Or teeth, or fingers, in this case,

Of Num-scull's self should take the place:
Disputing fair, you grant thus much,
That all sensation is but touch.
Dip but your toes into cold water,
Their correspondent teeth will chatter:
And, strike the bottom of your feet,
You set your head into a heat.
The bully beat, and happy lover,
Confess that feeling lies all over.

"Note here, Lucretius dares to teach
(As all our youth may learn from Creech)
That eyes were made, but could not view,
Nor hands embrace, nor feet pursue:
But heedless Nature did produce
The members first, and then the use.
What each must act was yet unknown,
Till all is mov'd by Chance alone.

"A man first builds a country-scat,
Then finds the walls not good to eat.
Another plants, and wondering sees
Nor books nor medals on his trees.
Yet poet and philosopher
Was he, who durst such whims aver.
Blest, for his sake, be human reason,
That came at all, though late in season.
But no man, sure, e'er left his house,

And saddled Ball, with thoughts so wild,
To bring a midwife to his spouse,

Before he knew she was with child. And no man ever reapt his corn,

Or from the oven drew his bread,

Ere hinds and bakers yet were born,

That taught them both to sow and knead. Before they're ask'd, can maids refuse? Can"-" Pray," says Dici, "hold in your Muse. While you Pindaric truths rehearse, She hobbles in alternate verse."— "Verse," Mat reply'd; "is that my care?”"Go on," quoth Richard, "soft and fair."

"This looks, friend Dick, as Nature had But exercis'd the salesman's trade;

As if she haply had sat down,

And cut out clothes for all the town;

Then sent them out to Monmouth-street,
To try what persons they would fit.
But every free and licens'd taylor
Would in this thesis find a failure.
Should whims like these his head perplex,
How could he work for either sex?
His clothes, as atoms might prevail,
Might fit a pismire, or a whale.

No, no: he views with studious pleasure
Your shape, before he takes your measure.
For real Kate he made the boddice,
And not for an ideal goddess.
No errour near his shop-board lurk'd:
He knew the folks for whom he work'd;
Still to their size he aim'd his skill:
Else, pr'ythee, who would pay his bill?
"Next, Dick, if Chance herself should vary,
Observe, how matters would miscarry:
Across your eyes, friend, place your shoes;
Your spectacles upon your toes:
Then you and Memmius shall agree
How nicely men would walk, or see.

"But Wisdom, peevish and cross-grain❜d,
Must be oppos'd, to be sustain'd;
And still your knowledge will increase,
As you make other people's less.

In arms and science 'tis the samé,
Our rival's hurts create our fame.
At Faubert's, if disputes arise
Among the champions for the prize,
To prove who gave the fairer butt,
John shows the chalk on Robert's coat.
So, for the honour of your book,
It tells where other folks mistook:
And, as their notions you confound,
Those you invent get farther ground.

"The commentators on old Ari-
stotle ('tis urg'd) in judgment vary:
They to their own conceits have brought
The image of his general thought;
Just as the melancholic eye

Sees fleets and armies in the sky;
And to the poor apprentice ear

The bells sound, Whittington, lord mayor.'
The conjuror thus explains his scheme;
Thus spirits walk, and prophets dream ;
North Britons thus have second-sight;
And Germans, free from gun-shot, fight.
"Theodoret and Origen,

And fifty other learned men,
Attest, that, if their comments find
The traces of their master's mind,
Alma, can ne'er decay nor die:
This flatly t' other sect deny;
Simplicius, Theophrast, Durand,
Great names, but hard in verse to stand.
They wonder men should have mistook
The tenets of their master's book,

And hold, that Alma yields her breath,
O'ercome by age, and seiz'd by death.

Now which were wise? and which were fools!
Poor Alma sits between two stools:
The inore she reads, the more perplext;
The comment ruining the text:

Now fears, now hopes, her doubtful fate:
But, Richard, let her look to that-
Whilst we our own affairs pursue.

"These different systems, old or new,
A man with half an eye may see,
Were only form'd to disagree.
Now, to bring things to fair conclusion,
And save much Christian ink's effusion,
Let me propose an healing scheme,
And sail along the middle stream;
For, Dick, if we could reconcile

Old Aristotle with Gassendus,
How many would admire our toil!

And yet how few would comprehend us! "Here, Richard, let my scheme commence; Oh! may my words be lost in sense! While pleas'd Thalia deigns to write The slips and bounds of Alma's flight. "My simple system shall suppose That Alma enters at the toes; That then she mounts by just degrees Up to the ancles, legs, and knees; Next, as the sap of life does rise, She lends her vigour to the thighs; And all these under-regions past, She nestles somewhere near the waist; Gives pain or pleasure, grief or laughter, As we shall show at large hereafter. Mature, if not improv'd by time, Up to the heart she loves to climb; From thence, compell'd by craft and age, She makes the head her latest stage.

"From the feet upward to the head-" "Pithy and short," says Dick, "proceed." Dick, this is not an idle motion: Observe the progress of the motion. First, I demonstratively prove, That feet were only made to move; And legs desire to come and go, For they have nothing else to do.

Hence, long before the child can crawl,
He learns to kick, and wince, and sprawl:
To hinder which, your midwife knows
To bind those parts extremely close;
Lest Alma, newly enter'd in,

And stunn'd at her own christening's din,
Fearful of future grief and pain,
Should silently sneak out again.
Full piteous seems young Alma's case;
As in a luckless gamester's place,
She would not play, yet must not pass.
"Again; as she grows something stronger,
And master's feet are swath'd no longer,
If in the night too oft he kicks,
Or shows his loco-motive tricks;
These first assaults fat Kate repays him;
When half asleep, she overlays him.

"Now mark, dear Richard, from the age
That children tr ad this worldly stage,
Broom-staff or poker they bestride,
And round the parlour love to ride ;
Till thoughtful father's pious care
Provides his brood, next Smithfield Fair,
With supplemental hobby-horses:
And happy be their infant courses!

“Hence for some years they ne'er stand
still:

Their legs, you see, direct their will;
From opening morn till setting sun,
Around the fields and woods they run;
They frisk, and dance, and leap, and play,
Nor heed what Freind or Snape can say.

"To her next stage as Alma flies,
And likes, as I have said, the thighs,
With sympathetic power she warms
Their good allies and friends, the arms;
While Betty dances on the green,
And Susan is at stoolball seen;
While John for nine-pins does declare,
And Roger loves to pitch the bar :
Both legs and arms spontaneous move;
Which was the thing I meant to prove.
66 Another motion now she makes:

O, nced I name the scat she takes?

His thought quite chang'd the stripling finds;
The sport and race no more he minds;
Neglected Tray and pointer lie,

And covies uninolested fly.

Sudden the jocund plain he leaves,
And for the nymph in secret grieves.
In dying accents he complains
Of cruel fires, and raging pains.
The nymph too longs to be alone,
Leaves all the swains, and sighs for one.
The nymph is warm'd with young desire,
And feels, and dies to queuch his fire.
They meet each evening in the grove;
Their parley but augments their love:
So to the priest their case they tell :
He ties the knot; and all goes well.
"But, O my Muse, just distance keep;
Thou art a maid, and must not peep,

In nine months time, the boddice loose,
And petticoats too short, disclose
That at this age the active mind
About the waist lies most contin'd;

And that young life and quickening sense
Spring from his influence darted thence.
So from the middle of the world
The Sun's prolific rays are hurl'd:
"Tis from that scat he darts those beams,
Which quicken Earth with genial flames."
Dick, who thus long had passive sat,
Here strok'd his chin, and cock'd his lat;
Then slapp'd his hand upon the board,

And thus the youth put in his word.

"Love's advocates, sweet sir, would find him
A higher place than you assign'd him."
"Love's advocates! Dick, who are those ?”--
"The poets, you may well suppose.
I'm sorry, sir, you have discarded

The men with whom till now you herded.
Prose-men alone, for private ends,

I thought, forsook their ancient friends.
In cor stillavit, cries Lucretius;
If he may be allow'd to teach us.
The self-same thing soft Ovid says
(A proper judge in such a case).
Horace's phrase is, torret jecur;
And happy was that curious speaker.
Here Virgil too has plac'd this passion.
What signifies too long quotation?
In ode and epic, plain the case is,
That Love holds one of these two places."
"Dick, without passion or reflection,
I'll strait demolish this objection.

"First, poets, all the world agrees,
Write half to profit, half to please.
Matter and figure they produce;
For garnish this, and that for use;
And, in the structure of their feasts,
They seek to feed and please their guests:
But one may balk this good intent,
And take things otherwise than meant.
Thus, if you dine with my lord mayor,
Roast-beef and venison is your fare;
Thence you proceed to swan and bustard,
And persevere in tart and custard:
But tulip-leaves and lemon-peel
Help only to adorn the meal,
And painted flags, superb and neat,
Proclaim you welcome to the treat.
The man of sense his meat devours,
But only smells the peel and flowers;
And he must be an idle dreamner,
Who leaves the pie, and gnaws the streamer,
"That Cupid goes with bow and arrows,
And Venus keeps her coach and sparrows,
Is all but emblem, to acquaint one,
The son is sharp, the mother wanton.
Such images have sometimes shown
A mystic sense, but oftener none.
For who conceives, what bards devise,
That Heaven is plac'd in Celia's eyes;
Or where's the sense, direct and moral,
That teeth are pearl, or lips are coral?
"Your Horace owns, he various writ
As wild or sober maggots bit:
And, where too much the poet ranted,
The sage philosopher recanted.
His grave Epistles may disprove

The wanton Odes he made to loves

"Lucretius keeps a mighty pother With Cupid and his fancy'd mother; Calls her great queen of Earth and Air, Declares that winds and seas obey her; And, while her honour he rehearses, Implores her to inspire his verses.

Yet, free from this poetic madness,
Next page he says, in sober sadness,
That she and all her fellow-gods
Sit idling in their high abodes,
Regardless of this world below,
Our health or hanging, weal or woe;
Nor once disturb their heavenly spirits
With Scapin's cheats, or Cæsar's merits.
"Nor e'er can Latin poets prove
Where lies the real seat of Love.
Jecur they burn, and cor they pierce,
As either best supplies their verse;
And, if folks ask the reason for't,
Say, one was long, and t'other short.
Thus, I presume, the British Muse
May take the freedom strangers use.
In prose our property is greater:
Why should it then be less in metre?
If Cupid throws a single dart,

We make him wound the lover's heart:
But, if he takes his bow and quiver;
'Tis sure, he must transfix the liver:
For rhyme with reason may dispense,
And sound has right to govern sense.
"But let your friends in verse suppose,
What ne'er shall be allow'd in prose;
Anatomists can make it clear,
The Liver minds his own affair;
Kindly supplies our public uses,
And parts and strains the vital juices;
Still lays some useful bile aside,
To tinge the chyle's insipid tide:

Else we should want both gibe and satire;
And all be burst with pure good-nature.
Now gall is bitter with a witness,
And love is all delight and sweetness.
My logic then has lost its aim,
If sweet and bitter be the same:
And he, methinks, is no great scholar,
Who can mistake desire for choler.

66

The like may of the heart be said;
Courage and terrour there are bred.
All those, whose hearts are loose and low,
Start, if they hear but the tattoo:
And mighty physical their fear is;
For, soon as noise of combat near is,
Their heart, descending to their breeches,
Must give their stomach cruel twitches.
But heroes, who o'ercome or die,
Have their hearts hung extremely high;
The strings of which, in battles heat,
Against their very corslets beat;

Keep time with their own trumpet's measure,
And yield them most excessive pleasure.
"Now, if 'tis chiefly in the heart

That Courage docs itself exert,
"Twill be prodigious hard to prove
That this is eke the throne of Love.
Would Nature make one place the seat
Of fond desire, and fell debate?
Must people only take delight in

Those hours, when they are tir'd of fighting?
And has no man, but who has kill'd

A father, right to get a child?

These notions then I think but idle;
And Love shall still possess the middle.
"This truth more plainly to discover,
Suppose your hero were a lover.
Though he before had gall and rage,
Which death or conquest must assuage
He grows dispirited and low;

He hates the fight, and shuns the foe.
"In scornful sloth Achilles slept,
And for his wench, like Tall-boy, wept:
Nor would return to war and slaughter,
Till they brought back the parson's daughter,
"Antonius fled from Actium's coast,
Augustus pressing, Asia lost:

His sails by Cupid's hands unfurl'd,
To keep the fair, he gave the world.
Edward our fourth, rever'd and crown'd,
Vigorous in youth, in arms renown'd,
While England's voice, and Warwick's care,
Design'd him Gallia's beauteous heir,
Chang'd peace and power, for rage and wars
Only to dry one widow's tears-

"France's fourth Henry we may see
A servant to the fair d'Estree;
When, quitting Coutras' prosperous field,
And Fortune taught at length to yield,
He from his guards and midnight tent
Disguis'd o'er hills and vallies went,
To wanton with the sprightly dame,
And in his pleasure lost his fame.

"Bold is the critic who dares prove
These heroes were no friends to love;
And bolder he, who dares aver
That they were enemies to war.

Yet, when their thought should, now or never,
Have rais'd their heart, or fir'd their liver,
Fond Alma to those parts was gone,
Which Love more justly calls his own.

"Examples I could cite you more;
But be contented with these four :
For, when one's proofs are aptly chosen,
Four are as valid as four dozen.

One come from Greece, and one from Romes
The other two grew nearer home.
For some in ancient books delight;
Others prefer what moderns write:
Now I should be extremely loth,
Not to be thought expert in both."

CANTO II

"But shall we take the Muse abroad, To drop her idly on the road? And leave our subject in the middle, As Butler did his Bear and Fiddle? Yet he, consummate master, knew When to recede, and where pursue e His noble negligences teach What others toils despair to reach. He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope, And balances your fear and hope: If, after some distinguish'd leap, He drops his pole, and seems to slip, Straight gathering all his active strength, He rises higber half his length. With wonder you approve his slight, And owe your pleasure to your frighte But like poor Andrew I advance, False mimic of my master's dance;

That one, though warm, decides more slow
Than t'other executes the blow.
A stander-by may chance to have it,
Ere Hack himself perceives he gave it.
"The amorous eyes thus always go
A-strolling for their friends below;
For, long before the squire and danie
Have tête à tête reliev'd their flame,
Ere visits yet are brought about,
The eye by sympathy looks out,

Knows Florimel, and longs to meet her,
And, if he sees, is sure to grect her,
Though at sash-window, on the stairs,
At court, nay (authors say) at prayers
"The funeral of some valiant knight
May give this thing its proper light.
View his two gauntlets; these declare
That both his hands were us'd to war.
And from his two gilt spurs 'tis learn'd
His feet were equally concern'd.
But have you not, with thought, beheld
The sword hang dangling o'er the shield?
Which shows the breast, that plate was us'd to,
Had an ally right arm to trust to:
And, by the peep-holes in his crest,
Is it not virtually confest,

That there his eyes took distant aim,
And glanc'd respect to that bright dame,
In whose delight his hope was center'd,
And for whose glove his life he ventur'd?
"Objections to my general system
May rise, perhaps; and I have mist them:
But I can call to my assistance
Proximity (mark that!) and distance;
Can prove, that all things, on occasion,
Love union, and desire adhesion;
That Alma merely is a scale,

And motives, like the weights, prevail..
If neither side turn down nor up,
With loss or gain, with fear or hope,
The balance always would hang even,

Like Mah'met's tomb, 'twixt Farth and Heaven.

"This, Richard, a curious case:
Suppose your eyes sent equal rays
Upon two distant pots of ale,
Not knowing which was mild or stale:
In this sad state your doubtful choice
Would never have the casting voice;
Which best or worst you could not think,
And die you must for want of drink;
Unless some chance inclines your sight,
Setting one pot in fairer light;
Then you prefer or A, or B,

As lines and angles best agree:
Your sense resolv'd impels your will:
She guides your hand-so drink your fill.
"Have you not seen a baker's maid
Between two equal banniers sway'd?
Her tallies useless lie, and idle,
If plac'd exactly in the middle:
But, fore'd from this unactive state
By virtue of some casual weight,
On either side you hear them clatter,
And judge of right and left hand matter.

"Now, Richard, this coercive force,
Without your choice, must take its course;
Great kings to wars are pointed forth,
Like loaded needles to the north.
And thou and I, by power unseen,
Are barely passive, and suck'd-in

To Henault's vaults, or Celia's chamber,

As straw and paper are by amber.
If we sit down to play or set,
(Suppose at ombre or basset)
Let people call us cheats or fools,
Our cards and we are equal tools.
We sure in vain the cards condemn:
Ourselves both cut and shuffled them.
In vain on Fortune's aid rely:
She only is a stander by.

Poor men! poor papers! we and they
Do some impulsive force obey:
And are but play'd with-do not play.
But space and matter we should blame;
They palm'd the trick that lost the game,
Thus, to save further contradiction
Against what you may think but fiction,
I for attraction, Dick, declare:
Deny it those bold men that dare.
As well your motion, as your thought,
Is all by hidden impulse wrought:
Ev'n saying that you think or walk,
How like a country squire you talk!

"Mark then ;-Where fancy, or desire,
Collects the beams of vital fire;
Into that limb fair Alma slides,
And there, pro tempore, resides.
She dwells in Nicolini's tongue,
When Pyrrhus chants the heavenly song,
When Pedro does the lute command,
She guides the cunning artist's hand.
Through Macer's gullet she runs down,
When the vile glutton dines alone.
And, void of modesty and thought,
She follows Bibo's endless draught.
Through the soft sex again she ranges,
As youth, caprice, or fashion, changes.
Fair Alma, careless and serene,
In Fanny's sprightly eyes is seen;
While they diffuse their infant beams,
Themselves not conscious of their flames.
Again fair Alma sits confest

On Florimel's experter breast;
When she the rising sigh constrains,
And, by concealing, speaks her pains.
In Cynthia's neck fair Alma glows,
When the vain thing her jewels shows:
When Jenny's stays are newly lac'd,
Fair Alma plays about her waist;
And when the swelling hoop sustains
The rich brocade, fair Alma deigus
Into that lower space to enter,
Of the large round herself the centre.

62 Again: that single limb or feature,
(Such is the cogent force of Nature)
Which most did Alma's passion move
In the first object of her love,
For ever will be found confest,
And printed on the amorous breast.

"O Abelard! ill-fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth:
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler poet's song.

Dan Pope, for thy misfortune griev'd,
With kind concern and skill has weav'd
A silken web; and ne'er shall fade

Its colours; gently has he laid
The mantle o'er thy sad distress,
And Venus shall the texture bless.