Remov'd from kind Arbuthnot's aid,
Who knows his art, but not his trade,
Preferring his regard for me
Before his credit or his fee.

Some formal visits, looks, and words,
What mere humanity affords,

I meet perhaps from three or four,
From whom I once expected more:
Which those who tend the sick for pay
Can aot as decently as they.
But no obliging tender friend
To help at my approaching end,
My life is now a burden grown
To others, ere it be my own.

Ye formal weepers for the sick,
In your last offices be quick;

And spare my absent friends the grief
To hear, yet give me no relief;
Expir'd to-day, intomb'd tomorrow,
When known, will save a double sorrow.

The time pass'd on; and Music came, Her kennel once again to claim; But Bawty, lost to shame and honour, Set all her cubs at once upon her; Made her retire, and quit her right, And loudly cry'd-" A bite! a bite!"

THE MORAL.

Thus did the Grecian wooden horse Conceal a fatal armed force: No sooner brought within the walls, But Ilium 's lost, and Priam falls.

ON AN ATTEMPT TO REPEAL THE TEST ACT.

A BITCH that was full pregnant grown,
By all the dogs and curs in town,
Finding her ripen'd time was come,
Her litter teeming from her womb,
Went here and there, and every where,
To find an easy place to lay-her.

At length to Music's house she came,
And begg'd like one both blind and lame;
"My only friend, my dear," said she,
"You see 'tis mere necessity
Hath sent me to your house to whelp;
I'll die, if you deny your help."

With fawning whine, and rueful tone,
With artful sigh and feigned groan,
With couchant cringe, and flattering tale,
Smooth Bawty 2 did so far prevail,
That Music gave her leave to litter:
But mark what follow'd-faith! she bit her.
Whole baskets full of bits and scraps,
And broth enough to fill her paps;
For, well she knew, her numerous brood,
For want of milk, would suck her blood.

But when she thought her pains were done,
And now 'twas high time to be gone;
In civil terms,-" My friend," says she,
"My house you've had on courtesy;
And now I earnestly desire,

That you would with your cubs retire:
For, should you stay but one week longer,
I shall be starv'd with cold and hunger."
The guest reply'd-" My friend, your leave
I must a little longer crave;
Stay till my tender cubs can find

Their way-for now, you see, they 're blind;
But, when we 've gather'd strength, I swear,
We'll to our barn again repair."

The church of England.

? A Scotch name for a bitch; alluding to the kirk

HORACE, BOOK III. ODE II.

TO THE EARL OF OXFORD, LATE LORD TREASURER.

SENT TO HIM WHEN IN THE TOWer, 1617. How blest is he who for his country dies, Since Death pursues the coward as he flies! The youth in vain would fly from fate's attack, With trembling knees and terrour at his back; Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, Yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.

Virtue repuls'd, yet knows not to repine, But shall with unattainted honour shine; Nor stoops to take the staff1, nor lays it down, Just as the rabble please to smile or frown.

Virtue, to crown her favourites, loves to try Some new unbeaten passage to the sky; Where Jove a seat among the gods will give To those who die for meriting to live.

Next, faithful silence hath a sure reward; Within our breast be every secret barr'd! He who betrays his friend, shall never be Under one roof, or in one ship, with me. For who with traitors would his safety trust, Lest, with the wicked, Heaven involve the just ? And, though the villain 'scape awhile, he feels Slow vengeance, like a blood-hound, at his heels.

PHYLLIS;

OR,

THE PROGRESS OF LOVE,

1716.

DESPONDING Phyllis was endued
With every talent of a prude:
She trembled when a man drew near;
Salute her, and she turn'd her ear;
If o'er against her you were plac'd,
She durst not look above your waist:
She'd rather take you to her bed,
Than let you see her dress her head:
In church you hear her, through the crowd,
Repeat the absolution loud:

1 The ensign of the lord treasurer's office.

In church, secure behind her fan,
She durst behold that monster man ;
There practis'd how to place her head,
And bit her lips to make them red;
Or, on the mat devoutly kneeling,
Would lift her eyes up to the cieling,
And heave her bosom unaware,
For neighbouring beaux to see it bare.
At length a lucky lover came,
And found admittance to the dame.
Suppose all parties now agreed,
The writings drawn, the lawyer fee'd,
The vicar and the ring bespoke :
Guess, how could such a match be broke?
See then what mortals place their bliss in !
Next morn betimes the bride was missing:
The mother scream'd, the father chid;
Where can this idle wench be hid?
No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came,
And thought his bride had skulk'd for shame;
Because her father us'd to say,
The girl had such a bashful way!

Now John the butler must be sent
To learn the road that Phyllis went.
The groom was wish'd to saddle Crop;
For John must neither light nor stop,
But find her, wheresoe'er she fled,
And bring her back, alive or dead.

See here again the devil to do!
For truly John was missing too:
The horse and pillion both were gone!
Phyllis, it seems, was filed with John.

Old Madam, who went up to find
What papers Phyl had left behind,
A letter on the toilet sees,

To my much honour'd father-these-
('Tis always done, romances tell us,
When daughters run away with fellows)
Fill'd with the choicest common-places,
By others us'd in the like cases.
"That long ago a fortune-teller
Exactly said what now befel her;
And in a glass had made her see
A serving-man of low degree.
It was her fate, must be forgiven;
For marriages were made in heaven :
His pardon begg'd: but, to be plain,
She'd do 't, if 'twere to do again:
Thank'd God, 'twas neither shame nor sin;
For John was come of honest kin.
Love never thinks of rich and poor :
She'd beg with John from door to door.
Forgive her, if it be a crime;
She 'll never do't another time.
She ne'er before in all her life
Once disobey'd him, maid nor wife.
One argument she summ'd up all in,
The thing was done, and past recalling;
And therefore hop'd she should recover
His favour, when his passion's over.
She valued not what others thought her,
And was his most obedient daughter."

Fair maidens, all attend the Muse,
Who now the wandering pair pursues :
Away they rode in homely sort,
Their journey long. their money short;
The loving couple well bemir'd;
The horse and both the riders tir'd:

Their victuals bad, their lodging worse;
Phyl cry'd, and John began to curse :
Phyl wish'd that she had strain'd a limb,
When first she ventur'd out with him,
John wish'd that he had broke a leg,
When first for her he quitted Peg.

But what adventures more befel them,
The Muse hath now no time to tell them,
How Johnny wheedled, threaten'd, fawn'd,
Till Phyllis all her trinkets pawn'd:
How oft' she broke her marriage vows
In kindness to maintain her spouse,
Till swains unwholesome spoil'd the trade;
For now the surgeons must be paid,
To whom those perquisites are gone,
In Christian justice due to John.

When food and raiment now grew scarce, Fate put a period to the farce, And with exact poetic justice; For John was landlord, Phyllis hostess; They kept, at Staines, the Old Blue Boar, Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore.

AD AMICUM ERUDITUM

THOMAM SHERIDAN,

1717.

DELICIA Sheridan Musarum, dulcis amice,
Si tibi propitius Permessi ad flumen Apollo
Occurrat, seu te mimum convivia rident,
Equivocosque sales spargis, seu ludere versu
Malles; dic, Sheridan, quisnam fuit ille deorum,
Quæ melior natura orto tibi tradidit artem
Rimandi genium puerorum, atque ima cerebri
Scrutandi? Tibi nasceuti ad cunabula Pallas
Astitit; & dixit, mentis præsaga futuræ,
Heu, puer infelix! nostro sub sidere natus;
Nam tu pectus eris sine corpore, corporis umbra;
Sed levitate umbram superabis, voce cicadam :
Musca femur, palmas tibi mus dedit, ardea crura
Corpore sed tenui tibi quod natura negavit,
Hoc animi dotes supplebunt; teque docente,
Nec longum tempus, surget tibi docta juventus,
Artibus egregiis animas instructa novellas.
Grex hinc Pæonius venit, ecce, salutifer orbi.
Ast, illi causas orant; his insula visa est
Divinam capiti nodo constringere mitram.
Natalis te horæ non fallunt signa, sed usque
Conscius, expedias puero seu lætus Apollo
Nascenti arrisit; sive illum frigidus horror
Saturni premit, aut septem inflavere triones.

Quin tu altè penitusque latentia semina cernis,
Quæque diu obtundendo olim sub luminis auras
Erumpent, promis; quo ritu sæpè puella
Sub cinere hesterno sopitos suscitat ignes.

Te dominum agnoscit quocunque sub aëre natus ; Quos indulgentis nimium custodia matris Pessundat nam sæpè vides in stipite matrem.

Aureus at ramus, venerandæ dona Sybillæ, Æneæ sedes tantùm patefecit Avernus ; Sæpè puer tua quem tetigit semel aurea virga Cœlumque terrasque videt, noctemque profundam.

HORACE, BOOK IV. ODE IX.

ADDRESSED TO ABP. KING.

1718.

VIRTUE Conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best:

But never shall the Muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure,
Or suffer envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;

Your steady soul preserves her frame
In good and evil times the same.
Pale avarice and lurking frand
Stand in your sacred presence aw'd;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.
Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown ;
And happy he, who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want, and not repine.
The man who, infamy to shun,
Into the arms of death would run,
That man is ready to defend
With life his country, or his friend.

TO MR. DELANY,
Nov. 10, 1718.

To you, whose virtues, I must own
With shame, I have too lately known;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have sought,
Had not ill fate, perverse and blind,
Plac'd you in life too far behind;
Or, what I should repine at more,
Plac'd me in life too far before:
To you the Muse this verse bestows,
Which might as well have been in prose;
No thought, no fancy, no sublime,
But simple topics told in rhyme.

Talents for conversation fit,

Are humour, breeding, sense, and wit:
The last, as boundless as the wind,
Is well conceiv'd, though not defin'd:
For, sure, by wit is chiefly meant
Applying well what we invent.
What humour is, not all the tribe
Of logic-mongers can describe;
Here nature only acts her part,
Unhelp'd by practice, books, or art :
For wit and humour differ quite;
That gives surprise, and this delight.
Humour is odd, grotesque, and wild,
Only by affectation spoil'd:
'Tis never by invention got,
Men have it when they know it not.
Our conversation to refine,
Humour and wit must both combine :.
From both we learn to rally well,
Wherein sometimes the French excel.

Voiture, in various lights, displays
That irony which turns to praise :
His genius first found out the rule
For an obliging ridicule :
He flatters with peculiar air
The brave, the witty, and the fair:
And fools would fancy he intends
A satire, where he most commends.
But, as a poor prétending bean,
Because he fain would make a show,
Nor can arrive at silver lace,
Takes up with copper in the place:
So the pert dunces of mankind,
Whene'er they would be thought refin'd,
As if the difference lay abstruse
"Twixt raillery and gross abuse;
To show their parts will scold and rail,
Like porters o'er a pot of ale.
Such is that clan of boisterous bears,
Always together by the ears;
Shrewd fellows and arch wags, a tribe
That meet for nothing but a gibe;
Who first run one another down,
And then fall foul of all the town;
Skill'd in the horse-laugh and dry rub,
And call'd by excellence The Club.
I mean your Butler, Dawson, Car,
All special friends, and always jar.

The mettled and the vicious steed
Differ as little in their breed;
Nay, Voiture is as hike Tom Leigh
As rudeness is to repartee.

If what you said I wish unspoke,
"Twill not suffice it was a joke:
Reproach not, though in jest, a friend
For those defects he cannot mend;
His lineage, calling, shape, or sense,
If nam'd with scorn, gives just offence.
What use in life to make men fret,
Part in worse humour than they met ?
Thus all society is lost,

Men laugh at one another's cost;
And half the company is teas'd,
That came together to be pleas'd:
For all buffoons have most in view
To please themselves by vexing you.
You wonder now to see me write
So gravely on a subject light:
Some part of what I here design,
Regards a friend of yours and mine;
Who, neither void of sense nor wit,
Yet seldom judges what is fit,
But sallies oft beyond his bounds,
And takes unmeasurable rounds.

When jests are carried on too far,
And the loud laugh begins the war,
You keep your countenance for shame,
Yet still you think your friend to blame:
For, though men cry they love a jest,
'Tis but when others stand the test;
And (would you have their meaning known)
They love a jest that is their own.

You must, although the point be nice, Bestow your friend some good advice: One hint from you will set him right, And teach him how to be polite.

1 Dr. Sheridan

Bid him, like you, observe with care, Whom to be hard on, whom to spare; No indistinctly to suppose

All subjects like Dan Jackson's nose 2.
To study the obliging jest,

By reading those who teach it best;
For prose I recommend Voiture's,

For verse (I speak my judgment) yours.
He'll find the secret out from thence,
To rhyme all day without offence;
And I no more shall then accuse
The flirts of his ill-manner'd Muse.

If he be guilty, you must mend him; If he be innocent, defend him.

DELANY reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue,
That we both act the part of the clown and cow-dung;
We lye cramming ourselves, and are ready to burst,
Yet still are no wiser than we were at first.
Fudet hæc opprobria, I freely must tell ye,
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.
Though Delany advis'd you to plague me no longer,
You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor.
I must now, at one sitting, pay off my old score;
How many to answer? One, two, three, four.
But, because the three former are long ago past,
I shall, for method sake, begin with the last.
You treat me like a boy that knocks down his foe,
Who, ere t'other gets up, demands the rising blow.
Yet I know a young rogue, that, thrown flat on the
field,

Would, as he lay under, cry out, "Sirrah? yield."
So the French, when our generals soundly did pay'em,
Went triumphant to church, and sang stoutly Te
Deum.

So the famous Tom Leigh, when quite run aground,
Gomes off by out-laughing the company round.
In every vile pamphlet you'll read the same fancies,
Having thus overthrown all our further advances.
My offers of peace you ill understood:

Friend Sheridan, when will you know your own good?
"Twas to teach you in modester language your duty;
For, were you a dog, I could not be rude t'ye;
As a good quiet soul, who no mischief intends
To a quarrelsome fellow, crics, "let us be friends."
But we like Antæus and Hercules fight;
The oftener you fall, the oftener you write:
And I'll use you as he did that overgrown clown,
I'll first take you up, and then take you down :
And, 'tis your own case, for you never can wound
The worst dunce in your school, till he 's heav'd
from the ground.

I beg your pardon for using my left-hand, but I was in great haste, and the other hand was employ

2 Which was afterwards the subject of several poems by Dr. Swift and others.

1 The humour of this poem is partly lost, by the impossibility of printing it left-handed as it was written.

ed at the same time in writing some letters of business. I will send you the rest when I have leisure: but pray come to dinner with the company you met here last.

Α ΜΟΤΤΟ

FOR MR. JASON HASARD,

WOOLLEN DRAPER IN DUBLIN;

WHOSE SIGN WAS THE GOLDEN-FLEECE

JASON, the valiant prince of Greece,
From Colchos brought the Golden Fleece:
We comb the wool, refine the stuff,
For modern Jason, that 's enough.
Oh! could we tame yon watchful Dragon ',
Old Jason would have less to brag on.

ΤΟ

DR. SHERIDAN. 17:8.

WHATE'ER your predecessors taught us,
I have a great esteem for Plautus;
And think your boys may gather there-hence
More wit and humour than from Terence.
But as to comic Aristophanes,

The rogue too vicious and too prophane is.
I went in vain to look for Eupolis
Down in the Strand 2, just where the New Pole is;
For I can tell you one thing, that I can
(You will not find it in the Vatican).
He and Cratinus us'd, as Horace says,
To take his greatest grandees for asses.
Poets, in those days, us'd to venture high;
But these are lost full many a century.
Thus you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence,
My judgment of the old comedians

Proceed to tragics: first, Euripides
(An author where I sometimes dip a days)
Is rightly censur'd by the Stagirite,
Who says his numbers do not fadge aright.
A friend of mine that author despises
So much, he swears the very best piece is,
For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis's;
And that a woman, in these tragedies,
Commonly speaking, but a sad jade is.
At least, I'm well assur'd, that no folk lays
The weight on him they do on Sophocles.
But, above all, I prefer Eschylus,
Whose moving touches, when they please, kill us.
And now I find my Muse but ill able,
To hold out longer in trissyllable.

Will you return as hard ones if I call t'ye?

I chose those rhymes out for their difficulty;

1 England.

2 The fact may be true; but the rhyme cost me some trouble. Swift.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY,

MARCH 13, 1718-19.

STELLA this day is thirty-four
(We sha' n't dispute a year or more):
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green:
So little is thy form declin'd;
Made up so largely in thy mind.

Oh, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit!
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
With half the lustre of your eyes,
With half your wit, your years, and size.
And then, before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate
(That either nymph might have her swain)
To split my worship too in twain !

DR. SHERIDAN TO DR. SWIFT.

1719.

DEAR Dean, since in cruxes and puns you and I deal,
Pray why is a woman a sieve and a riddle?
"Tis a thought that came into my noddle this morning,
In bed as I lay, sir, a-tossing and turning.
You'll find, if you read but a few of your histories,
All women as Eve, all women are mysteries.
To find out this riddle I know you 'll be eager,
And make every one of the sex a Belphegor.
But that will not do, for I mean to commend them:
I swear without jest, I an honour intend them.
In a sieve, sir, their antient extraction I quite tell,
In a riddle I give you their power and their title.
This I told you before: do you know what I mean, sir?
"Not I, by my troth, sir."-Then read it again, sir.
The reason I send you these lines of rhymes double,
Is purely through pity, to save you the trouble
Of thinking two hours for a rhyme as you did last;
When your Pegasus canter'd it triple, and rid fast.
As for my little nag, which I keep at Parnassus,
With Phoebus's leave, to run with his asses,
He goes slow and sure, and he never is jaded,
While your fiery steed is whipp'd, spurr'd, bas-
tinaded.

THE DEAN'S ANSWER.

In reading your letter alone in my hackney,
Your damnable riddle my poor brains did rack nigh.

And when with much labour the matter I crackt,
I found you mistaken in matter of fact.

A woman 's no sieve (for with that you begin), Because she lets out more than e'er she takes in. And that she's a riddle, can never be right, For a riddie is dark, but a woman is light. But, grant her a sieve, I can say something archer: Pray what is a man? he's a fine linen searcher.

Now tell me a thing that wants interpretation, What name for a maid, was the first man's damnation?

If your worship will please to explain me this rebus
I swearfrom hence forward you shall be my Phœbus1
From my hackney-coach, Sept. 11,
1719, past 12 at noon.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1720.

ALL travellers at first incline
Where-e'er they see the fairest sign;
And, if they find the chambers neat,
And like the liquor and the meat,
Will call again, and recommend
The Angel-inn to every friend.
What though the painting grows decay'd,
The house will never lose its trade:
Nay, though the treacherous tapster Thomas
Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,
As fine as daubers' hands can make it,
In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
We think it both a shame and sin
To quit the true old Angel-inn.

Now this is Stella's case in fact,
An angel's face a little crack'd
(Could poets or could painters fix
This drew us in at first to find
How angels look at thirty six):
And every virtue now supplies
In such a form an angel's mind;
See at her levee crowding swains,
The fainting rays of Stella's eyes.
Whom Stella freely entertains
With breeding, humour, wit, and sense;
And puts them but to small expense;
Their mind so plentifully fills,
And makes such reasonable bills,
So little gets for what she gives,
We really wonder how she lives!
And, had her stock been less, no doubt
She must have long ago run out.

Then who can think we 'll quit the place,
When Doll hangs out a newer face?
Or stop and light at Cloe's head,
With scraps and leavings to be fed ?

Then, Cloe, still go on to prate
Of thirty-six and thirty-eight;
Pursue your trade of scandal-picking,
Your hints that Stella is no chicken;
Your innuendos, when you tell us,
That Stella loves to talk with fellows:
And let me warn you to believe

A truth, for which your soul should grieve;
That, should you live to see the day
When Stella's locks must all be grey,
On every feature of her face;
When age must print a furrow'd trace

Though you, and all your senseless tribe,
Could art, or time, or nature bribe,
To make you look like beauty's queen,
And hold for ever at fifteen;

No bloom of youth can ever blind
The cracks and wrinkles of your mind:
All men of sense will pass your door,
And crowd to Stella's at fourscore.

1 Vir Gin, Man-trap.