his good sense, his happy easy
turns and melody, his loves, and his Epicureanism, bear a great
resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master. In reading
his works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy
similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his
verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that endless theme to
poets, the vanity of human wishes--

So when in fevered dreams we sink,
And, waking, taste what we desire,
The real draught but feeds the fire,
The dream is better than the drink.

Our hopes like towering falcons aim
At objects in an airy height:
To stand aloof and view the flight,
Is all the pleasure of the game.

Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days was singing? and, in the
verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching him for his inconstancy, where he
says--

The God of us verse-men, you know, child, the Sun,
How after his journey, he sets up his rest.
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run,
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.

So, when I am wearied with wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, but thou art my home!

Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war,
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree;
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
As he was a poet sublimer than me.

If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study Prior? Love and pleasure
find singers in all days. Roses are always blowing and fading--to-day as in
that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their
decay--

She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers
Pointing, the lovely moralist said;
See, friend, in some few leisure hours,
See yonder what a change is made!

Ah, me! the blooming pride of May,
And that of Beauty are but one:
At morn both flourisht, bright and gay,
Both fade at evening, pale and gone.

At dawn poor Stella danced and sung,
The amorous youth around her bowed,
At night her fatal knell was rung;
I saw, and kissed her in her shroud.

Such as she is who died to-day,
Such I, alas, may be to-morrow:
Go, Damon, bid the Muse display
The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow.

Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf l