Beauties and bards have equal pride,
With both all rivals are decried.
Who praises Lesbia's eyes and feature,
Must call her sister "awkward creature;"
For the kind flattery's sure to charm,
When we some other nymph disarm.1
As in the cool of early day

A Poet sought the sweets of May,
The garden's fragrant breath ascends,
And every stalk with odour bends.
A Rose he pluck'd; he gazed, admired,
Thus singing, as the Muse inspired :-
"Go, Rose, my Chloe's bosom grace;
How happy should I prove,
Might I supply that envied place
With never-fading love!

There, Phoenix-like, beneath her eye,

Involved in fragrance, burn and die.

66

'Know, hapless flower! that thou shalt find

More fragrant Roses there:

I see thy withering head reclined
With envy and despair!

One common fate we both must prove;
You die with envy, I with love."

"Spare your comparisons," replied
An angry Rose, who grew beside;
"Of all mankind you should not flout us;
What can a Poet do without us!

(1) "For malice will with joy, the lie receive,
Report, and what it wishes true, believe."

Vide Yalden's Ovid's Art of Love.

In every love-song Roses bloom,
We lend you colour and perfume.
Does it to Chloe's charms conduce,
To found her praise on our abuse?
Must we, to flatter her, be made

To wither, envy, pine, and fade?" 1

(1) The rose remarks justly, upon the poet's need of flowers for apostrophe to his "ladye love," for indeed all the blossoms of creation,-above, the stars, and below, the flowers,-have been ransacked to furnish images of compliment, by every poetaster that ever penned a sonnet "to his mistress' eyebrow." Hence "to speak ill of the bridge which carries one over" is sheer ingratitude, yet how often do we sacrifice a friend, to court the pleasure of a mere acquaintance, and willingly deteriorate the service of one who had no more to give, in order to obtain the good offices of him, whose only superiority is in the power, and not the will, to serve us! It is seldom, but that the most independent characters leave some stain upon the steps by which they climb to fame. The Ethics of Aristotle, b. iv. c. 4, should be studied in relation to this fable, as he therein draws, with his usual accuracy, this distinction, amongst others, between the magnanimous and the little-minded man, viz. that the first is not fond of talking of people,-cares more for truth than opinion,-and does not care that he himself should be praised, nor that others should be blamed. Hence, I am sorry to say, you do not often find magnanimity amongst women, whose friendship is easier got by maligning a rival, than by impartial vindication of truth.

THE lad of all-sufficient merit,

With modesty ne'er damps his spirit;1

(1) Which, strange to say, is in one sense, good policy; for never was there a high-mettled steed yet, who won the race, and would have done so, had he started, already beaten in his own estimation. A proper self-estimate is the sure stimulus to successful exertion; the abuse of it, as exhibited here, is to be repudiated. Many clap-trap sentiments have obtained currency, from the inattention to the marks by which right is separated from wrong; but one thing is certain, that if clever men had not known their own value in some degree, they would not have troubled the world with their lucubrations, and art, science, and industry, had perished together.

Presuming on his own deserts,
On all alike his tongue exerts:
His noisy jokes at random throws,
And pertly spatters friends and foes.
In wit and war the bully race
Contribute to their own disgrace:
Too late the forward youth shall find
That jokes are sometimes paid in kind;
Or if they canker in the breast,
He makes a foe, who makes a jest.
A village Cur, of snappish race,
The pertest puppy of the place,
Imagined that his treble throat
Was blest with Music's sweetest note;
In the mid road he basking lay,
The yelping nuisance of the way;
For not a creature pass'd along
But had a sample of his song.
Soon as the trotting Steed he hears,
He starts, he cocks his dapper ears;
Away he scours, assaults his hoof;
Now near him snarls, now barks aloof;
With shrill impertinence attends,
Nor leaves him till the village ends.
It chanced, upon his evil day,
A Pad came pacing down the way;
The Cur, with never-ceasing tongue,
Upon the passing traveller sprung.
The Horse, from scorn provoked to ire,
Flung backward; rolling in the mire,
The Puppy howl'd, and bleeding lay;
The Pad in peace pursued his way.

A Shepherd's Dog, who saw the deed,
Detesting the vexatious breed,

Bespoke him thus: "When coxcombs prate,
They kindle wrath, contempt, or hate;
Thy teazing tongue had judgment tied,
Thou hadst not like a puppy died."1

(1) The malice which often disgraces irony, is never better detected and chastised, than by a blow from the same weapon, and this remark applies to many talented but ill-bred men, who reckless where they plant the thorn, whilst they pursue for themselves the garland, sometimes by an unlucky" contretemps," exchange the two, to their own cost. Thus a jest is frequently paid in kind, as in the case of the poet, Madera, who having 'calumniated a noble lady, called Fontana, was called to account for his impropriety, by Pope Sextus V. He declared he had no reason for the slander, but that 'Putana' rhymed to 'Fontana,' upon which the witty Pontiff, in the same humour, condemned him to the galleys, "merely," said he," because Galera,' is a good rhyme to 'Madera.'" Upon another occasion, a young man having picked his friend's pocket in joke, in order to witness his distress when requiring his money, found the tables most unpleasantly turned upon himself, for on putting his hand into his own pocket, to refund the money, he discovered that a real thief had walked off with it, in no joke, and left him to pay the cost in sad earnest. So true is it, that those who "come to shear, often go back shorn."