THE following Poems were written at several Times, and on several Subjects: If the Ladies, for whom they are chiefly design'd, and to whose Service they are intirely devoted, happen to meet with any thing in them that is entertaining, I have all I am at. They were the Employment of my leisure Hours, the innocent Amusement of a solitary Life: In them they'll find a Picture of my Mind, my Sentiments all laid open to their View; they'll sometimes see me cheerful, pleas'd, sedate and quiet; at other times griev'd, complaining, struggling with my Passions, blaming my self, endeavouring to pay a Homage to my Reason, and resolving for the future, with a decent Calmness, an unshaken Constancy, and a resigning Temper,[Page] to support all the Troubles, all the uneasinesses of Life, and then by unexpected Emergencies, unforeseen Disappointments, sudden and surprizing Turns of Fortune, discompos'd, and shock'd, till I have rallied my scatter'd Forces, got new Strength, and by making an unweary'd Resistance, gain'd the better of my Afflictions, and restor'd my Mind to its former Tranquillity.

'Tis impossible to be happy without making Reason the Standard of all our Thoughts, Words and Actions, and firmly resolving to yield a constant, ready, and cheerful Obedience to its Dictates. Those who are govern'd by Opinion, inslav'd to Custom, and Vassals to their Humors, are Objects of Pity, if such as are wretched by their own Choice, can be properly said to deserve Commiseration. They act by no steady Principles, are always restless, disturb'd, and uneasie; sometimes agitated by one Passion, and sometimes by another, fretting about Trifles, and lamenting the Loss of such Things, as others would think it a part of their Felicity to be without.

What we generally call Misfortunes, what we fancy to be Miseries, are not really so; they exist only in the Imagination, are Creatures of the Brain, Troubles of our own forming, and like Phantoms vanish as soon as Reason shines clear.

Would we contract our Desires, and learn to think that only necessary, which Nature has made so, we should be no longer fond of Riches, Honours, Applauses, and several other Things which are the unhappy Occasions of much Mischief to the World, which unavoidably involve Mankind in great Misery, and draw after them a long Train of Vice; and doubtless were we so happy as to have a true Notion of the Dignity of our Nature, of those great Things for which we are design'd, and of the Duration and Felicity of that State to which we are hastning, we should scorn to stoop to mean Actions, blush at the very Thoughts of doing any thing below our Character, and look on the little worthless Concerns of Life, viz. on the amassing Treasures, the gaining[Page] Titles, the making a pompous Appearance, and the gratifying our Appetites, as Trifles below our Care, and unworthy of our Thoughts, Things too mean to be the Business, much less the Delight of rational Beings, of such as were created for nobler, and much more sublime Employments: We should then without Regret, or at least with Patience and a becoming Submission to the Divine Pleasure, see our selves depriv'd of those Things which we now falsly fancy to be constituent Parts of our Happiness; we should then, if Death wounds us in the tenderest part of our Souls, robs us of what 'tis most allowable for us to prize, snatches from us our dearest Relations, our best, our darling Friends, look on them as Persons not lost, but only remov'd to better, more blissful Habitations, and where we may reasonably flatter our selves with the hope, that they may have the same Kindness for us, the same Friendship, the same Inclinations, the same Readiness to do us obliging Offices, and where we shall very shortly meet again, and renew our Endearments, and where our Love shall be as lasting as our Souls, as great as our Happiness.

The way to be truly easie, to be always serene, to have our Passions under a due Government, to be wholly our own, and not to have it in the Power of Accidents, of things foreign to us to ruffle and disturb our Thoughts, is to retire into our selves, to live upon our own Stock, to accustom our selves to our own Conversation, to be pleas'd with nothing but what strictly and properly speaking, we may justly pretend a Right to; of which kind, such things can never be said to be, of which 'tis in the Power of Fortune to deprive us.

No Joy but what results from virtuous Actions, no Pleasure but what arises from a Sense of having done what we ought, no Acquisition but that of Wisdom, no Applause but that of Conscience, is truly desirable; such Delights as these, such valuable Treasures, are the Things I would recommend to my Sex: I would have them no longer solicitous about Impertinences, anxious about Trifles, Slaves to their own Humors, and a Prey to every mean, designing Flatterer; I[Page] would not have them employ more Time in beautifying their Faces, in rendring themselves agreeable, than in adorning their Minds, and enriching their Understandings: There is a noble Disdain, a becoming and allowable Pride; 'tis commendable to scorn to be below others in Things that are essentially Praise-worthy, and they may be permitted to put a true Value on themselves, when instead of exciting them to Vanity, giving them wrong Notions of Perfection, false Ideas of their own Merits, it tends only to the raising them above those mean despicable Things, those contemptible Accomplishments of which the most are proud: I beg their Pardon for presuming so freely to advise them, and I own it to be a Fault which nothing but the Zeal I have for them can excuse.

These Poems begin with a very long one on the Death of the Duke of Glocester: Tho' I never had the Honour to view the fair Original, so that I pretend not to draw from the Life, yet having had from Persons on whom I can well depend, a just and full Character of him, as of a Prince of wonderful[Page] Hopes, and who at his first Appearance, in his Dawn of Life, the Morning of his Age, discover'd a shining Merit, a more than ordinary Propensity to Knowledge, a winning Sweetness of Temper, join'd with a Generosity becoming his Birth: In a word, all those great and distinguishing Qualities which raise his Royal Parents as much above those of their own Rank, as their sublime Dignity has elevated them above the meanest of the People, I thought so great a Loss would sufficiently justifie all I cou'd say on that Subject, and render the Length of it excusable.