But can your earthly domes compare
To all my castles in the air?

We're often taught it doth behove us
To think those greater who're above us.
Another instance of my glory,

Who live above you twice two story,
And from my garret can look down
On the whole street of Arlington.1

Greatness by poets still is painted,
With many followers acquainted;
This too doth in my favour speak,
Your levée is but twice a week;
From mine I can exclude but one day,
My door is quiet on a Sunday.

Nor in the manner of attendance Doth your great bard claim less ascendance. Familiar you to admiration,

May be approach'd by all the nation:

While I, like the Mogul in Indo,

Am never seen but at my window.

If with my greatness your offended,

The fault is easily amended,

For I'll come down with wond'rous ease,

Into whatever place you please.

I'm not ambitious; little matters

Will serve us great, but humble creatures.
Suppose a secretary o' this isle,
Just to be doing with a while;
Admiral, gen'ral, judge, or bishop;
Or I can foreign treaties dish up.
If the good genius of the nation
Should call me to negotiation;

Where Lord Orford then lived.

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.

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."