A RECEIPT FOR VAPOURS. "WHY pines my dear?" To Fulvia his young bride, Who weeping sat, thus aged Cornus cry'd. "Alas!" said she, "such visions break my rest, The strangest thoughts! I think I am possest: My symptoms I have told to men of skill, And if I would-they say-I might be well." "Take their advice," said he, " my poor dear I'll buy at any rate thy precious life." Blushing, she would excuse, but all in vain, A doctor must be fetch'd to ease her pain. Hard press'd, she yields: from White's, or Will's,

or Tom's,

[wife,

No matter which, he 's summon'd, and he comes.
The careful husband, with a kind embrace
Entreats his care: then bows, and quits the place:
For little ailments oft attend the fair,
Not decent for a husband's eye, or ear.
Something the dame would say: the ready knight
Prevents her speech-" Here's that shall set you
right,

Madam," said he—with that, the doors made close,
He gives deliciously the healing dose.
"Alas!" she cries: "ah me! O cruel cure!
Did ever woman yet like me endure?"
The work perform'd, up rising gay and light,
Old Cornus is call'd in to see the sight;
A sprightly red vermillion 's all her face,
And her eyes languish with unusual grace:
With tears of joy fresh gushing from his eyes,
"O wond'rous power of art!" old Cornus cries;
"Amazing change! astonishing success!
Thrice happy I! What a brave Doctor 's this!
Maids, wives, and widows, with such whims opprest,
May thus find certain ease.-Probatum est."

ON AN ILL-FAVOURED Lord. THAT Macro's looks are good, let no man doubt, Whick I, his friend and servant-thus make out. In every line of his perfidious face, The secret malice of his heart we trace; So fair the warning, and so plainly writ, Let none condemn the light that shows a pit. Cocles, whose face finds credit for his heart, Who can escape so smooth a villain's art? Adorn'd with every grace that can persuade, Seeing we trust, though sure to be betray`d; His looks are snares: but Macro's cry Beware, Believe not, though ten thousand oaths he swear;" If thou'rt deceiv'd, observing well this rule, Not Macro is the knave, but thou the fool. In this one point, he and his looks agree, As they betray their master-so did he.

66

ON THE SAME.

Of injur'd fame, and mighty wrongs receiv'd,
Cloe complains, and wond'rously 's aggriev'd:
That free, and lavish of a beauteous face,
The fairest, and the foulest of her race,
She's mine, or thine, and, strolling up and down,
Sucks in more filth, than any sink in town,
I not deny: This I have said, 'tis true;
What wrong! to give so bright a nymph her due.

CORINNA.

So well Corinna likes the joy,

She vows she'll never more be coy,
She drinks eternal draughts of pleasure;
Eternal draughts do not suffice,

"O! give me, give me more," she cries, ""Tis all too little, little measure."

Thus wisely she makes up for time
Mispent, while youth was in its prime :
So travellers, who waste the day,
Careful and cautious of their way,
Noting at length the setting Sun,
They mend their pace as night comes on,
Double their speed to reach their inn,
And whip and spur through thick and thin.

CLOE PERFUMING HERSELF.

BELIEVE me, Cloe, those perfumes that cost
Such sums to sweeten thee, is treasure lost;
Not all Arabia would sufficient be,

Thou smell'st not of thy sweets, they stink of thee.

BELINDA.

BELINDA'S pride 's an arrant cheat
A foolish artifice to blind;
Some honest glance, that scorns deceit,
Does still reveal her native mind.

With look demure, and forc'd disdain,

She idly acts the saint;

We see through this disguise as plain,
As we distinguish paint.

So have I seen grave fools design,
With formal looks to pass for wise;
But Nature is a light will shine,
And break through all disguise.

IMPROMPTU,

WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF THE COUNTESS OF
SANDWICH, DRAWN IN MAN'S HABIT.

WHEN Sandwich in her sex's garb we see,
The queen of beauty then she seems to be;
Now fair Adonis in this male disguise,
Or little Cupid with his mother's eyes.
No style of empire chang'd by this remove,
Who seem'd the goddess, seems the god of love.

TO MY FRIEND

MR. JOHN DRYDEN,

ON HIS SEVERAL EXCELLENT TRANSLATIONS OF THE
ANCIENT POETS.

As flowers, transplanted from a southern sky,
But hardly bear, or in the raising die,
Missing their native sun, at best retain
But a faint odour, and survive with pain:
Thus ancient wit, in modern numbers taught,
Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,
Is a dead image, and a senseless draught.
While we transfuse, the nimble spirit flies,
Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.
Who then to copy Roman wit desire,
Must imitate with Roman force and fire,
In elegance of style, and phrase the same,
And in the sparkling genius, and the flame;
Whence we conclude from thy translated song,
So just, so smooth, so soft, and yet so strong;
Celestial poet! soul of harmony!
That every genius was reviv'd in thee.

Thy trumpet sounds, the dead are rais'd to light,
Never to die, and take to Heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays they shine,
All glorify d, immortal, and divine.

As Britain in rich soil, abounding wide, Furnish'd for use, for luxury, and pride, Yet spreads her wanton sails on every shore For foreign wealth, insatiate still of more, To her own wool the silks of Asia joins, And to her plenteous barvests, Indian mines: So Dryden, not contented with the fame Of his own works, though an imunortal name, To lands remote, sends forth his learned Muse, The noblest seeds of foreign wit to choose; Feasting our sense so many various ways, Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise? That by comparing others, all might see, Who most excell'd, are yet excell'd by thee.

Goddess awake, thy beams display,

Restore the universe to light,

When Hamilton appears, then dawns the day;
And when she disappears, begins the night.

Lovers, who watchful vigils keep,
(For lovers never, never sleep)
Wait for the rising of the fair,
To offer songs and hymns of prayer;
Like Persians to the Sun,

Even life, and death, and fate are there:
For in the rolls of ancient destiny,

Th' inevitable book, 'twas noted down, The dying should revive, the living die, As Hamilton shall smile, as Hamilton shall frown !

CHORU S.

Awake bright Hamilton, arise,

Goddess of love, and of the day,
Awake, disclose thy radiant eyes,

And shew the Sun a brighter ray. Phoebus in vain calls forth the blushing morn, He but creates the day, which you adorn.

DRINKING SONG TO SLEEP. GREAT god of sleep, since it must be, That we must give some hours to thee, Invade me not while the free bowl Glows in my cheeks, and warms my soul; That be my only time to snore, When I can laugh, and drink no more; Short, very short be then thy reign, For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again.

But O! if, melting in my arms,

In some soft dream, with all her charms,
The nymph belov'd should then surprise,
And grant what waking she denies;
Then, gentle Slumber, pr'ythee stay,
Slowly, ah! slowly bring the day,
Let no rude noise my bliss destroy,
Such sweet delusion 's real joy.

UNDER THE

LADY MARY VILLIER'S NAME IF I not love you, Villiers, more Than ever mortal lov'd before, With such a passion fixt and sure, As even possession could not cure, Never to cease but with my breath; May then this bumper be my death.

The god of love, the god of wine defies,
Behold him in full march, in Laura's eyes!
Bacchus to arms! and to resist the dart,
Each with a faithful brimmer guard his heart.
Fly, Bacchus, fly, there's treason in the cup,
For Love comes pouring in with every drop;
I feel him in my heart, my blood, my brain,
Fly, Bacchus, fly, resistance is in vain,
Or craving quarter, crown a friendly bowl
To Laura's health, and give up all thy soul.

EXPLICATION IN FRENCH.

CUPIDON DESARMÉ.

FARLE POUR MADAME LA PRINCESSE D'AUVERGNE.

CUPIDON, prenant plasir de se trouver toûjours nupres d'elle; charmé de la voir, charmé de Fentendre; comme il admiroit un jour ses graces inimitables, dans cette distraction de son ame & de ses sens, il laissa tomber ce dard fatal qui ne manque jamis de percer les cœurs. Elle le ramasse soudain, & s'apnant la belle main,

"C'est ainsi," dit elle, "que je me rend maitresse de l'Amour, tremblez, enfant malin, je veux vanger tous les maux que tu as fait."

Le dieu etonné, revenant de sa surprize, se fiant a ses ailes, s'echappe, & s'envole vite comme une fleche qui fond Fair, & lui laisse la possession de toute son artillerie.

Princesse, rendez lui ses armes qui vous sont

inutiles:

La Nature vous a donnee des charmes plus puissants: Les captives de l'Amour sonvent recouvrent la liberté; Il n'y a que la Mort scule qui puisse affranchir les

votres.

THYRSIS AND DELIA.

SONG IN DIALOGUE.

THYRSIS.

DELIA, how long must I despair,

And tax you with disdain; Still to my tender love severe, Untouch'd when I complain?

DELIA.

When men of equal merit love us,
And do with equal ardour sue,
Thyrsis, you know but one must move us,
Can I be your's and Strephon's too?
My eyes view both with mighty pleasure,
Impartial to your high desert,

To both alike, esteem I measure,
To one alone can give my heart.

THYRSIS.

Mysterious guide of inclination, Tell me, tyrant, why am I With equal merit, equal passion, Thus the victim chosen to die?

Why am I

The victim chosen to die?

DELIAZ

On Fate alone depends success,

Or why should Virtue ever miss
And Fancy, Reason over-rules,

Reward, so often given to fools?
'Tis not the valiant, nor the witty,
But who alone is born to please;
Love does predestinate our pity,
We choose but whom he first decrees.

A LATIN INSCRIPTION

ON A MEDAL FOR LEWIS XIV. of France.

PROXIMUS & similis regnas, Ludovice, tonanti, Magnus es expansis alis, sed maximus armis, Vim summam, summa cum pietate, geris, Quin coeant toto Titania foedera Rheno, Protegis hinc Anglos, Teutones inde feris. Illa aquilam tantùm, Gallia fulmen habet.

BACCHUS DISARMED.

TO MRS. LAURA DILLON, NOW LADY FALKLAND, BACCHUS to arms! the enemy's at hand, Jaura appears; stand to your glasses, stand,

ENGLISHED, AND APPLIED TO
QUEEN ANNE.

NEXT to the Thunderer let Anna stand,
In piety supreme, as in command;

Fam'd for victorious arms and generous aid,
Young Austria's refuge, and fierce Bourbon's dread.
Titanian leagues in vain shall brave the Rhine,
When to the eagle, you the thunder join.

URGANDA'S PROPHECY.

SPOKEN BY WAY OF EPILOGUE AT, THE
FIRST REPRESENTATION OF

THE BRITISH ENCHANTERS.

PROPHETIC fury rolls within my breast,
And as at Delphos, when the foaming priest
Full of his god, proclaims the distant doom
Of kings unborn, and nations yet to come;
My labouring mind so struggles to unfold
On British ground a future age of gold;
But lest incredulous you hear-behold:

No such convulsive pangs it will require,
To write the pretty things which you admire.
Our author then, to please you, in your way,
Presents you now a bauble of a play;
In jingling rhyme, well fortify'd and strong,
He fights entrench'd o'er head and ears in song.
If here and there some evil-fated line,
Should chance through inadvertency to shine,
Forgive him, beaux, he means you no offence,
But begs you for the love of song and dance,
To pardon all the poetry and sense.

ANOTHER

EPILOGUE,

DESIGNED FOR THE SAME.

WIT once, like Beauty, without art or dress,

triumphs of her majesty's reign.

High on a throne appears the martial queen,
With grace sublime, and with imperial mien;
Surveying round her, with impartial eyes,
Whom to protect, or whom she shall chastise.
Next to her side, victorious Marlbro' stands,
Waiting, observant of her dread commands;
The queen ordains, and, like Alcides, he
Obeys, and executes her high decree.
In every line of her auspicious face
Soft Mercy smiles, adorn'd with every grace;
So angels look, and so when Heaven decrees,
They scourge the world to piety and peace.
Frpress and conqu'ror, hail! thee Fates ordain
O'er all the willing world sole arbitress to reign;
To no one people are thy laws confin'd,
Great Britain's queen, but guardian of mankind;
Sure hope of all who dire oppression bear,
For all th' oppress'd become thy instant care.
Nations of conquest proud, thou tam'st to free,
Denouncing war, presenting liberty;
The victor to the vanquish'd yields a prize,
For in thy triumph their redemption lies;
Freedom and peace, for ravish'd fame you give,
Invade to bless, and conquer to relieve.
So the Sun scorches, and revives by turns,
Requiting with rich metals where he burns.

Taught by this great example to be just,
Succeeding kings shall well fulfil their trust;
Discord, and war, and tyranny shall cease,
And jarring nations be compell'd to peace;
Princes and states, like subjects shall agree
To trust her power, safe in her piety.

PROLOGUE

ΤΟ

THE BRITISH ENCHANTERS.

POETS by observation find it true,

'Tis harder much to please themselves than you;
To weave a plot, to work and to refine
A labour'd scene; to polish every line
Judgment must sweat, and feel a mother's pains:
Vain fools! thus to disturb and rack their brains,
When more indulgent to the writer's ease,
You are too good to be so hard to please;

Till by fruition, novelty destroy'd,

The nymph must find new charms to be enjoyed.
As by his equipage the man you prize,
And ladies must have gems beside their eyes:
So fares it too with plays; in vain we write,
Unless the music and the dance invite,
Scarce Hamlet clears the charges of the night.
Would you but fix some standard how to move,
We would transform to any thing you love;
Judge our desire by our cost and pains,
Sure the expense, uncertain are the gains.
But though we fetch from Italy and France
Our fopperies of tune, and mode of dance,
Our sturdy Britons scorn to borrow sense:
Howe'er to foreign fashions we submit,
Still every fop prefers his mother wit.
In only wit this constancy is shown,
For never was that arrant changeling known,
Who for another's sense would quit his own.

Our author would excuse these youthful scenes,
Begotten at his entrance in his teens :
Some childish fancies may approve the toy,
Some like the Muse the more for being a boy;
And ladies should be pleas'd, if not content,
To find so young a thing, not wholly impotent.
Our stage-reformers too he would disarm,
In charity so cold, in zeal so warm;
And therefore to atone for stage abuses,
And gain the church-indulgence for the Muses,
He gives his thirds-to charitable uses.

PROLOGUE

TO MR. BEVIL HIGGON'S EXCELLENT TRAGEDY,

CALLED

THE GENEROUS CONQUEROR.

YOUR Comic writer is a common foe,
None can intrigue in peace, or be a beau,
Nor wanton wife, nor widow can be sped,
Not even Russel can inter the dead,
But straight this censor, in his whim of wit,
Strips, and presents you naked to the pit.

1 Russel, a famous undertaker for funerals; alluding to a comedy written by sir Richard Steele, entitled The Funeral.

Thus critics should, like these, be branded foes,
Who for the poison only suck the rose;
Snarling and carping, without wit or sense,
Impeach mistakes, o'erlooking excellence;
As if to every fop it might belong,
Like senators to censure, right or wrong.

But generous minds have more heroic views, And love and honour are the themes they choose.

From yon bright Heaven our author fetch'd his And paints the passions that your eyes inspire: [tire,

Full of that flame, his tender scenes he warns, And frames his goddess by your matchless charms.

EPILOGUE

ΤΟ

THE JEW OF VENICE.

EACH in his turn, the poet 2, and the priest 3,
Have view'd the stage, but like false prophets
The man of zeal, in his religious rage, [guess'd.
Would silence poets, and reduce the stage;
The poet, rashly to get clear, retorts
On kings the scandal, and bespatters courts.
Both err: for, without mincing, to be plain,
The guilt's your own of every odious scene:
The present time still gives the stage its mede,
The vices that you practise, we explode;
We hold the glass, and but reflect your shame,
Like Spartans, by exposing, to reclaim.
The scribler, pinch'd with hunger, writes to dine,
And to your genius must conform his line;
Not lewd by choice, but merely to submit:
Would you encourage sense, sense would be writ.
Good plays we try, which, after the first day,
Unseen we act, and to bare benches play;
Plain sense, which pleas'd your sires an age ago,
Is lost, without the garniture of show:
At vast expense we labour to our ruin,

And court your favour with our own undoing;
A war of profit mitigates the evil,

But to be tax'd and beaten-is the devil.
How was the scene forlorn, and how despis'd,
When Timon, without music, moraliz'd?
Shakespeare's sublime in vain entic'd the throng,
Without the aid of Purcel's syren song.

In the same antique loom these scenes were wrought,

Embellish'd with good morals, and just thought;
True Nature in her noblest light you see,
Fre yet debauch'd, by modern gallantry,
To trifling jests, and fulsome ribaldry.

What rust remains upon the shining mass,
Antiquity must privilege to pass.

PROLOGUE

ΤΟ

THE SHE-GALLANTS;

OR

ONCE A LOVER AND ALWAYS a lover.

As quiet monarchs that on peaceful thrones
In sports and revels long had reign'd like drones,
Rouzing at length, reflect with guilt and shame,
That not one stroke had yet been given for fame;
Wars they denounce, and to redeem the past,
To bold attempts, and rugged labours haste:
Our poet so, with like concern reviews
The youthful follies of a love-sick Muse;
To amourous toils, and to the silent grove,
To Beauty's snares, and to deceitful Love
He bids farewel; his shield and lance prepares,
And mounts the stage, to bid immortal wars.

Has seiz'd the town, and varies still her shape:
Vice, like some monster, suff'ring none t'escape,
Here, like some general, she struts in state,
While crouds in red and blue her orders wait;
There, like some pensive statesman treads demure,
And smiles and hugs, to make destruction sure:
Now under high commodes, with looks erect,
Barefae'd devours, in gaudy colours deck'd;
Then in a vizard, to avoid grimace,
Allows all freedom, but to see the face.
In pulpits and at bar she wears a gown,
In camps a sword, in palaces a crown.
Resolv'd to combat with this motley beast
Our poet comes to strike one stroke at least.

His glass he means not for this jilt or beau,
Some features of you all he means to show,
On chosen heads, nor lets the thunder fall,
But scatters his artillery-at all.

Yet to the fair he fain would quarter show,
His tender heart recoils at every blow;
If unawares he gives too smart a stroke,
He means but to correct, and not provoke.

carry,

Let Gormon take the stage-or Lady Mary 5,

1 To the Ladies.

* Mr. Dryden's Prologue to the Pilgrim.

3 Mr. Collier's View of the Stage.

A famous prize-fighter.

A famous rope-dancer so called.

Each age, industrious to invent new crimes,
Strives to outdo in guilt preceding times;
But now we're so improv'd in all that's bad,
We shall leave nothing for our sons to add.

That idol, Gold, possesses every heart,
To cheat, defraud, and undermine, is art;
Virtue is folly; conscience is a jest ;
Religion gain, or priestcraft at the best.

Friendship's a cloak to hide some treacherous end, Your greatest foe, is your professing friend;