You write of belles and beaux that there appear, And gilded coaches, such as glitter here; Poems by Mrs. Barber were published in 1734, prefaced by a letter from Swift to John, Earl of Orrery. She was the wife of a tradesman in Dublin. On sending my Son as a Present to Dr. SWIFT, A CURIOUS Statue, we are told, But if the artist could inspire This would advance the prize so high, What prince were rich enough to buy? She sure would give it to the Dean: M A richer present I design, A finish'd form, of work divine, Surpassing all the power of art, A thinking head, and grateful heart: A heart that hopes, one day, to show How much we to the Drapier owe. Kings could not send a nobler gift, A meaner were unworthy Swift. ELIZABETH ROWE, Born 1674, died 1736, Was the daughter of Mr. Walter Singer, a gentleman of good family. In her twenty-second year she published a volume of Poems. In 1710 she married Mr. Thomas Rowe, a person of no mean literary acquirements, who, 66 some considerable time after his marriage, addressed to her, under the name of Delia, a very tender ode:" he died in 1715, in his twenty-eighth year. After his death, she retired to Frome, in the neighbourhood of which she possessed a paternal estate, and there composed her once celebrated work, Letters from the Dead to the Living. She was warmly admired by Prior, among whose Poems will be found an "Answer to Mrs. Singer's Pastoral on Love and Friendship." Despair. OH! lead me to some solitary gloom, Where no enlivening beams, nor cheerful echoes come; But silent all, and dusky let it be, Remote, and unfrequented but by me; Far from the busy world's detested noise, Here, to my fatal sorrows let me give The short remaining hours I have to live. Then, with a sullen, deep-fetch'd groan expire, And to the grave's dark solitude retire. |