ANNA CHAMBERS,

COUNTESS TEMPLE,

[DAUGHTER and co-heiress of Thomas Chambers, esq. married Richard, first earl Temple, in 1737, and died April 8, 17772.

The following lively lines by lady Temple were sent with a piece of painted flowered silk to lady Charles Spencer, when she complained of being low in pocket3.

"Since the times are so bad and are still growing worse,
You may call this your own without sinking your purse.
The nymphs and the fauns say the pattern is new,
And that Flora's gay pencil design'd it, is true:
It was finish'd and destin'd for Beauty's fair queen,
So to whom it belongs is most easily seen.
Though flow'rets soon wither, yet these will not die,
When fading, reviv'd by a beam of your eye;

If you only breathe on 'em they'll fill the whole room
With sweets far surpassing Arabia's perfume.

Refuse not this trifle, your title is clear,

And Spencer will vouch it, though married a year."

The subsequent stanzas are said to have been written by countess Temple 4, in allusion to Mr. Wilkes's confinement in the Tower, in the year 1763.

• Debrett's Peerage, vol. i. p. 56.

3 Gent. Mag. vol. xxxiv. p. 244.

♦ To this lady Mr. Wilkes addressed the following courteous tribute, as appears from the miscellaneous poems printed with his Letters, vol. i. p. 190.

"THE JEWEL IN THE TOWER.

"If what the Tower of London holds

Is valued more than all its power:
Then, counting what it now enfolds,
How wondrous rich is London Tower!

"I think not of the armory,

Nor of the guns and lions' roar ;
Nor yet the valued library,

But of the jewel in the Tower.

:

"These are the marks upon it found:

King William's crest it bears before;
And Liberty's engraven round,

Though now confin'd within the Tower.

"With thousand methods they did try it,
Its firmness strengthen'd every hour;

They were not able all to buy it,

And so they sent it to the Tower.

66 THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSES.

"The Muses and Graces to Phœbus complain'd,
That no more on the earth a Sappho remain'd,
That the empire of Wit was now at an end,
And on Beauty alone the sex must depend;
For the men he had giv'n all his fancy and fire;
Art of healing to Armstrong, as well as his lyre.
When Apollo replied—‹ To make you amends,
'In one fair you shall see Wit and Virtue good friends:
'The Grecian's high spirit and sweetness I'll join,

• With a true Roman virtue, to make it divine;

Your pride and my boast, thus form'd, would you know, You must visit the earthly Elysium of Stow'."