I hear the beat of Jacob's3 drums, In haste without his garter. Then lords and lordlings, 'squires and knights, Garth at St. James's, and at White's, What Fenton will not do, nor Gay, If justice Philips' costive head They shall like Persian tales be read, Let Warwick's Muse with Ash-t join, And Pope translate with Jervas. L- himself, that lively lord, 3 Old Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the Metamorphoses. • Perhaps Pembroke. Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen ; you Now, Tonson, list thy forces all, Review them and tell noses: A metamorphosis more strange Than all his books can vapour "To what (quoth 'squire) shall Ovid change?" Quoth Sandys, "To waste paper." UMBRA.' CLOSE to the best known author Umbra sits, The constant index to old Button's wits, "Who's here ?" cries Umbra: "Only Johnson."2 -"O! Your slave," and exit; but returns with Rowe : 1 Intended, it is said, for Ambrose Philips But cries as soon, "Dear Dick, I must be gone, For, if I know his tread, here's Addison." SYLVIA, A FRAGMENT.' SYLVIA my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd, Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs, Introduced, with some alterations, into the Second of the Moral Epistles, Of the Characters of Women Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; every woman's in her soul a rake. But Frail, feverish sex; their fit now chills, now burns: Atheism and superstition rule by turns; And a mere heathen in the carnal part, Is still a sad good Christian at her heart. IMPROMPTU, TO LADY WINCHELSEA.1 OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS, IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. IN vain you boast poetic names of yore, And cite those Sapphos we admire no more: Fate doom'd the fall of every female wit; But doom'd it then, when first Ardelia writ. Of all examples by the world confess'd, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her mistress on Britannia's throne, Fights and subdues in quarrels not her own. To write their praise you but in vain essay; E'en while you write, you take that praise away: Light to the stars the sun does thus restore, But shines himself till they are seen no more. 1 Authoress of a volume of poems, some of which possess very great merit. EPIGRAM. A BISHOP by his neighbours hated I'll lay my life I know the place : 'Tis where God sent some that adore him, And whither Enoch went before him. EPIGRAM, ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL AND BONONCINI. STRANGE all this difference should be "Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee! ON MRS. TOFTS, A CELEBRATED OPERA 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 starv'd, and the poet have died. |