Ten thousand little Loves around, Listening, dwelt on every sound.
"Potent Venus, bid thy son
Sound no more his dire alarms. Youth on silent wings is flown:
Graver years come rolling on. Spare my age, unfit for arms:
Safe and humble let me rest, From all amorous care releas'd. Potent Venus bid thy son
Sound no more the dire alarms.
"Yet Venus, why do I each morn prepare The fragrant wreath for Cloe's hair? Why do I all day lament and sigh, Unless the beauteous maid be nigh?
And why all night pursue her in my dreams, Through flowery meads and crystal streams?"
Thus sung the bard; and thus the goddess spoke: "Submissive bow to Love's imperious yoke :
Every state, and every age,
Shall own my rule, and fear my rage:
Compell'd by mc, thy Muse shall prove,
That all the world was born to love.
"Bid thy destin'd lyre discover Soft desire and gentle pain:
Often praise, and always love her :
Through her ear, her heart obtain. Verse shall please, and sighs shall move her; Cupid does with Phœbus reign."
LINES WRITTEN IN AN OVID:
A TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH.
OVID is the surest guide
You can name, to show the way To any woman, maid, or bride,
Who resolves to go astray,
A TRUE MAID.
"No, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that," says Rose, "I'll die." "Behind the elins, last night," cry'd Dick, "Rose, were you not extremely sick?"
TEN months after Florimel happen'd to wed,
And was brought in a laudable manner to bed,
She warbled her groans with so charming a voice,
That one half of the parish was stunn'd with the
noise.
But, when Florimel deign'd to lie privately in,
Ten months before she and her spouse were a kin;
She chose with such prudence her pangs to con-
coal,
[once squeal.
That her nurse, nay her midwife, scarce heard her
Learn, husbands, from hence, for the peace of your
lives,
That maids make not half such a tumult as wives.
A REASONABLE AFFLICTION,
Ox his death-bed poor Lubin lies;
His spouse is in despair :
With frequent sobs, and mutual cries,
They both express their care.
"A different cause," says parson Sly,
The same effect may give :
Poor Lubin fears that he shall die;
His wife, that he may live."
ANOTHER REASONABLE AFFLICTION.
FROM her own native France as old Alison past, She reproach'd English Nell with neglect or with malice,
That the slattern had left, in the hurry and haste, Her lady's complexion and eye-brows at Calais,
HER eye-brow box one morning lost, (The best of folks are oftenest crost) Sad Helen thus to Jenny said, (Her careless but afflicted maid) "Put me to bed then, wretched Jane; Alas! when shall I rise again?
I can behold no mortal now:
For what's an eye without a brow ?
In a dark corner of the house
Poor Helen sits, and sobs, and cries; She will not see her loving spouse, Nor her more dear picquet allics: Unless she find her eye-brows, She'll e'en weep out her eyes.
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.
For this misfortune careless Jane, Assure yourself, was loudly rated: And madam, getting up again, With her own hand the mouse-trap baited, 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.
How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task:
For she has really two ages.
Stiff in brocade, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let Envy view her face,
And Phyllis is but twenty-one. Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night, astronomers agree, The evening has the day bely'd;
And Phyllis is some forty-three.
FORMA BONUM FRAGILE.
"WHAT a frail thing is beauty!" says Baron le
Perceiving his mistress had one eye of glass: [Cras,
And scarcely had he spoke it,
When she more confus'd, as more angry she grew,
By a negligent rage prov'd the maxim too true :
She dropt the eye, and broke it.
WRITTEN TO THE DUKE DE NOAILLES.
VAIN the concern which you express,
That uncall'd Alard will possess
Your house and coach, both day and night,
And that Macbeth was haunted less
By Banquo's restless spright.
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.
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?
TO SMITH'S PHÆDRA AND HIPPOLYTUS,
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 lov'd two thousand years ago.
"If that be all," said I, "e'en 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 inspir'd the ancient Grecian dames:
Every Ismena would resign her breast;
And every dear Hippolytus be blest.
"But, as it is, six flouncing Flanders mares
Are e'en as good as any two of theirs:
And, if Hippolytus 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,
Something at least in justice should be said;
But this Hippolytus so fills one's head—
Well! Phædra liv'd as chastely as she cou'd;
For she was father Jove's own flesh and blood.
Her aukward 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 turn'd all tragedy to jest ;
Found every thing contribute to his rest;
The picquet friend dismiss'd, 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 condema
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 MRS. MANLEY'S LUCIUS
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! all's our own.
In ancient Greece, she says, when Sappho writ,
By their applause the critics show'd their wit,
They tun'd their voices to her lyric string;
Tho' 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 satyrs, sly remarks, ill-natur'd speeches,
Are always aim'd at poets that wear breeches.
Arm'd with Longinus, or with Rapin, no man
Drew a sharp pen upon á 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-colour'd gentry there above,
By turns are rul'd by tumult and by love:
And, while their sweethearts their attention fix,
Suspend the din of their damn'd 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,
From tender friendship, and endearing love.
If Petrarch's Muse did Laura's wit rehearse;
And Cowley flatter'd dear Orinda's verse;
She hopes from you-Pox take her hopes and fears!
I plead her sex's claim; what matters hers?
By our full power of beauty we think fit
To damn the Salique law impos'd on wit:
We'll try the empire who so long have boasted;
And, if we are not prais'd, we'll not be toasted.
Approve what one of us presents to night,
Or every mortal woman here shall write:
Rural, pathetic, narrative, sublime,
We'll write to you, and make you write in rhymes
Female remarks shall take up all your time.
Your time, poor souls! we'll take your very money;
Female third-days shall come so thick upon ye,
As long as we have eyes, or hands, or breath,
We'll look, or write, or talk you all to death.
Unless you yield for better and for worse:
Then the she-Pegasus shall gain the course;
And the grey mare will prove the better horse,
THE THIEF AND THE CORDELIER,
A BALLAD: TO THE TUNE OF
KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY.
WHO has e'er been at Paris, must needs know the
Greve,
The fatal retreat of th' unfortunate brave;
Where Honour and Justice most oddly contribute
To ease heroes' pains by a halter and gibbet,
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
There Death breaks the shackles which Force had put on,
And the hangman completes what the judge but begun;
There the squire of the pad, and the knight of the post, [no more crost. Find their pains no more balk'd, and their hopes Derry down, &c.
Great claims are there made, and great secrets are known;
[own; And the king, and the law, and the thief, has his But my hearers cry out, "What a duce dost thou ail?
Cut off thy reflections, and give us thy tale."
Derry down, &c.
'Twas there then, in civil respect to harsh laws,
And for want of false witness to back a bad cause,
A Norman, though late, was oblig'd to appear;
And who to assist, but a grave Cordelier?
Derry down, &c.
The squire, whose good grace was to open the scene,
Seem'd not in great haste that the show should
Now fitted the halter, now travers'd the cart;
And often took leave, but was loth to depart.
Derry down, &c.
"What frightens you thus, my good son?" says the priest :
"You murder'd, are sorry, and have been confest." "O father! my sorrow will scarce save my bacon; For 'twas not that I murder'd, but that I was taken." Derry down, &c,
"Pough! pr'ythee ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies:
Rely on the aid you shall have from Saint Francis: If the money you promis'd be brought to the chest, You have only to die: let the church do the rest. Derry down, &c.
"And what will folks say, if they see you afraid? It reflects upon me, as I knew not my trade:
Courage, friend; for to day is your period of sorrow; And things will go better, believe me, tomorrow," Derry down, &c.
"To morrow!" our hero replied, in a fright: "He that's hang'd before noon, ought to think of to night." [truss'd up, "Tell your beads," quoth the priest, "and be fairly For you surely to night shall in Paradise sup." Derry down, &c.
"Alas!" quoth the squire, "howe'er sumptuous the treat,
Parbleu! I shall have little stomach to eat;
I should therefore esteem it great favour and grace,
Would you be so kind as to go in my place."
Derry down, &c.
"That I would," quoth the father," and thank
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Stet quicunque volet potens
Aulæ culmine lubrico, &c.
INTERR'D beneath this marble stone
Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run;
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rose or fell,
The morning past, the evening came,
And found this couple still the same.
They walk'd, and eat, good folks: what then?
Why then they walk'd and eat again :
They soundly slept the night away ;
They did just nothing all the day:
And, having bury'd children four,
Would not take pains to try for more.
Nor sister either had nor brother;
They seem'd just tally'd for each other,
Their moral and economy
Most perfectly they made agree:
Fach virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor trespass'd on the other's ground
TO THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF DEVONSHIRE.
Nor fame nor censure they regarded;
They neither punish'd nor rewarded.
He car'd not what the footman did;
Her maids she neither prais'd nor chid:
So every servant took his course;
And, bad at first, they all grew worse.
Slothful disorder fill'd his stable,
And sluttish plenty deck'd her table.
Their beer was strong; their wine was port;
Their meal was large; their grace was short.
They gave the poor the remnant meat,
Just when it grew not fit to eat.
They paid the church and parish rate,
And took, but read not, the receipt ;
For which they claim their Sunday's due,
Of slumbering in an upper pew.
No man's defects sought they to know;
So never made themselves a foe.
No man's good deeds did they commend;
So never rais'd themselves a friend.
Nor cherish'd they relations poor;
That might decrease their present store:
Nor barn nor house did they repair;
That might oblige their future heir.
They neither added nor confounded;
They neither wanted nor abounded.
Each Christmas they accompts did clear,
And wound their bottom round the year.
Nor tear nor smile did they employ
At news of public grief or joy,
When bells were rung, and bonfires made,
If ask'd, they ne'er deny'd their aid:
Their jug was to the ringers carried,
Whoever either died or married:
Their billet at the fire was found,
Whoever was depos'd or crown'd.
Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise;
They would not learn, nor could advise:
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear,
They led-a kind of as it were:
Nor wish'd, nor car'd, nor laugh'd, nor cried :
And so they liv'd, and so they died.
AN EPISTLE,
DESIRING THE QUEEN'S PICTURE.
WRITTEN AT PARIS, 1714; BUT LEFT UNFINISHED, BY
THE SUDDEN NEWS OF HER MAJESTY'S DEATH.
THE train of equipage and pomp of state,
The shining side-board, and the burnish'd plate,
Let other ministers, great Anne, require,
And partial fall thy gift to their desire,
To the fair portrait of my sovereign dame,
To that alone, eternal be my claim.
My bright defender, and my dread delight
If ever I found favour in thy sight;
If all the pains that, for thy Britain's sake,
My past has took, or future life may take,
Be grateful to my queen; permit my prayer,
And with this gift reward my total care.
Will thy indulgent hand, fair saint, allow
The boon? and will thy ear accept the vow?
That, in despite of age, of impious flame,
And cating Time, thy picture, like thy fame,
Entire may last; that, as their eyes survey
The semblant shade, men yet unborn may say,
"Thus great, thus gracious, look'd Britannia's
Her brow thus smooth, her look was thus serene;
When to a low, but to a loyal hand,
The mighty empress gave her high command,
That he to hostile camps and kings should haste,
To speak her vengeance, as their danger, past;
To say, she wills detested wars to cease;
She checks her conquest, for her subjects ease,
And bids the world attend her terms of peace."
Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore,
Thee, queen of peace-If Time and Fate have
power
Higher to raise the glories of thy reign,
In words sublimer, and a nobler strain,
May future bards the mighty theme rehearse:
Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus king of verse,
The votive tablet I suspend .
GIVEN TO THE DUKE OF SHREWSBURY IN FRANCE,
AFTER THE PEACE, 1713.
DICTATE, O mighty judge, what thou hast seen
Of cities and of courts, of books and men ;
And deign to let thy servant hold the pen.
Through ages thus I may presume to live,
And from the transcript of thy prose receive
What my own short-liv'd verse can never give.
Thus shall fair Britain, with a gracious smile, Accept the work; and the instructed isle, For more than treaties made, shall bless my toil.
Nor longer hence the Gallic style preferr'd, Wisdom in English idiom shall be heard, While Talbot tells the world, where Montaigne err'd.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE
COUNTESS DOWAGER OF DEVONSHIRE,
WHEREON WERE ALL HER GRANDSONS PAINTED.
WIESSEN and Nature held a long contest,
If she created, or he painted, best;
With pleasing thought the wondrous combat grew,
She still form'd fairer; he still liker drew.
In these seven brethren they contended last,
With art increas'd, their utmost skill they tried,
And, both well pleas'd they had themselves sur-
pass'd,
The goddess triumph'd, and the painter died.
That both their skill to this vast height did raise,
Be ours the wonder, and be yours the praise:
For here, as in some glass, is well descry'd
Only yourself thus often multiply'd.
When Heaven had you and gracious Anna1 made, What more exalted beauty could it add?
! Eldest daughter of the countess.
Having no nobler images in store,
It but kept up to these, nor could do more
Than copy well what it had fram'd before.
If in dear Burghley's generous face we see
Obliging truth and handsome honesty,
With all that world of charins, which soon will move
Reverence in men, and in the fair-ones love;
His very grace his fair descent assures,
He has his mother's beauty, she has yours.
If every Cecil's face had every charm,
That Thought can fancy, or that Heaven can form;
Their beauties all become your beauty's due,
They are all fair, because they're all like you.
If every Ca'ndish great and charming look;
From you that air, from you the charms they took.
In their each limb your image is exprest,
But on their brow firm courage stands confest;
There, their great father, by a strong increase,
Adds strength to beauty, and completes the piece:
Thus still your beauty, in your sons, we view,
Wiessen seven times one great perfection drew:
Whoever sat, the picture still is you.
So when the parent Sun, with genial beams,
Has animated many goodly gems,
He sees himself improv'd, while every stone,
With a resembling light, reflects a sun.
So when great Rhea many births had given,
Such as might govern Earth, and people Heaven;
Her glory grew diffus'd, and, fuller known,
She saw the deity in every son:
And to what god soe'er men altars rais'd, Honouring the offspring, they the mother prais'd.
In short-liv'd charms let others place their joys, Which sickness blasts, and certain age destroys: Your stronger beauty Time can ne'er deface, Tis still renew'd, and stamp'd in all your race. Ah! Wiessen, had thy art been so refin❜d, As with their beauty to have drawn their mind, Through circling years thy labours would survive, And living rules to fairest virtue give, To men unborn and ages yet to live: 'Twould still be wonderful, and still be new, Against what Time, or Spite, or Fate, could do; Till thine confus'd with Nature's pieces lie, And Cavendish's name and Cecil's honour die.
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That you and I, sir, are extremely great; Though I plain Mat, you minister of state: One word from me, without all doubt, he says, Would fix his fortune in some little place. Thus better than myself, it seems, he knows, How far my interest with my patron goes; And, answering all objections I can make, Still plunges deeper in his dear mistake.
From this wild fancy, sir, there may proceed One wilder yet, which I foresee and dread; That I, in fact, a real interest have, Which to my own advantage I would save, And, with the usual courtier's trick, intend To serve myself, forgetful of my friend.
To shun the censure, I all shame lay by, And make my reason with his will comply; Hoping, for my excuse, 'twill be confest, That of two evils I have chose the least. So, sir, with this epistolary scroll, Receive the partner of my inmost soul: Him you will find in letters and in laws Not unexpert, firm to his country's cause, Warm in the glorious interest yon pursue, And, in one word, a good man and a true.
TO MR. HARLEY,
WOUNDED BY GUISCARD, 1711.
Ab ipso
Ducit opes animumque ferro.
In one great now, superiour to an age,
The full extremes of Nature's force we find: How heavenly Virtue can exalt, or Rage
Infernal how degrade the human mind! While the fierce monk does at his trial stand, He chews revenge, abjuring his offence: Guile in his tongue, and murder in his hand, He stabs his judge, to prove his innocence. The guilty stroke and torture of the steel
Infix'd, our dauntless Briton scarce perceives:
The wounds his country from his death must feel,
The patriot views; for those alone he grieves.
The barbarous rage that durst attempt thy life,
Harley, great counsellor, extends thy fame:
And the sharp point of cruel Guiscard's knife,
In brass and marble carves thy deathless name.
Faithful assertor of thy country's cause,
Britain with tears shall bathe thy glorious wound:
She for thy safety shall enlarge her laws,
And in her statutes shall thy worth be found.
Yet 'midst her sighs she triumphs, on the hand
Reflecting, that diffus'd the public woe;
A stranger to her altars, and her land:
No son of hers could meditate this blow. Meantime thy pain is gracious Anna's care: Our queen, our saint, with sacrificing breath, Softens thy anguish in her powerful prayer
She pleads thy service, and forbids thy death. Great as thou art, thou canst demand no more, O breast bewail'd by Earth, preserv'd by Heaven! No higher can aspiring Virtue soar:
Enough to thee of grief and fame is given.
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