Live happy, and more prosperous in the next. You have discharg'd your old friend by the text. Farewell, fair Shadow of a female faith, And let this be our friendship's Epitaph:
Affection shares the frailty of our fate, When (like ourselves) 'tis old and out of date: 'Tis just all human loves their period have, When friends are frail and dropping to the grave.
[_The Change._] This poem is almost less of a commonplace than any of King's, and the expression is vigorous. The nearest parallel I know to it is Crabbe's 'Natural Death of Love', and like that it has a curious, if not cheerful, ring of actuality. But the case is more unusual. The Spanish motto (rather dog-Spanish in original) means: 'The wise man changes consciously: the fool [or, rather, madman] perseveres.']
[Line: 22 by the text] = 'formally'? as it were, 'by the card'. Or perhaps with direct reference to the motto.]
_To my Sister Anne King, who chid me in verse for being angry._
Dear Nan, I would not have thy counsel lost, Though I last night had twice so much been crost; Well is a passion to the market brought, When such a treasure of advice is bought With so much dross. And couldst thou me assure, Each vice of mine should meet with such a cure, I would sin oft, and on my guilty brow Wear every misperfection that I owe, Open and visible; I should not hide But bring my faults abroad: to hear thee chide 10 In such a note, and with a quill so sage, It passion tunes, and calms a tempest's rage.
Well, I am charm'd, and promise to redress What, without shrift, my follies do confess Against myself: wherefore let me entreat, When I fly out in that distemper'd heat Which frets me into fasts, thou wilt reprove That froward spleen in poetry and love: So though I lose my reason in such fits Thou'lt rhyme me back again into my wits. 20
[_To my Sister, &c._] Anne King, afterwards Mrs. Dutton and Lady Howe. Howell, the epistoler, admitted her (in rather execrable verse) to that Tenth Museship which has had so many fair incumbents. Izaak Walton left her a ring and called her 'a most generose and ingenious Lady'. The verses assigned to her, which may be found in Hannah's notes, are not of the worst Tenth Muse quality.]
[Line: 2 It has been observed, once or twice, that a placid and philosophical temper does not seem to have been one of the Bishop's gifts, and he here acknowledges the fact.]