Hence, long before the child can crawl,
He learns to kick, and wince, and sprawl:
To hinder which, your midwife knows
To bind those parts extremely close;
Lest Alma, newly enter'd in,

And stunn'd at her own christening's din,
Fearful of future grief and pain,
Should silently sneak out again.
Full piteous seems young Alma's case;
As in a luckless gamester's place,
She would not play, yet must not pass.
Again; as she grows something stronger
And master's feet are swath'd no longer,
If in the night too oft he kicks,
Or shows his locomotive tricks;
These first assaults fat Kate repays him;
When half asleep, she overlays him.

Now mark, dear Richard, from the age
That children tread this worldly stage,
Broom-staff or poker they bestride,
And round the parlour love to ride;
Till thoughtful father's pious care
Provides his brood, next Smithfield fair,
With supplemental hobby-horses:

And happy be their infant courses!

Hence for some years they ne'er stand

still:

Their legs, you see, direct their will;
From opening morn till setting sun,
Around the fields and woods they run;

They frisk, and dance, and leap, and play,
Nor heed what Friend or Snape can say.

To her next stage as Alma flies,
And likes, as I have said, the thighs,
With sympathetic power she warms
Their good allies and friends, the arms;
While Betty dances on the green;
And Susan is at stool-ball seen;
While John for nine-pins does declare;
And Roger loves to pitch the bar;
Both legs and arms spontaneous move;
Which was the thing I meant to prove.
Another motion now she makes:

O need I name the seat she takes?

His thought quite chang'd the stripling finds The sport and race no more he minds; Neglected Tray and Pointer lie;

And covies unmolested fly.

Sudden the jocund plain he leaves,
And for the nymph in secret grieves.
In dying accents he complains
Of cruel fires, and raging pains.
The nymph too longs to be alone;
Leaves all the swains, and sighs for one.
The nymph is warm'd with young desire,
And feels, and dies to quench his fire.
They met each evening in the grove;
Their parley but augments their love:
So to the priest their case they tell :

He ties the knot; and all goes well.

But, O my Muse, just distance keep;
Thou art a maid, and must not peep.
In nine months time, the bodice loose,
And petticoats too short, disclose

That at this age the active mind
About the waist lies most confin'd;

And that young life and quickening sense
Spring from his influence darted thence.
So from the middle of the world

The sun's prolific rays are hurl❜d:
"Tis from that seat he darts those beams,
Which quicken earth with genial flames.
Dick, who thus long had passive sat,
Here strok'd his chin, and cock'd his hat;
Then slapp'd his hand upon the board;
And thus the youth put in his word.
Love's advocates, sweet sir, would find him
A higher place than you assign'd him.
Love's advocates! Dick, who are those ?—
The poets, you may well suppose.

I'm sorry, sir, you have discarded

The men with whom till now you herded.
Prose-men alone for private ends,⚫

I thought, forsook their ancient friends.
In cor stellavit, cries Lucretius;
If he may be allow'd to teach us.
The selfsame thing soft Ovid says
(A proper judge in such a case).
Horace's phrase is, torret jecur;
And happy was that curious speaker.

Here Virgil too has plac'd this passion.
What signifies too long quotation?

In ode and epic, plain the case is,
That love holds one of these two places.
Dick, without passion or reflection,
I'll straight demolish this objection.
First, Poets, all the world agrees,
Write half to profit, half to please.
Matter and figure they produce;
For garnish this, and that for use;
And, in the structure of their feasts,
They seek to feed and please their guests;
But one may balk this good intent,

And take things otherwise than meant.

Thus, if

you dine with my lord mayor, Roast-beef and venison is your

fare:

Thence you proceed to swan and bustard,
And persevere in tart and custard:
But tulip-leaves and lemon-peel
Help only to adorn the meal;
And painted flags, superb and neat,
Proclaim you welcome to the treat.
The man of sense his meat devours;
But only smells the peel and flowers;
And he must be an idle dreamer,

Who leaves the pie, and gnaws the streamer
That Cupid goes with bow and arrows,
And Venus keeps her coach and sparrows,
Is all but emblem, to acquaint one,
The son is sharp, the mother wanton.

Such images have sometimes shown
A mystic sense, but oftener none.
For who conceives, what bards devise,
That Heaven is plac'd in Celia's eyes;
Or where's the sense, direct and moral,
That teeth are pearl, or lips are coral?
Your Horace owns, he various writ,
As wild or sober maggots bit:
And where too much the poet ranted,
The sage philosopher recanted.
His grave epistles may disprove
The wanton odes he made to love.

Lucretius keeps a mighty pother With Cupid and his fancied mother; Calls her great queen of earth and air, Declares that winds and seas obey her; And, while her honour he rehearses, Implores her to inspire his verses.

Yet, free from this poetic madness,
Next page he says, in sober sadness,
That she and all her fellow-gods
Sit idling in their high abodes,
Regardless of this world below,
Our health or hanging, weal or woe:
Nor once disturb their heavenly spirits
With Scapin's cheats,, or Cæsar's merits.
Nor e'er can Latin poets prove

Where lies the real seat of love.
Jecur they burn, and cor they pierce,
As either best supplies their verse;