Which on their post true sent'nels stand,
The word still waiting of command,
How she shall order them to trickle.
-Thou thinkest love her soul doth tickle.
Poor hedge-sparrow-with fifty dears,
Lickest up her fallacious tears.

Search her scrutoire, man, and then tell us
Who hath most reason to be jealous.

But, in the very fact she's taken;
Now let us hear, to save her bacon,
What Murray, or what Henley can say;
Neither proof positive will gainsay:
It is against the rules of practice;
Nothing to her the naked fact is.
"You know" (she cries) ere I consented
To be, what I have since repented,
It was agreed between us, you
Whatever best you liked should do;
Nor could I, after a long trial,
Persist myself in self-denial."
You at her impudence may wonder,
Invoke the lightning and the thunder:
"You are a man

(she cries) "'tis true;

We have our human frailties too."

Nought bold is like a woman caught,

They gather courage from the fault.

Whence come these prodigies? what fountain,

You ask, produces them? I' th' mountain
The British dames were chaste, no crimes

The cottage stain'd in elder times;

Tecta labor, somnique breves, et vellere Thusco
Vexatæ, duræque manus, ac proximus urbi
Hannibal, et stantes Collina in turre mariti.
Nunc patimur longæ pacis mala: sævior armis
Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem.1
Nullum crimen abest, facinusque libidinis, ex quo
Paupertas Romana perit: hinc fluxit ad istos.
Et Sybaris colles, hinc et Rhodos, atque Miletos,
Atque coronatum, et petulans, madidumque Tarentum.
Prima peregrinos obscoena pecunia mores

Intulit, et turpi fregerunt secula luxu
Divitiæ molles.-

1

1 Eximiæ sunt hi versus notæ, et vix satis laudandi.

When the laborious wife slept little,
Spun wool, and boil'd her husband's kettle;
When the Armada frighten'd Kent,

And good Queen Bessy pitch'd her tent.

Now from security we feel

More ills than threaten'd us from steel;
Severer luxury abounds,

Avenging France of all her wounds.
When our old British plainness left us,
Of every virtue it bereft us:

And we've imported from all climes,

All sorts of wickedness and crimes:

French finery, Italian meats,

With German drunkenness, Dutch cheats.

Money's the source of all our woes;

Money! whence luxury o'erflows,

And in a torrent, like the Nile,

Bears off the virtues of this isle.

We shall here close our translation of this satire; for as the remainder is in many places too obscene for chaste ears; so, to the honour of the English ladies, the Latin is by no means applicable to them, nor indeed capable of being modernised.

TO MISS H-AND AT BATH

WRITTEN EXTEMPORE IN THE PUMP-ROOM, 1742

SOON shall these bounteous springs thy wish bestow,
Soon in each feature sprightly health shall glow;
Thy eyes regain their fire, thy limbs their grace,
And roses join the lilies in thy face.

But say, sweet maid, what waters can remove
The pangs of cold despair, of hopeless love?
The deadly star which lights th' autumnal skies
Shines not so bright, so fatal, as those eyes.
The pains which from their influence we endure,
Not Brewster, glory of his art, can cure.

PLAIN TRUTH

As Bathian Venus t'other day
Invited all the Gods to tea,

Her maids of honour, the miss Graces,
Attending duely in their places,
Their godships gave a loose to mirth,
As we at Butt'ring's here on earth.
Minerva in her usual way

Rallied the daughter of the sea.
Madam, said she, your lov'd resort,
The city where you hold your court,
Is lately fallen from its duty,
And triumphs more in wit than beauty;
For here, she cried; see here a poem-
"Tis Dalston's; you, Apollo, know him,
Little persuasion sure invites

Pallas to read what Dalston writes:
Nay, I have heard that in Parnassus
For truth a current whisper passes,
That Dalston sometimes has been known
To publish her works as his own.
Minerva read, and every God
Approv'd-Jove gave the critic nod;
Apollo and the sacred Nine

Were charm'd, and smil'd at ev'ry line;
And Mars, who little understood,
Swore, d-n him, if it was not good.
Venus alone sat all the while

Silent, nor deign'd a single smile.