Man may the sterner virtues know, Determined justice, truth severe; But female hearts with pity glow, And Woman holds affliction dear. For guiltless woes her sorrows flow, And suffering vice compels her tear; 'Tis hers to soothe the ills below, And bid life's fairer views appear. To Woman's gentle kind we owe What comforts and delights us here; 60 They its gay hopes on youth bestow, And care they soothe, and age they cheer. THE BOROUGH. Paulo majora canamus.--VIRGIL. [_Ecl._ IV. v. 1.] TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF RUTLAND, _MARQUIS OF GRANBY;_ RECORDER OF CAMBRIDGE AND SCARBOROUGH; LORD-LIEUTENANT AND CUSTOS-ROTULORUM OF THE COUNTY OF LEICESTER; K.G. & LL.D. MY LORD, The poem, for which I have ventured to solicit your Grace's attention, was composed in a situation so near to Belvoir Castle, that the author had all the advantage to be derived from prospects extensive and beautiful, and from works of grandeur and sublimity: and, though nothing of the influence arising from such situation should be discernible in these verses, either from want of adequate powers in the writer, or because his subjects do not assimilate with such views, yet would it be natural for him to indulge a wish, that he might inscribe his labours to the lord of a scene which perpetually excited his admiration, and he would plead the propriety of placing the titles of the House of Rutland at the entrance of a volume written in the Vale of Belvoir. But, my Lord, a motive much more powerful than a sense of propriety, a grateful remembrance of benefits conferred by the noble family in which you preside, has been the great inducement for me to wish that I might be permitted to inscribe this work to your Grace. The honours of that time were to me unexpected, they were unmerited, and they were transitory; but since I am thus allowed to make public my gratitude, I am in some degree restored to the honour of that period; I have again the happiness to find myself favoured, and my exertions stimulated, by the condescension of the Duke of Rutland.