How wit and virtue from within

Send out a smoothness o'er the skin:
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-six.
The sight of Chloe at fifteen
Coquetting, gives not me the spleen;

The idol now of every fool

Till time shall make their passions cool;
Then tumbling down Time's steepy hill,
While Stella holds her station still. My 67
O! turn your precepts into laws,
Redeem the women's ruin'd cause.
Retrieve lost empire to our sex,
That men may bow their rebel necks.
Long be the day that gave you birth
Sacred to friendship, wit, and mirth;
Late dying may you cast a shred
Of your rich mantle o'er my heade
To bear with dignity my sorrow,

One day alone, then die to-morrow.

TO STELLA,

ON HER BIRTH-DAY, 1721-2.

WHILE, Stella, to your lasting praise
The Muse her annual tribute pays,
While I assign myself a task
Which you expect, but scorn to ask;
If I perform this task with pain,
Let me of partial fate complain;

VOL. XIV.

Hh

You every year the debt enlarge,
I grow less equal to the charge:
In you each virtue brighter shines,
But my poetic vein declines;
My harp will soon in vain be strung,
And all your virtues left unsung.
For none among the upstart race
Of poets dare assume my place;
Your worth will be to them unknown,
They must have Stellas of their own;
And thus, my stock of wit decay'd,
I dying leave the debt unpaid,
Unless Delany, as my heir,

Will answer for the whole arrear.

ON THE GREAT BURIED BOTTLE.

BY DR DELANY.

AMPHORA, quæ mæstum linquis, lætumque revises
Arentem dominum, sit tibi terra levis.

Tu quoque depositum serves, neve opprime, marmor;
Amphora non meruit tam pretiosa mori.

ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ,

BY THE SAME.

Hoc tumulata jacet proles Lenæa sepulchro,
Immortale genus, nec peritura jacet ;
Quin oritura iterum, matris concreditur alvo;
Bis natum referunt te quoque, Bacche Pater.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY:

A GREAT BOTTLE OF WINE, LONG BURIED, BEING

RESOLV'D my annual verse to pay,
By duty bound, on Stella's day,
Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink,
I gravely sat me down to think :
I bit my nails, and scratch'd my head,
But found my wit and fancy fled:
Or, if with more than usual pain,
A thought came slowly from my brain;
It cost me Lord knows how much time
To shape it into sense and rhyme:
And, what was yet a greater curse,
Long thinking made my fancy worse.
Forsaken by th' inspiring Nine,
I waited at Apollo's shrine :

I told him what the world would say,
If Stella were unsung to-day:

How I should hide my head for shame,
When both the Jacks and Robin came;

How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer,
How Sheridan the rogue would sneer,
And swear it does not always follow,
That semel in anno ridet Apollo.
I have assur'd them twenty times,
That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes
Phœbus inspir'd me from above,
And he and I were hand and glove.
But, finding me so dull and dry since,
They'll call it all poetic license;

And when I brag of aid divine,
Think Eusden's right as good as mine.
Nor do I ask for Stella's sake;
'Tis my own credit lies at stake:
And Stella will be sung, while I
Can only be a stander by.

Apollo, having thought a little,
Return'd this answer to a tittle.

Though you should live like old Methusalem, I furnish hints and you shall use all 'em, You yearly sing as she grows old, You'd leave her virtues half untold. But, to say truth, such dulness reigns, Through the whole set of Irish deans, I'm daily stunn'd with such a medley Dean W-d, Dean D-1, and Dean Smedley. That, let what dean soever come, My orders are, I'm not at home; And if your voice had not been loud, You must have pass'd among the crowd. But now, your danger to prevent, You must apply to Mrs Brent ; For she, as priestess, knows the rites Wherein the god of earth delights. First, nine ways looking, let her stand With an old poker in her hand; Let her describe a circle round In Saunders'† cellar on the ground: A spade let prudent Archy ‡ hold, And with discretion dig the mould. Let Stella look with watchful eye, Rebecca, § Ford, and Grattans by.

*The housekeeper.-F. The footman.-F.

The butler.-F. § Mrs Dingley.

Behold the bottle, where it lies
With neck elated toward the skies!
The god of winds and god of fire
Did to its wond'rous birth conspire;
And Bacchus for the poet's use
Pour'd in a strong inspiring juice.
See! as you raise it from its tomb,
It drags behind a spacious womb,
And in the spacious womb contains
A sovereign medicine for the brains.

You'll find it soon, if fate consents;
If not, a thousand Mrs Brents.
Ten thousand Archys, arm'd with spades,
May dig in vain to Pluto's shades.

From thence a plenteous draught infuse,
And boldly then invoke the Muse;
But first let Robert * on his knees
With caution drain it from the lees;
The Muse will at your call appear,
With Stella's praise to crown the year.

STELLA AT WOOD PARK,

A HOUSE OF CHARLES FORD, ESQ. NEAR DUBLIN.

1723.

"Cuicumque nocere volebat, Vestimenta debat pretiosa."

DON CARLOS, in a merry spite,
Did Stella to his house invite :

*The valet-F.