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Nor her more dear picquet-allies: Unless she find her eye-brows, She'll even weep out her eyes.

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

1 HELEN was just slipt into bed:

Her eye-brows on the toilet lay: Away the kitten with them fled, As fees belonging to her prey.

2 For this misfortune careless Jane, Assure yourself, was loudly rated; And madam, getting up again,

With her own hand the mouse-trap baited.

3 On little things, as sages write,

Depends our human joy or sorrow ; If we don't catch a mouse to-night, Alas! no eye-brows for to-morrow.

PHILLIS'S AGE.

1 How old may Phillis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages;
To answer is no easy task,

For she has really two ages.

2 Stiff in brocade, and pinched in stays, Her patches, paint, and jewels on; All day let envy view her face,

And Phillis is but twenty-one.

3 Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied,
And Phillis is some forty-three.

FORMA BONUM FRAGILE.

WHAT a frail thing is beauty! says Baron Le Cras, Perceiving his mistress had one eye of glass;

And scarcely had he spoke it;

When she more confused as more angry she grew, By a negligent rage proved the maxim too true: She dropped the eye, and broke it.

A CRITICAL MOMENT.

How capricious were Nature and Art to poor Nell! She was painting her cheeks at the time her nose fell.

AN EPIGRAM.

WRITTEN TO THE DUKE DE NOALLES.

1 VAIN the concern which you express,

That uncalled Alard will possess

Your house and coach, both day and night, And that Macbeth was haunted less

By Banquo's restless sprite.

2 With fifteen thousand pounds a year,
Do you complain, you cannot bear
An ill, you may so soon retrieve?

Good Alard, faith, is modester
By much, than you believe.

3 Lend him but fifty louis-d'or,
And you shall never see him more:
Take the advice, probatum est.
Why do the gods indulge our store,
But to secure our rest?

EPILOGUE TO PHÆDRA AND HIPPOLITUS.1

BY MR EDMUND SMITH. SPOKEN BY MRS OLDFIELD,
WHO ACTED ISMENA.

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 Phædra speak;
And comes to town to let us moderns know,
How women loved two thousand years ago.

If that be all, said I, even burn your play;
Egad! we know all that, as well as they!
Show us the youthful, handsome charioteer,
Firm in his seat, and running his career;
Our souls would kindle with as generous flames,
As e'er inspired the ancient Grecian dames:
Every Ismena would resign her breast;
And every dear Hippolitus be blessed.
But, as it is, six flouncing Flanders mares
Are e'en as good as any two of theirs:
And if Hippolitus can but contrive
To buy the gilded chariot, John can drive.

Now of the bustle you have seen to-day, And Phædra's morals in this scholar's play,

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1 Acted 1708. The prologue by Addison was received coldly. Smith, alias Rag,' was a sad scamp-born 1668, died 1710.-See Johnson's 'Poets.'

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Something at least in justice should be said;
But this Hippolitus so fills one's head-
Well! Phædra lived as chastely as she could!
For she was father Jove's own flesh and blood.
Her awkward love indeed was oddly fated;
She and her Poly were too near related;
And yet that scruple had been laid aside,
If honest Theseus had but fairly died.
But when he came, what needed he to know,
But that all matters stood in statu 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 such an hour;
Then he had turned all tragedy to jest;
Found everything contribute to his rest;
The picquet-friend dismissed, the coast all clear,
And spouse alone impatient for her dear.

But if these gay reflections come too late,
To keep the guilty Phædra from her fate;
If your more serious judgment must condemn
The dire effects of her unhappy flame;
Yet, ye chaste matrons, and ye tender fair,
Let love and innocence engage your care;
My spotless flames to your protection take;
And spare poor Phædra for Ismena's sake.

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EPILOGUE TO LUCIUS.

A TRAGEDY, BY MRS DE LA RIVIERE MANLEY.
SPOKEN BY MRS HORTON.

THE female author who recites to-day,
Trusts to her sex the merit of her play.
Like father Bayes securely she sits down:
Pit, box, and gallery, 'gad! is all our own.
In ancient Greece, she says, when Sappho writ,
By their applause the critics showed their wit;
They tuned their voices to her lyric string,
Though they could all do something more than sing.
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 through all succeeding ages,
And now on French, or on Italian stages,
Rough satires, sly remarks, ill-natured speeches,
Are always aimed at poets that wear breeches.
Armed with Longinus, or with Rapin, no man
Drew a sharp pen upon a naked woman.
The blustering bully, in our neighbouring streets,
Scorns to attack the female that he meets;
Fearless the petticoat contemns his frowns,
The hoop secures whatever it surrounds.
The many-coloured gentry there above,
By turns are ruled by tumult, and by love;

And while their sweet-hearts their attention fix,
Suspend the din of their damned clattering sticks.
Now, Sirs-

To you our author makes her soft request,

Who speak the kindest, and who write the best,
Your sympathetic hearts she hopes to move,

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