Un jour, dit un auteur, etc.
ONCE (says an author, where I need not say)
Two travellers found an oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong;
While scale in hand dame Justice pass'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife removed so rarely well,
There take (says Justice), take ye each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:
'Twas a fat oyster-Live in peace—Adieu.
ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS. HOW.
WHAT IS PRUDERY?
'Tis a beldam,
Seen with wit and beauty seldom.
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis (no 'tisn't) like Miss Meadows.
'Tis a virgin hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful, would seem wise;
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
"Tis an ugly envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell and you.
OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
MUSE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends,
And thou shalt live, for BUCKINGHAM commends.
Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain,
Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain.
SHEFFIELD approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.
TO A PLAY FOR MR. DENNIS'S BENEFIT IN 1733, WHEN HE WAS OLD, BLIND, AND IN GREAT DISTRESS. A LITTLE BEFORE HIS DEATH.
As when that hero, who in each campaign,
Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!
Wept by each friend, forgiven by every foe;
Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,
But pitied BELISARIUS old and blind?
Was there a chief but melted at the sight?
A common soldier, but who clubb'd his mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
When press'd by want and weakness DENNIS lies;
Dennis, who long had warr'd with modern Huns,
Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns;
A desperate bulwark, sturdy, firm and fierce,
Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse:
How changed from him who made the boxes groan,
And shook the stage with thunders all his own!
Stood up to dash each vain PRETENDER'S hope,
Maul the French tyrant or pull down the POPE!
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn;
If there's a critic of distinguish'd rage;
If there's a senior, who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend,
And be the critic's, Briton's, old man's friend.
WHEN Simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all the ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventured on the town,
And with a borrow'd play, outdid poor Crown.
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little:
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.
So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd,
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay;
She flatters her good lady twice a day;
Thought wondrous honest, though of mean degree,
And strangely liked for her simplicity:
In a translated suit, then tries the town,
With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own:
But just endured the winter she began,
And in four months a batter'd harridan.
Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale, and shrunk,
To bawd for others, and go shares with Punk.
INVENTOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER.
How much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceived by shows and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see
All humankind are worms.
Man is a very worm by birth,
Vile, reptile, weak, and vain!
Awhile he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.
That woman is a worm, we find
E'er since our grandame's evil;
She first conversed with her own kind,
That ancient worm, the devil.
The learn'd themselves we book-worms name,
The blockhead is a slow-worm;
The nymph whose tail is all on flame
Is aptly term'd a glow-worm.
The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;
First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.
The flatterer an earwig grows:
Thus worms suit all conditions; Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beau
And death-watches physicians.
That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;
Their conscience is a worm within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,
If thou couldst make the courtier void
The worm that never dies!
O learned friend of Abchurch-lane,
Who sett'st our entrails free!
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall eat even thee.
Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
Even Button's wits to worms shall turn,
Who maggots were before.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.
FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinione,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart,
I a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Maander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela, drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to fate.
ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.
I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon; (Envy be silent, and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.
Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,
An equal mixture of good humour
And sensible soft melancholy.
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