CARD. But of what marble must that breast
To gaze on Basset, and remain unwarm'd?
When kings, queens, knaves, are set in decent rank,
Expos'd in glorious heaps the tempting bank,
Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train,
The winner's pleasure, and the loser's pain;
In bright confusion open rouleaus lie,
They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye:
Fir'd by the sight, all reason I disdain,
My passions rise, and will not bear the rein.
Look upon Basset, you who reason boast,
And see if reason must not there be lost.
SMIL. What more than marble must that heart
Can hearken coldly to my Sharper's vows?
Then when he trembles! when his blushes rise!
When awful love seems melting in his eyes!
With eager beats his Mechlin cravat moves:
He loves-I whisper to myself, He loves!
Such unfeign'd passion in his looks appears,
I lose all memory of my former fears;
My panting heart confesses all his charms,
I yield at once, and sink into his arms.
Think of that moment, you who prudence boast;
For such a moment prudence well were lost.
CARD. At the Groom-porter's batter'd bullies play,
Some dukes at Mary-bone bowl time away;
But who the bowl or rattling dice compares
To Basset's heavenly joys and pleasing cares?
SMIL. Soft Simplicetta dotes upon a beau; Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show : Their several graces in my Sharper meet, Strong as the footman, as the master sweet. Lov. Cease your contention, which has been too long;
I grow impatient, and the tea's too strong.
Attend, and yield to what I now decide;
The equipage shall grace Smilinda's side;
The snuffbox to Cardelia I decree;
Now leave complaining, and begin your tea.
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 remov'd 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.”
ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF
Seen with wit and beauty seldom.
"Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis (no, 'tis n't) like Miss Meadows.
"Tis a virgin hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise,
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell1 and you.
LINES OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
MUSE, 'tis enough, at length thy labour ends,
And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail;
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and malice from this hour are friends.
1 Miss Lepell, maid of honour to Queen Caroline, and afterwards Lady Hervey.
PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON'S CATO.
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying love, we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause,
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws :
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
E'en when proud Cæsar midst triumphal cars, The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars, Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead father's reverend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast;
The triumph ceas'd, tears gush'd from every eye;
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her last good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæsar's less than Cato's sword.
Britons, attend: be worth like this approv❜d,
And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she sub-
Your scene precariously subsists too long [dued:
On French translation and Italian song.
Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage,
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.
EPILOGUE TO MR. ROWE'S JANE SHORE.
DESIGNED FOR MRS. OLDFIELD.
PRODIGIOUS this! the frail one of our play From her own sex should mercy find to-day! You might have held the pretty head aside, Peep'd in your fans, been serious, thus, and cried,
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