Nor wilt thou of gifts be fparing,
Which can ne'er be worfe for wearing.
Picking wit among collegians,
In the play houfe upper regions;
Where, in eighteen-penny gallery,
Irish nymphs learn Irish raillery:
But thy merit is thy failing,
And thy raillery is railing.
Thus with talents well endued
To be fcurrilous and rude;
When you pertly raife your fnout,
Fleer, and gibe, and laugh, and flout;
This among Hibernian affes
For fheer wit and humour paffes.
Thus indulgent Chloe, bit,
: Swears you have a world of wit.
DEATH AND DAPHNE.
TO AN AGREEABLE YOUNG LADY, BUT EXTREMELY LEAN. 1730.
DEATH went upon a folemn day
At Pluto's hall his court to pay :
The phantom, having humbly kist
His grifly monarch's footy fift,
Prefented him the weekly bills
Of doctors, fevers, plagues, and pills.
Pluto, obferving fince the peace
The burial-article decrease,
And, vext to fee affairs mifcarry,
Declar'd in council, Death muft marry;
Vow'd he no longer could fupport
Old batchelors about his court;
The intereft of his realm had need
That Death fhould get a numerous breed;
Young Deathlings, who, by practice made
Proficient in their father's trade,
With colonies might flock around
His large dominions under ground.
A confult of coquettes below
Was call'd, to rig him out a beau;
From her own head Megara takes
A periwig of twitted fakes;
Which in the niceft fathion curl'd
(Like toupets of this upper world),
With flour of fulphur powder'd well,
That graceful on his thoulders fell;
An adder of the fable kind
In line direct hung down behind,
The owl, the raven, and the bat,
Clubb'd for a feather to his hat;
His coat, an ufurer's velvet pall,
Bequeath'd to Pluto, corpfe and all,
Bat, Loth his perfon to expofe
Bare, like a carcate pickt by crows,
A lawyer o'er his hands and face
Stuck artfully a parchment-cafe,
No new-fluxt Take fhew'd fairer fkin;
Nor Phyllis after lying-in,
With fnuff was fill'd his ebon box
"Of fhin-bones rotted by the pox.
Nine fpirits of blafpheming fops
"With aconite anoint his chops;
And give him words of dreadful founds,
G-dd his blood! and B-d and wds!
Thus furnish'd out, he fent his train
To take a houfe in Warwick-lane:
The faculty, his humble friends,
A complimental meffage fends :
Their prefident in fcarlet gown
Harangued, and welcom'd him to town.
But Death had bufinefs to difpatch;
His mind was running on his match.
And, hearing much of Daphne's fame,
His majefly of terrors came,
Fine as a colonel of the guards,
To vifit where fhe fate at cards:
She, as he came into the room,
Thought him Adonis in his bloom.
And now her heart with pleafure jumps;
She fearce remembers what is trumps;
For fuch a fhape of fkin and bone
Was never feen, except her own:
Charm'd with his eyes, and chin, and fhout,
Her pocket-glafs drew flily out;
And grew enamour'd with her phiz,
As juft the counterpart of his.
She darted many a private glance,
And freely made the firft advance;
Was of her beauty grown fo vain,
She doubted not to win the fwain.
Nothing the thought could fooner gain him,
Than with her wit to entertain him.
She afk'd about her friends below;
This meagre fop, that batter'd beau:
Whether fome late departed toasts
Had got gallants among the ghosts?
If Cloe were a fharper ftill
As great as ever at quadrille ?
(The ladies there muft needs be rooks,
For cards, we know, are Pluto's books!)
If Florimel had found her love,
For whom the hang'd herself above?
How oft' a week was kept a ball
By Proferpine at Pluto's hall?
She fancied thofe Elyfan fhades
The fweeteft place for mafquerades:
How pleafant, on the banks of Styx,
To troll it in a coach and fix!
What pride a female heart inflames!
How endless are ambition's aims!
Ceafe, haughty nymph; the Fates decree
Death must not be a fpoufe for thee:
For, when by chance the meagre fhade
Upon thy hand his finger laid,
Thy hand as dry and cold as lead,
His matrimonial spirit fled;
He felt about his heart a damp,
That quite extinguifh'd Cupid's lamp:
Away the frighted fpectre fcuds,
And leaves my lady in the fuds.
DAPHNE.
DAPHNE knows, with equal eafe,
How to vex and how to please;
But the folly of her fex
Makes her fole delight to vex.
Never woman more devis'd
Surer ways to be despis'd:
Paradoxes weakly wielding,
Always conquer'd, never yielding.
To difpute, her chief delight,
With not one opinion right :
Thick her arguments the lays on,
And with cavils combats reafon;
Answers in decifive way,
Never hears what you can say:
Still her odd perverseness shows
Chiefly where the nothing knows;
And, where she is most familiar,
Always peevisher and fillier:
All her fpirits in a flame
When she knows fhe 's most to blame.
Send me hence ten thousand miles,
From a face that always fmiles :
None could ever a&t that part,
But a Fury in her heart.
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