Befides, you found fault with our victuals one day that you was here; I remember it was on a Tuesday of all days in the year. And Saunders the man fays you are always jefting and mocking: Mary, faid he, (one day as 1 was mending my mafter's stocking ;) My matter is fo fond of that minister that keeps the I thought my mafter a wife man, but that man makes him a fool. Saunders, faid I, I would rather than a quart of ale He would come into our kitchen, and I would pin a dish-clout to his tail. And now I must go, and get Saunders to direct this letter ; For I write but a fad fcrawl; but my fifter Marget, she writes better. Well, but I must run and make the bed, before my mafter comes from prayers; And fee now, it strikes ten, and I hear him coming up ftairs; Whereof I could fay more to your verses, if I could write written hand: And fo I remain, in a civil way, your servant to com mand, MARY. A NEW FOR BEC*. 1723-42 RETURNING Janus now prepares, For Bec, a new supply of cares, Who thus difplays the New-year's-gift. This ball of wax your ears will darken, Left you the town may have lefs trouble in, Mrs. Dingley, Stella's friend and companion. VOL. I. U DINGLEY DINGLEY AND BRENT*. A SOI G. To the tune of, "Ye Commons and Peers." DINGLEY and Brent, Wherever they went, Ne'er minded a word that was spoken; They ne'er troubled their head, Should Solomon wife In majefty rife, And fhew them his wit and his learning; They never would hear, But turn the deaf ear, You tell a good jest, And please all the reft ; ́Comes Dingley, and asks you, What was it? And, curious to know, Away fhe will go To feek an old rag in the closet. * Dr. Swift's house-keeper. ΤΟ TO STELLA. 1723-4. Written on the DAY of her BIRTH, but not on the SUBJECT, when I was fick in Bed. TORMENTED with inceffant pains, Can I devise poetic strains? Time was, when I could yearly pay She, with soft speech, my anguish chears, She wants affiftance more than I ; Which had been latent in her breast. U 2 4 Her Her firmness who could e'er have known, Had the not evils of her own? Her kindness who could ever guess, Had not her friends been in distress? O N D. RE A M S. AN IMITATION OF PETRONIUS. "Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris," &c. THO HOSE dreams, that on the filent night intrude, For, when in bed we reft our weary limbs, The |