber, 66 at the age of 27, and was allowed,
long before, to be an excellent scholar, not only in
Greek and Roman literature, but in history, divinity,
philosophy, and mathematics. She gave a proof of
her knowledge in the Latin tongue, by her dedication
of the Dublin edition of Tacitus to the Lord Carteret,
and by that of Terence to his son, to whom she like-
wise wrote a Greek epigram." Mrs. Pilkington
informs us,
that she was also mistress of Hebrew-that
her parents were poor, illiterate, country people—and
that, when questioned how she had acquired such
learning, she said she had received some little instruc-
tion from the minister of the parish, when she could
spare time from her needlework, to which she was
closely kept by her mother.' Her poems were pub-
lished with those of Mrs. Barber.
To Miss LETITIA VAN LEWEN (afterwards Mrs. PILKINGTON), at a Country Assize.
THE fleeting birds may soon in ocean swim,
And northern whales thro' liquid azure skim;
The Dublin ladies their intrigues forsake,
To dress and scandal an aversion take;
When you can in the lonely forest walk,
And with some serious matron gravely talk
Of possets, poultices, and waters still'd,
And monstrous casks with mead and cider fill'd;
How
many hives of bees she has in store,
And how much fruit her trees this summer bore;
Or, home returning, in the yard can stand,
And feed the chickens from your bounteous hand:
Of each one's top-knot tell, and hatching pry,
Like Tully waiting for an augury.
When night approaches, down to table sit
With a great crowd, choice meat, and little wit;
What horse won the last race, how mighty Tray,
At the last famous hunting, caught the prey;
Surely you can't but such discourse despise,
Methinks I see displeasure in your eyes:
O my Lætitia! stay no longer there,
You'll soon forget that you yourself are fair;
Why will you keep from us, from all that's gay,
There in a lonely solitude to stay?
Where not a mortal through the year you view,
But bob-wigg'd hunters, who their game pursue
With so much ardour, they'd a cock or hare,
To thee in all thy blooming charms prefer.
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