Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ENGLISH POETS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY JOHN POMFEET THE CHOICE If Heaven the grateful liberty would give. That I might choose my method how to live; And all those hours propitious fate should lend, In blissful ease and satisfaction spend. I. The Gentleman's Retirement Near some fair town I'd have a private seat, Built uniform, not little, nor too great: Better, if on a rising ground it stood; Fields on this side, on that a neighbouring wood. It should within no other things contain, But what are useful, necessary, plain: Methinks 'tis nauseous, and I'd ne'er endure, The needless pomp of gaudy furniture. A little garden, grateful to the eye; And a cool rivulet run murmuring by, On whose delicious banks a stately row Of shady limes, or sycamores, should grow. At th' end of which a silent study placed, Should with the noblest authors there be graced: Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines Immortal wit, and solid learning, shines; Sharp Juvenal and amorous Ovid too, Who all the turns of love's soft passion knew: He that with judgment reads the charming lines, In which strong art with stronger nature joins, Must grant his fancy does the best excel; His thoughts so tender, and expressed so well: 1 With all those moderns, men of steady sense, Esteemed for learning, aHd for eloquence. In some of these, as fancy should advise, I'd always take my morning exercise: Eor sure no minutes bring us more content, Than those in pleasing useful studies spent. II. His Fortune And Charity I'd have a clear and competent estate, That I might live genteelly, but not great: As much as I could moderately spend; A little more, sometimes t' oblige a friend. Nor should the sons of poverty repine At fortune's frown, for they should taste of mine; And all that obj...