Ho! master Sam,' quoth Sandys' sprite,
'Write on, nor let me scare ye:
Forsooth, if rhymes fall not in right,
To Budgell seek or Carey.
I hear the beat of Jacob's drums;
Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P- comes
In haste, without his garter:
"Then lords and lordlings, squires and knights,
Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers:
Garth, at St. James's and at White's,
Beats up for volunteers.
• What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnet or Tom D'Urfey may,
John Dunton, Steele, or any one.
"If justice Philips' costive head
Some frigid rhymes disburses:
They shall like Persian tales be read,
And glad both babes and nurses.
'Let Warwick's Muse with Ash—t join,
And Ozell's with lord Hervey's;
Tickell and Addison combine;
And Pope translate with Jervas.
41 Old Jacob Tonson, the editor of the Metamorphoses.' 43 Pembroke, probably.
'L-himself, that lively lord, Who bows to every lady,
Shall join with F— in one accord,
And be like Tate and Brady.
Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen;
where can the hurt lie?
I pray,
Since have brains as well as men,
As witness lady Wortley.
Now, Tonson, list thy forces all;
Review them, and tell noses:
For to poor Ovid shall befall
A strange metamorphosis;
'A metamorphosis more strange Than all his books can vapor
'To what,' quoth squire, 'shall Ovid change?' Quoth Sandys, 'To waste paper.'
CLOSE to the best-known author Umbra sits,
The constant index to old Button's wits.
Your slave,' and exit; but returns with Rowe :
'Dear Rowe, let's sit, and talk of tragedies: 5
Ere long, Pope enters, and to Pope he flies :
Then up comes Steele he turns upon his heel,
And in a moment fastens upon Steele;
But cries as soon, 'Dear Dick, I must be gone;
For, if I know his tread, here's Addison.'
Says Addison to Steele, 'Tis time to go:'
Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.
Poor Umbra, left in this abandon'd pickle,
Ev'n sits him down, and writes to honest Tickell.
Fool! 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam;
Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.
* Curll says, this character was intended to ridicule a very worthy gentleman,' probably Ambrose Philips.
3 Charles Johnson, a second-rate dramatist, and great frequenter of Button's.
SYLVIA my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd;
Awed without sense, and without beauty charm'd :
But some odd graces and some flights she had
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:
Her tongue still ran on credit from her eyes;
More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:
Good nature, she declared it, was her scorn,
Though 'twas by that alone she could be borne:
Affronting all, yet fond of a good name;
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame :
Now coy, and studious in no point to fall;
Now all agog for D――y at a ball:
Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs;
Now drinking citron with his grace and Chartres.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman 's in her soul a rake,
Frail, feverish sex! their fit now chills, now
Atheism and superstition rule by turns;
And, a mere heathen in the carnal part,
Is still a sad good christian at her heart.
20 This character is said to have been designed for the duchess of Hamilton.
OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS, IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.
IN vain you boast poetic names of
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 :
Ev'n 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.
A BISHOP by his neighbors hated
Has cause to wish himself translated;
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem'd by all the nation?
Yet, if it be the old man's case,
I'll lay my life I know the place :
'Tis where God sent some that adore him,
And whither Enoch went before him.
|