TO THE MASTER OF THE

SALISBURY ASSEMBLY

Occasioned by a dispute whether the company should have fresh candles

TAKE your candles away, let your music be mute,

My dancing, however, you shall not dispute;

Jenny's eyes shall find light, and I'll find a flute.

THE CAT AND FIDDLE

TO THE

FAVOURITE CAT OF A FIDDLING MISER

THRICE happy cat, if, in thy A House,
Thou luckily shouldst find a half-starved mouse;
The mice, that only for his music stay,
Are proofs that Orpheus did not better play.
Thou too, if danger could alarm thy fears,
Hast to this Orpheus strangely tied thy ears:
For oh the fatal time will come, when he,
Prudent, will make his fiddle-strings of thee.

THE Queen of Beauty, t'other day
(As the Elysian journals say),
To ease herself of all her cares,
And better carry on affairs;
By privy-council moved above,
And Cupid minister of love,

To keep the earth in due obedience,
Resolved to substitute vice-regents;
To canton out her subject lands,
And give the fairest the commands.

She spoke, and to the earth's far borders Young Cupid issued out his orders, That every nymph in its dimensions Shall bring or send up her pretensions. Like lightning swift the order flies, Or swifter glance from Celia's eyes: Like wit from sparkling W-tley's tongue; Or harmony from Pope, or Young. Why should I sing what letters came; Who boasts her face, or who her frame? From black and brown, and red, and fair, With eyes and teeth, and lips and hair. One, fifty hidden charms discovers; A second boasts as many lovers: This beauty all mankind adore; And this all women envy more. This witnesses, by billets doux, A thousand praises, and all true; While that by jewels makes pretences To triumph over kings and princes; Bribing the goddess by that pelf, By which she once was bribed herself. So borough towns, election brought on. Ere yet corruption bill was thought on. Sir Knight, to gain the voters' favour, Boasts of his former good behaviour; Of speeches in the Senate made; Love for its country, and its trade. And, for a proof of zeal unshaken, Distributes bribes he once had taken. What matters who the prizes gain, In India, Italy, or Spain;

Or who requires the brown commanders

Of Holland, Germany, and Flanders!
Thou, Britain, on my labours smile,
The Queen of Beauty's favoured isle;
Whom she long since hath prized above
The Paphian, or the Cyprian grove.
And here, who ask the muse to tell,
That the court lot to R- -chmond fell?
Or who so ignorant as wants

To know that S-per's chose for Hants?
Sarum, thy candidates be named,

Sarum, for beauties ever famed,
Whose nymphs excel all beauty's flowers,
As thy high steeple doth all towers.
The court was placed in manner fitting;
Venus upon the bench was sitting;
Cupid was secretary made.
The crier an O Yes display'd;
Like mortal crier's loud alarum,
Bring in petitions from New Sarum.
1 When lo, in bright celestial state,
Jove came and thunder'd at the gate.
"And can you, daughter, doubt to whom
(He cried) belongs the happy doom,
While Ccks yet make bless'd the earth,
C―cks, who long before their birth,
I, by your own petition moved,
Decreed to be by all beloved.
Ccks, to whose celestial dower
I gave all beauties in my power;
To form whose lovely minds and faces,

I stripp'd half heaven of its graces.

'The middle part of this poem (which was written when the author was very young) was filled with the names of several young ladies, who might perhaps be uneasy at seeing themselves in print, that part therefore is left out; the rather, as some freedoms, though gentle ones, were taken with little foibles in the amiable sex, whom to affront in print, is, we conceive, mean in any man, and scandalous in a gentleman.

Oh let them bear an equal sway,
So shall mankind well-pleased obey."
The god thus spoke, the goddess bow'd;
Her rising blushes straight avow'd
Her hapless memory and shame,
And Cupid glad writ down their name.

A PARODY

FROM THE FIRST ÆNEID

DIXIT; et avertens rosea cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere: pedes vestis defluxit ad imos,
Et vera incessu patuit Dea.-

She said; and turning, show'd her wrinkled neck, In scales and colour like a roach's back.

Forth from her greasy locks such odours flow,
As those who've smelt Dutch coffee-houses know.
To her mid-leg her petticoat was rear'd,
And the true slattern in her dress appear'd.

A SIMILE

FROM SILIUS ITALICUS

AUT ubi cecropius formidine nubis aquosæ
Sparsa super flores examina tollit Hymettos;
Ad dulces ceras et odori corticis antra,
Mellis apes gravidæ properant, densoque volatu
Raucum connexæ glomerant ad limina murmur.

Or when th' Hymettian shepherd, struck with fear
Of wat❜ry clouds thick gather'd in the air,
Collects to waxen cells the scatter'd bees

Home from the sweetest flowers, and verdant trees;
Loaded with honey to the hive they fly,
And humming murmurs buzz along the sky.

TO EUTHALIA

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1728

BURNING with love, tormented with despair
Unable to forget or ease his care;
In vain each practised art Alexis tries;
In vain to books, to wine or women flies;
Each brings Euthalia's image to his eyes.
In Locke's or Newton's page her learning glows;
Dryden the sweetness of her numbers shows;
In all their various excellence I find

The various beauties of her perfect mind.
How vain in wine a short relief I boast!
Each sparkling glass recalls my charming toast.
To women then successless I repair,

Engage the young, the witty, and the fair.
When Sappho's wit each envious breast alarms,
And Rosalinda looks ten thousand charms;
In vain to them my restless thoughts would run;
Like fairest stars, they show the absent sun.