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While pleas'd Thalia deigns to write
The flips and bounds of Alma's flight.
My fimple fyftem hall fuppofe,
The Alma enters at the toes;

That then the mounts by just degrees
Up to the ancles, legs, and knees:
Next as the fap of life does rife,
She lends her vigor to the thighs:
And, all these under regions past,
She neftles fomewhere near the waste :
Gives pain or pleasure, grief or laughter ;
As we fhall fhow at large hereafter.
Mature, if not improv❜d, by time
Up to the heart she loves to climb:
From thence, compell'd by craft and age,
She makes the head her latest stage.

From the feet upward to the head;
Pithy, and short, fays Dick: proceed.
Dick, this is not an idle notion :
Obferve the progrefs of the motion:
First I demonstratively prove,

That feet were only made to move;
And legs defire to come and go:
For they have nothing else to do.
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;
Left Alma newly enter'd in,

And stunn'd at her own chrift'ning's din,.
Fearful of future grief and pain,

Should filently fneak out again.

Full piteous feems young Alma's cafe:
As in a lucklefs gamefter's place,
She would not play, yet must not país.
Again as the grows fomething stronger,
And mafter's feet are fwath'd no longer,
If in the night too oft he kicks,
Or fhows the loco-motive tricks ;
Thefe firft affauls fat Kate repays him.
When half-asleep the overlays him.

Now mark, dear Richard, from the ages
That children tread this worldly stage,
Broom-ftaff, or poker they beftride,
And round the parlor love to ride;
'Till thoughtful father's pious care
Provides his brood, next Smithfield fair,
With fupplemental hobby-horfes:
And happy be their infant courfes!

Hence for fome years they ne'er ftand ftill:
Their legs, you fee, direct their will.
From opening morn 'till fetting fun,
Around the fields and woods they run:
They frisk, and dance, and leap, and play;
Nor heed, what Friend or Snape can fay.
To her next ftage as Alma flies,

And likes, as I have faid, the thighs :
With Sympathetic power fhe warms
Their good allies and friends, the arms.
While Betty dances on the green;
And Sufan is at ftool-ball feen:
While John for nine-pins does declare;
And Roger loves to pitch the bar;

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Both legs and arms fpontaneous move:
Which was the thing I meant to prove.
Another motion now fhe makes:

O need I name the seat she takes ? .

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

And covies unmolefted fly.

Sudden the jocund plain he leaves;
And for the nymph in fecret grieves.
In dying accents he complains
Of cruel fires, and raging pains.
The nymph too longs to be alone;
Leaves all the fwains and fighs for one.
The nymph is warm'd with young defire;
And feels, and dies to quench his fire.
They meet each evening in the grove:
Their parley but augments their love.
So to the priest their cafe they tell :
He ties the knot; and all goes well.

But, O my Muse, just distance keep:
Thou art a maid, and muft not peep.
In nine months' time the boddice loofe,
And peticoats too fhort, difclofe,

That at this age the active mind
About the wafte lies moft confin'd;
And that young life, and quick'ning 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 feat he darts thofe beams,
Which quicken earth with genial flames.

Dick, who thus long had paffive fat, Here ftroak'd his chin, and cock'd his hat; Then flapp'd his hand upon the board; And thus the youth put in his word. Love's advocate, fweet Sir, would find him. A higher place than you affign'd him. Love's advocates, Dick, who are those? The poets, you may well fuppofe. I'm forry, Sir, you have difcarded

The men, with whom 'till now you herded.
Profe-men alone for private ends,

I thought, forfook their ancient friends.
In cor ftillavit, cries Lucretius;
If he may be allowed to teach us.
The felf fame thing foft Ovid fays
(A proper judge in fuch a cafe.)
Horace his phrafe is torret jecur;
And happy was that curious fpeaker.
Here Virgil too has plac'd this paffion :
What fignifies too long quotation?
In Ode and Epic plain the case is,
That love holds one of thefe two places.
Dick, without paffion or reflexion,
I'll ftraight demolish this objection,
Firft poets, all the world agrees,
Write half to profit, half to please.
Matter and figure they produce;
For garnish this, and that for ufe;
And, in the ftructure of their feafts,
They feek to feed, and pleafe their guests:
But one may balk this good intent,

And take things otherwife than meant.

Thus if you dine with my Lord May'r,
Roast beef and ven'fon 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 fenfe his meat devours;
But only smells the peel, and flow'rs:
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 fparrows,
Is all but emblem to acquaint one,
The fon is fharp, the mother wanton.
Such images have fometimes fhown
A Myftic fenfe, but oftner none.
For who conceives, what bards devife,
That heav'n is plac'd in Celia's eyes,
Or where's the fenfe, direct or moral,
That teeth are pearls, or lips are coral?
Your Horace owns, he various writ,
As wild, or fober maggots bit;
And where too much the poet ranted,
The fage philofopher recanted.
His grave Epiftles may difprove
The wanton Odes he made to Love.

Lucretius keeps a mighty pother
With Cupid, and his fancy'd mother:
Calls her great queen of earth and air,
Declares, that winds and feas obey her;

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