Your reverence thus, with like success, (Nor is your skill or labour less)

When bent upon some smart lampoon,
Will toss and turn your brain till noon;
Which, in its jumblings round the skull,
Dilates and makes the vessel full:
While nothing comes but froth at first,
You think your giddy head will burst;
But, squeezing out four lines in rhyme,
Are largely paid for all your time.

But you have rais'd your generous mind To works of more exalted kind.

Palladio was not half so skill'd in
The grandeur or the art of building.
Two temples of magnific size
Attract the curious traveller's eyes,
That might be envy'd by the Greeks;
Rais'd up by you in twenty weeks:
Here gentle goddess Cloacine
Receives all offering at her shrine.

In separate cells, the hes and shes,
Here pay their vows with bended knees;
For 'tis profane when sexes mingle,
And every nymph must enter single;
And when she feels an inward motion,
Come fill'd with reverence and devotion.
The bashful maid, to hide her blush,
Shall creep no more behind a bush;
Here unobserv'd she boldly goes,
As who should say, to pluck a rose.

Ye, who frequent this hallow'd scene,

Be not ungrateful to the Dean;
But duly, ere you leave your station,
Offer to him a pure libation,

Or of his own or Smedley's lay,
Or billet-doux, or lock of hay:
And, O may all who hither come,
Return with unpolluted thumb !

Yet, when your lofty domes I praise,
I sigh to think of ancient days.
Permit me then to raise my style,
And sweetly moralize a while.

Thee, bounteous goddess Cloacinę,
To temples why do we confine?
Forbid in open air to breathe,
Why are thine altars fix'd beneath?
When Saturn rul'd the skies alone,
(That golden age to gold unknown)
This earthly globe, to thee assign'd,
Receiv'd the gifts of all mankind.
Ten thousand altars smoking round
Were built to thee with offerings crown'd:
And here thy daily votaries plac'd
Their sacrifice with zeal and haste :

The margin of a purling stream

Sent up to thee a grateful steam;

Though sometimes thou wert please to wink,
If Naiad's swept them from the brink:
Or where appointing lovers rove,
The shelter of a shady grove;
Or offer'd in some flowery vale,
Were, wafted by a gentle gale,
There many a flower abstersive grew,
Thy favourite flowers of yellow hue;
The crocus and the daffodil,

The cowslip soft, and sweet jonquil.

But when at last usurping Jove Old Saturn from his empire drove;

Then gluttony, with greasy paws, Her napkin piun'd up to her jaws, With watery chaps, and wagging chin, Brac'd like a drum her oily skin; Wedg'd in a spacious elbow chair, And on her plate a treble share, As if she ne'er could have enough, Taught harmless man to cram and stuff. She sent her priests in wooden shoes From haughty Gaul to make ragouts; Instead of wholesome bread and cheese, To dress their soups and fricassees; And, for our homebred British cheer, Botargo, catsap, and caviare.

This bloated harpy, sprung from Hell, Confin'd thee, goddess, to a cell:

Sprung from her womb that impious line,
Contemners of thy rites divine.

First, lolling Sloth in woollen cap
Taking her after-dinner nap:
Pale Dropsy with a sallow face,
Her belly burst, and slow her pace:
And lordly Gout, wrapt up in fur:
And wheezing Asthma, loath to stir :
Voluptuous Ease, the child of wealth,
Infecting thus our hearts by stealth.
None seek thee now in open air,
To thee no verdant altars rear;
But, in their cells and vaults obscene

Present a sacrifice unclean;

1

From whence unsavoury vapours rose,
Offensive to thy nicer nose.

Ah! who, in our degenerate days,

As nature prompts, his offering pays?

Here nature never difference made
Between the sceptre and the spade.

Ye great ones, why will ye disdain To pay your tribute on the plain? Why will you place in lazy pride Your altars near your couches side; When from the homeliest earthen ware Are sent up offerings more sincere, Than where the haughty duchess locks Her silver vase in cedar box?

Yet some devotion still remains Among our harmless northern swains, Whose offerings, plac'd in golden ranks, Adorn our crystal rivers' banks; Nor seldom grace the flowery downs, With spiral tops and copple crowns; Or gilding in a sunny morn The humble branches of a thorn. So, poets sing, with golden bough The Trojan hero paid his vow. Hither, by luckless error led, The crude consistence oft I tread : Here, when my shoes are out of case, Unweeting gild the tarnish'd lace; Here, by the sacred bramble ting'd, My petticoat is doubly fring'd.

Be witness for me, nymph divine, I never robb'd thee with design: Nor will the zealous Hannah pout To wash thy injur'd offering out.

But stop, ambitious Muse, in time, Nor dwell on subjects too sublime. In vain on lofty heels I tread, Aspiring to exalt my head:

With hoop expanded wide and light,
In vain I 'tempt too high a flight.

Me Phoebus in a midnight dream
Accosting said, "Go shake your cream.*
Be humbly minded, know your post;
Sweeten your tea, and watch your toast.
Thee best befits a lowly style:
Teach Dennis how to stir the guile :†
With Peggy Dixon‡ thoughtful sit,
Contriving for the pot and spit.

Take down thy proudly swelling sails,
And rub thy teeth, and pare thy nails;
At nicely carving show thy wit;
But ne'er presume to eat a bit :
Turn every way thy watchful eye,
And every guest be sure to ply:
Let never at your board be known
An empty plate, except your own.
Be these thy arts; nor higher aim
Than what befits a rural dame.
"But Cloacina, goddess bright,
Sleek

claims her as his right:

And Smedley, flower of all divines,
Shall sing the Dean in Smedley's lines.

1.

TWELVE ARTICLES.

LEST it may more quarrels breed,

I will never hear you read.

In the bottle, to make butter. F.

The quantity of ale or beer brewed at one time. F.
Mrs. Dixon, the housekeeper. F.