Thus fighing, cooing, ease my pain,
But never wish, nor love, again :
Diftrefs'd for ever, let me moan
"My dear Columbo, dead and gone."
S. Our winged friends through all the grove Contemn thy mad excefs of love:
I tell thee, Dame, the other day
I met a Parrot and a Jay,
Who mock'd thee in their mimic tone,
And "wept Columbo, dead and gone."
T. Whate'er the Jay or Parrot faid,
My hopes are loft, my joys are fled;
And I for ever muft deplore
"Columbo dead and gone.".
For fhame! forfake this Bion-stile,
We'll talk an hour, and walk a mile.
Does it with fense or health agree,
To fit thus moping on a tree?
To throw away a widow's life,
When you again may be a wife?
Come on! I'll tell you my amours;
Who knows but they may influence yours;
"Example draws where Precept fails,
"And Sermons are lefs read than Tales."
T. Sparrow, I take thee for my friend,
As fuch will hear thee: I defcend;
Hop on, and talk; but, honest bird,
Take care that no immodeft word
May venture to offend my ear.
S. Too faint-like Turtle, never fear :
By method things are best discours'd,
Begin we then with Wife the first :
A handfome, fenfelefs, awkward fool,
Who would not yield, and could not rule :
Her actions did her charms disgrace,
And ftill her tongue talk'd of her face :
Count me the leaves on yonder tree,
So many different wills had the,
And, like the leaves, as chance inclin'd,
Those wills were chang'd with every
She courted the beau-monde to-night,
L'affemblée, her fupreme delight;
The next fhe fat immur'd, unfeen,
And in full health enjoy'd the spleen;
She cenfur'd that, fhe alter'd this,
And with great care fet all amifs
She now could chide, now laugh, now cry,
Now fing, now pout, all God knows why :
Short was her reign, fhe cough'd, and dy’d.
Proceed we to my fecond bride;
Well-born fhe was, genteelly bred,
And buxom both at board and bed
Glad to oblige, and pleas'd to please,
And, as Tom Southern wifely fays,
"No other fault had the in life,
But only that he was my wife *."
O widow Turtle! every fhe
(So Nature's pleasure does decree)
*See "The Wife's Excufe, a comedy."
Appears a goddess till enjoy'd;
But Birds, and Men, and Gods, are cloy'd.
Was Hercules one Woman's Man?
Or Jove for ever Leda's Swan ?
Ah! madam, cease to be mistaken,
Few marry'd fowl peck Dunmow-bacon.
Variety alone gives joy,
The sweetest meats the fooneft cloy.
What Sparrow-dame, what Dove alive,
Though Venus fhould the chariot drive,
But would accufe the harness weight,
If always coupled to one mate ;
And often with the fetter broke?
'Tis freedom but to change the yoke.
T. Impious! to wish to wed again,
Ere death diffolv'd the former chain !
S. Spare your remark, and hear the reft; She brought me fons; but (Jove be bleft!) She dy'd in child-bed on the nest.
Well, reft her bones! quoth I, the 's gone; 245
But must I therefore lie alone?
What! am I to her memory ty❜d?
Must I not live, because she dy❜d?
And thus I logically faid
('Tis good to have a reasoning head!)
Is this my Wife? Probatur, not;
For death diffolv'd the marriage-knot:
She was, concedo, during life;
But, is a piece of clay a Wife ?
Again; if not, a Wife, d'ye fee,
Why then no kin at all to me :
And he, who general tears can fhed
For folks that happen to be dead,
May e'en with equal juftice mourn
For those who never yet were born.
T. Those points indeed you quaintly prove :
But Logick is no friend to Love.
S. My children then were juft pen-feather'd:
Some little corn for them I gather'd,
And fent them to my fpoufe's mother;
So left that brood, to get another :
And, as old Harry whilom faid,
Reflecting on Anne Boleyn dead,
Cockbones! I now again do stand
The jollyeft bachelor i' th' land.
T. Ah me! my joys, my hopes, are fled; My fift, my only Love, is dead:
O' th' elder house of Chirping End,
From whence the younger branch defcend.
Well feated in a field of pease
She liv'd, extremely at her ease:
But, when the honey-moon was past,
The following nights were foon o'ercast;
She kept her own, could plead the law,
And quarrel for a barley-straw :
Both, you may judge, became less kind,
As more we knew each other's mind:
She foon grew fullen; I, hard-hearted;
We fcolded, hated, fought, and parted.
To London, bleffed town! I went;
She boarded at a farm in Kent.
A Magpye from the country fled,
And kindly told me she was dead :
I prun'd my feathers, cock'd my tail,
And fet my heart again to fale.
My fourth, a mere coquette, or such
I thought her; nor avails it much,
If true or false; our troubles fpring
More from the fancy than the thing.
Two ftaring horns, I often faid,
But ill become a Sparrow's head;
But then, to let that balance even,
Your cuckold Sparrow goes to Heaven.
The thing you fear, fuppofe it done,
If you enquire, you make it known.
Whilst at the root your horns are fore,
The more you scratch, they ache the more.
But turn the tables, and refle&,
|