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Tuscan and French are in my head;
Latin I write, and Greek I-read.

If you should ask, what pleases best? To get the most and do the least;

What fittest for?

I'm fittest for a

-you know, I'm sure, -sinecure.

TO THE SAME. ANNO 1731

GREAT Sir, as on each levée day
I still attend you-still you say
I'm busy now, to-morrow come;
To-morrow, sir, you're not at home.
So says your porter, and dare I
Give such a man as him the lie?

In imitation, sir, of you,

I keep a mighty levée too;

Where my attendants, to their sorrow,
Are bid to come again to-morrow.
To-morrow they return, no doubt,
And then like you, sir, I'm gone out.
So says my maid-but they, less civil,
Give maid and master to the devil;
And then with menaces depart,

Which could you hear would pierce your heart.

Good sir, or make my levée fly me,

Or lend your porter to deny me.

WRITTEN EXTEMPORE ON A HALFPENNY

Which a young lady gave a beggar, and the author redeemed for half-a-crown

DEAR little, pretty, fav'rite ore,
That once increased Gloriana's store;
That lay within her bosom bless'd,
Gods might have envied thee thy nest.
I've read, imperial Jove of old
For love transform'd himself to gold:
And why, for a more lovely lass,
May he not now have lurk'd in brass;
O! rather than from her he'd part,
He'd shut that charitable heart,
That heart whose goodness nothing less
Than his vast power could dispossess.

From Gloriana's gentle touch

Thy mighty value now is such,
That thou to me art worth alone
More than his medals are to Sloan.

Not for the silver and the gold
Which Corinth lost shouldst thou be sold:
Not for the envied mighty mass
Which misers wish, or M-h has:
Not for what India sends to Spain,
Nor all the riches of the Main.

While I possess thy little store,
Let no man call, or think me, poor;
Thee, while alive, my breast shall have,
My hand shall grasp thee in the grave:
Nor shalt thou be to Peter given,

Tho' he should keep me out of Heaven.1

'In allusion to the custom of Peter Pence, used by the Roman Catholics.

THE BEGGAR

A SONG

I.

WHILE cruel to your wishing slave, You still refuse the boon I crave, Confess, what joy that precious pearl Conveys to thee, my lovely girl?

II.

Dost thou not act the miser's part, Who with an aching, lab'ring heart, Counts the dull, joyless, shining store, Which he refuses to the poor?

III.

Confess then, my too lovely maid, Nor blush to see thy thoughts betray'd; What, parted with, gives heaven to me; Kept, is but pain and grief to thee.

IV.

Be charitable then, and dare Bestow the treasure you can spare; And trust the joys which you afford Will to yourself be sure restored.

AN EPIGRAM

WHEN Jove with fair Alcmena lay, He kept the sun a-bed all day;

That he might taste her wond'rous charms, Two nights together in her arms.

Were I of Celia's charms possess'd,

Melting on that delicious breast,

And could, like Jove, thy beams restrain,
Sun, thou shouldst never rise again;
Unsated with the luscious bliss,
I'd taste one dear eternal kiss.

THE QUESTION

IN Celia's arms while bless'd I lay,
My soul in bliss dissolved away:

"Tell me," the charmer cried, "how well
You love your Celia; Strephon, tell?"
Kissing her glowing, burning cheek,
"I'll tell," I cried-but could not speak.
At length my voice return'd, and she
Again began to question me.

I pulled her to my breast again,
And tried to answer, but in vain:
Short falt'ring accents from me broke,
And my voice fail'd before I spoke.
The charmer, pitying my distress,
Gave me the tenderest caress,

And sighing cried, "You need not tell;
Oh! Strephon, oh! I feel how well."

JN WTS AT A PLAY

WHILE hisses, groans, cat-calls thro' the pit, Deplore the hapless poet's want of wit:

J-n W-ts, from silence bursting in a rage, Cried, "Men are mad who write in such an age." "Not so,” replied his friend, a sneering blade, "The poet's only dull, the printer's mad."

TO CELIA

I HATE the town and all its ways;
Ridottos, operas, and plays;

The ball, the ring, the mall, the court;
Wherever the beau-monde resort;

Where beauties lie in ambush for folks,
Earl Straffords, and the Duke of Norfolks;
All coffee-houses, and their praters;

All courts of justice, and debaters;
All taverns, and the sots within 'em;
All bubbles and the rogues that skin 'em.
I hate all critics; may they burn all,
From Bentley to the Grub Street Journal.
All bards, as Dennis hates a pun:
Those who have wit, and who have none.
All nobles, of whatever station;
And all the parsons in the nation.
All quacks and doctors read in physic,
Who kill or cure a man that is sick.
All authors that were ever heard on,
From Bavius up to Tommy Gordon;
Tradesmen with cringes ever stealing,
And merchants, whatsoe'er they deal in.
I hate the blades professing slaughter,
More than the devil holy water.
I hate all scholars, beaus, and squires;
Pimps, puppies, parasites, and liars.
All courtiers, with their looks so smooth;
And players, from Boheme to Booth.
I hate the world, cramm'd all together,
From beggars, up the Lord knows whither.

Ask you then, Celia, if there be
The thing I love? My charmer, thee.
Thee more than light, than life adore,
Thou dearest, sweetest creature more

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