While pleas’d. Thalia deigns to write
The flips and bounds of Alma's flight.

My limple System (hall suppose,
The Alma enters at the toes;
That then she mounts by just degrees
Up to the ancles, legs, and knees:
Next as the sap of life does rise,
She lends her vigor to the thighs :
And, all these under-regions past,
She nestles somewhere near the waste :
Gives pain or pleasure, grief or laughter ;
As we shall show 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, says Dick: proceed.

Dick, this is not an idle notion : Observe the progress of the motion : First I demonstratively prove, That feet were only made to move ;. And legs desire 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 ding, Fearful of future grief and pain, Should Glently Incak out again,

E MS.
Full piteous feems young Alma's case:
As in a luckless gamester's place,
She would not play, yet must not pass.

Again as fhe grows fomething strongergin
And master's feet are swath'd no longer,
If in the night too oft he kicks,
Or shows the loco-motive tricks ;
These first affauls fat Kate repays him.
When half-alleep the overlays him.

Now mark, dear Richard, from the ager
That children tread this worldly frage, -
Broom-staff, or poker they beftride,
And round the parlor 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 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 stage as Alma flies,
And likes, as I have said, the thighs :
With Sympathetic power the 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 ?
This thought quite chang'd the stripling finds ;
The spot 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 Gghs for one.
The nymph is warm’d with young desire;
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 case they tell :
He ties the knot; and all goes well.

But, O my Mufe, just distance keep:
Thou art a maid, and must not peep.
In nine months' time the boddice loose,
And peticoats too short, disclose,
That at this age the active mind
About the waste lies most 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 those beams,
Which quicken earth with genial flames.

DS

Dick, who thus long had paflive sat, Here stroak'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, sweet Sir, would find him A higher place than you aflign'd him. Love's advocates, Dick, who are those ? The poets, you may well fuppose. I'm sorry, Sir, you have discarded The men, with whom 'till now you herded. Profe-men alone for private ends, I thought, forsook their ancient friends. In cor stillavit, cries Lucretius ; If he may be allowed to teach us. The self same thing soft Ovid says (A proper judge in such a cafe.! Horace his phrase is torret jecur ; And happy was that curious fpeaker. 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 reflexion, 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 struclure of their feasts, They seek to feed, and please their guests : But one may balk this good intent, And take things otherwise than meant.

EM

Ε Μ Thus if you dine with my Lord May'r, Roast beef and ven’son 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 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 sparrows, Is all but emblem to acquaint one, The son is sharp, the mother wanton. Such images have sometimes shown: A Mystic sense, but oftner none. For who conceives, what bards devise; That heav'n is plac'd in Celia's eyes, Or where's the sense, 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 philosopher recanted. His grave Epiftles may disprove The wanton des 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 seas obey her;