ON MRS. TOFTS,

A CELEBRATED OPERA SINGER.

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along :

But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, That the beasts must have starved, and the poet have died.

THE BALANCE OF EUROPE.

Now Europe's balanced, neither side prevails; For nothing's left in either of the scales.

EPITAPH.

APPLIED TO F. C.

HERE Francis Chartres lies: be civil!
The rest God knows—perhaps the devil.*

EPIGRAM.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come :
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

* Pope also applied this epitaph to Lord Coningsby, thus:Here lies Lord Coningsby,' &c.

EPIGRAM FROM THE FRENCH.

SIR, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool:

But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

EPITAPH ON GAY.

WELL, then, poor Gay lies under ground!
So there's an end of honest Jack.

So little justice here he found,

"Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

ON ONE WHO MADE LONG EPITAPHS.*
FRIEND, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,
Where still so much is said;
One half will never be believed,

The other never read.

ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB,†
ANNO 1716.

WHENCE deathless Kit-Cat' took its name,
Few critics can unriddle:

Some say from 'pastry-cook' it came,

And some from cat' and 'fiddle.'

From no trim beaux its name it boasts,
Grey statesmen, or green wits;
But from his pellmell pack of toasts
Of old cats' and young 'kits.'

Dr. Robert Friend, head master of Westminster.

+ The Kit-Cat Club, sometimes said to have derived its

name from Christopher Kat, a pastry-cook.

ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG

WHICH I GAVE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS.

I AM his highness's dog at Kew:
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

TO A LADY,

WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME.'

WHAT'S fame with men, by custom of the nation, Is call'd, in women, only reputation:

About them both why keep we such a pother? Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

ON BENTLEY'S MILTON.'

DID Milton's prose, O Charles! thy death defend? A furious foe unconscious proves a friend.

On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know, A weak, officious friend becomes a foe.

While he but sought his author's fame to further, The murderous critic has avenged thy murther.

ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE

DRAWN BY LADY BURLINGTON.

PEACE, flattering Bishop!* lying Dean !+
This portrait only paints the Queen.

*Bishop Gilbert.

Dr. Alured Clarke

L L

ON CERTAIN LADIES.

WHEN other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavia, Delia, stay in town;
Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt those places where their honour died.

ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES,

MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?

'Twas friendship, warm as Phoebus, kind as love, And strong as Hercules.

EPIGRAM.

My Lord complains that Pope, stark mad with gardens,

Has cut three trees, the value of three farthings. "But he's my neighbour," cries the peer polite : "And if he visit me, I'll waive the right." What! on compulsion, and against my will, A lord's acquaintance? Let him file his bill!

EPIGRAM.

YES! 'tis the time (I cried), impose the chain,
Destined and due to wretches self-enslaved ;
But when I saw such charity remain,

I half could wish this people should be saved.
Faith lost, and Hope, our Charity begins;
And 'tis a wise design in pitying Heaven.

If this can cover multitude of sins,
I stake the only way to be forgiven.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

'Un jour, dit un auteur,' &c.

ONCE (says an author-where, I need not say),
Two travellers found an oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew
strong,

While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife removed so rarely well,-
"There, take,' says Justice, 'take ye each a shell:
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:
'Twas a fat oyster-live in peace-adieu !'

ON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S
HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK.

'Atria longa patent; sed nec cœnantibus usquam,
Nec somno locus est: quam bene non habites!'

SEE, sir, here's the grand approach;
This way is for his grace's coach;

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MARTIAL.

There lies the bridge, and here's the clock;
Observe the lion and the cock;

The spacious court, the colonnade;

And mark how wide the hall is made!
The chimneys are so well design'd,
They never smoke in any wind:
This gallery's contrived for walking,
The windows to retire and talk in ;
The council chamber for debate ;
And all the rest are rooms of state.'

'Thanks, sir,' cried I; ''tis very fine;
But where d'ye sleep, or where d'ye dine?
I find, by all you have been telling,
That 'tis a house, but not a dwelling.'

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