Put me to bed then, wretched Jane:
Alas! when shall I rife again?
I can behold no mortal now:
For what's an eye without a brow?
Na dark corner of the house
Poor Helen fits, and fobs and cries:
She will not fee her loving spouse,
Nor her more dear Picquet-allies:
Unless she finds her eye-brows,
She'll e'en weep out her eyes.
HELEN was juft flipt into bed:
Her eye-brows on the toilet lay:
Away the kitten with them fled,
As fees belonging to her prey.
For this misfortune careless Jane, Affure yourself was loudly rated: And Madam getting up again,
With her own hand the mouse-trap baited.
On little things, as fages write, Depends our human joy, or forrow: If we don't catch a mouse to-night, Alas! no eye-brows for to-morrow.
"OW old may Phyllis be, you ask,
H Whole beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task:
For fhe has really two ages.
Stiff in brocard, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let envy view her face;
And Phyllis is but twenty one.
Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night aftronomers agree,
The evening has the day bely'd;
And Phyllis is fome forty-three.
THAT a frail thing is beauty, fays Baron le Cras,
Perceiving his mistress had one eye of glass:
And scarcely had he spoke it;
When the more confus'd, as more angry she grew,
By a negligent rage prov'd the maxim too true:
She dropt the eye, and broke it.
She was painting her cheeks at the time her nose fell.
Written to the Duke de Noailles.
AIN the concern which you express,
That uncall'd Alard will poffefs
Your house and coach, both day and night,
And that Mackbeth was haunted lefs
By Banquo's restless spright.
With fifteen thousand pound a year,
Do you complain, you cannot bear
An ill, you may foon retrieve?
Good Alard, faith, is modefter
By much, than you u believe.
Lend him but fifty Louis' d'or;
And you shall never see him more:
Take the advice; probatum eft.
Why do the gods indulge our fore,
But to fecure our reft?
Spoken by Mrs. OLDFIELD, who acted I S M EN A.
LADIES, to-night your pity I implore
For one, who never troubled you before:
An Oxford man, extremely read in Greek
Who from Euripides makes Phaedra speak;
And comes to town, to let us moderns know,
How women lov'd two thousand years ago.
If that be all, said I, e'en burn your play:
I'gad! we know all that, as well as they :
Show us the youthful, handsome charioteer,
Firm in his seat, and running his career;
Our fouls would kindle with as gen'rous flames,
As e'er infpir'd the antient Grecian dames:
Ev'ry Ifmena would refign her breast;
And ev'ry dear Hippolytus be bleft.
But, as it is, fix flouncing Flanders mares
Are e'en as good, as any two of theirs :
And if Hippolytus can but contrive
To buy the gilded chariot; John can drive.
Now of the bustle you have feen to-day,
And Phaedra's morals in this scholar's play,
Something at least in justice should be faid:
But this Hippolytus fo fills one's head-
Well! Phaedra liv'd as chaftly as she cou❜d;
For fhe was father Jove's own flesh and blood.
Her aukward love indeed was odly fated:
She and her Poly were too near related:
And yet that fcruple had been laid afide,
If honeft Thefeus had but fairly dy'd:
But when he came, what needed he to know,
But that all matters stood in ftatu quo?
There was no harm, you see, or grant there were:
She might want conduct; but he wanted care,
'Twas in a husband little less than rude,
Upon his wife's retirement to intrude-
He should have sent a night or two before,
That he would come exact at fuch an hour:
Then he had turn'd all tragedy to jeft;
Found ev'ry thing contribute to his reft;
The picquet friend dismiss'd, the coast all clear,
And spouse alone impatient for her dear.
But if these gay reflections come too late,
To keep the guilty Phaedra from her fate;
If your more serious judgment must condemn
The dire effects of her unhappy flame:
Yet, ye chafte matrons, and ye tender fair,
Let love and innocence engage your care: .
My spotless flames to your protection take;
And spare poor Phaedra for Ifmena's fake.
HE female author who recites to-day,
Trufts to her sex the merit of her play.
Like father Bayes fecurely fhe fits down:
Pit, box and gallery, Gad! all's our own.
In antient Greece, she says, when Sappho writ,
By their applause the critics show'd their wit,
They tun'd their voices to her Lyric string;
Tho' they cou'd all do something more than fing.
But one exception to this fact we find;
That booby Phaon only was unkind,
An ill-bred boat-man, rough as waves and wind.
From Sappho down thro' all fucceeding ages,
And now on French, or on Italian stages,
Rough satyrs, sly remarks, ill natur'd speeches,
Are always aim'd at poets that wear breeches.
Arm'd with Longinus, or with Rapin, no man.
Drew a sharp pen upon a naked woman.
|