Where Tafte would want its first great law,
But for the fkulking, fly ha-ha;
By whofe miraculous affistance
You gain a profpect two fields distance.
And now from Hyde-park Corner come
The Gods of Athens and of Rome.
Here fquabby Cupids take their places,
With Venus, and the clumfy Graces;
Apollo there, with aim fo clever,
Stretches his leaden bow for ever;
And there, without the pow'r to fly,
Stands fix'd a tip toe Mercury.

The villa thus compleatly grac'd,
All own, that Thrifty has a taite;
And Madam's female friends and cousins,
With common-council-men, by dozens,
Flock ev'ry Sunday to the feat,
To ftare about them, and to eat.

5. Report of an adjudged Cafe, not to be found
COWPER.
in any of the Books.
ETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest
arofe,

BERENGER.

Taken from bis Works. Naturâ ipfâ valere, et mentis viribus excitari, et quafi quodam divino spiritu afflari.

$6. On the Birth-Day of Shakespeare. A Cento. § 9. On a Spider. DR. LITTLETON.
ARTIST, who underneath my table
Thy curious texture haft difplay'd!
Who, if we may believe the fable,
Wert once a lovely blooming maid!
Infidious, reftlefs, watchful fpider,

-PEACE to this meeting!

Joy and fair time, health and good wishes!
Now, worthy friends, the caufe why we are met
Is in celebration of the day that gave
Immortal Shakespeare to this favour'd ifle,
The most replenished fweet work of nature,
Which from the prime creation e'er the fram'd.
O thou divine Nature! how thyself thou

blazon't

In this thy fon! form'd in thy prodigality,
To hold thy mirror up, and give the time
Its very form and preffure! When he speaks
Each aged ear plays truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished,
So voluble is his difcour e-Gentle
As Zephyr blowing underneath the violet,
Not wagging its sweet head-yet as rough
(His noble blood enchaff'd) as the rude wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him toop to th`vale.-'Tis wonderful
That an invitible instinct should frame him
To loyalty, unlearn'd; honour untaught ;
Civility not feen in other; knowledge
That wildly grows in him, but yields a crop
As if it had been fown. What a piece of work!
How noble in faculty! infinite in reafon!
A combination and a form indeed,

Where every God did feem to fet his feal!

Fear no officious damfel's broom;
Extend thy artful fabric wider,

And spread thy banners round my room.
Swept from the rich man's coftly ceiling,
Here may'ft thou find a peaceful dwelling,
Thou'rt welcome to my homely reof;
And undisturb'd attend thy woof.
Whilst I thy wond'rous fabric ftare at,
And think on hapless poet's fate;
Like thee confin'd to lonely garret,
And rudely banish'd rooms of ftate.
And as from out thy tortur'd body
Thou draw it thy fiender ftring with pain;
So does he labour, like a noddy,

To fpin materials from his brain.
He for fome fluttering tawdry creature,
That spreads her charms before his eye;
And that's a conquest little better

Than thine o'er captive butterfly.
Thus far 'tis plain we both agree,
Perhaps our deaths may better fhew it;
'Tis ten to one but penury

Ends both the spider and the poet.

Heav'n has him now-yet let our idolatrous § 10 The Extent of Cookery. SHENSTONE.

Still fanctify his relicks; and this day
Stand aye diftinguish'd in the kalendar
To the laft fyllable of recorded time:
For, if we take him but for all in all,
We ne'er fhall look upon his like again.

TEL

[fancy

7. On the Invention of Letters.
ELL me what Genius did the art invent,
The lively image of the voice to paint ;
Who firft the fecret how to colour found,
And to give fhape to reafon, wifely found;
With bodies how to clothe ideas, taught;
And how to draw the picture of a thought:
Who taught the hand to fpeak, the eye to hear
A filent language roving far and near; [found,
Whofe fofteft noife outstrips loud thunder's
And spreads her accents through the world's vaft
round;

A voice heard by the deaf, fpoke by the dumb,
Whofe echo reaches long, long time to come;
Which dead men fpeak, as well as those alive-
Tell me what Genius did this art contrive.

-Aliufque et Idem.

WHEN Tom to Cambridge first was fent,
A plain brown bob he wore,

Read much, and look'd as tho' he meant
To be a top no more.

See him to Lincoln's Inn repair,
His refolution flag ;

He cherishes a length of hair,
And tucks it in a bag.
Nor Coke nor Salkeld he regards,

But gets into the house;
And foon a Judge's rank rewards

His pliant votes and bows.
Adieu, ye hobs! ye bags give place!
Full-bottoms come instead!
Good Lord! to fee the various ways
Of dressing—a calf's head.
§ 11. Slender's Ghoft.

SHENSTONE.
-Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.

BENEATH a church-yard yew,

Decay'd and worn with age,
At dusk of eve, methought I spy'd
Poor Slender's ghoft, that whimpering cry'd,
O fweet! O fweet Anne Page!
Ye gentle bards, give car!

Who talk of amorous rage,
Who fpoil the lily, rob the rofe;
Come learn of me to weep your woes;
O fweet! O fweet Anne Page!

Why

12. Hamlet's Soliloquy, imitated. JAGO. To print, or not to print-that is the question. Whether 'tis better in a trunk to bury The quirks and crotchets of outrageous Fancy, Or fend a well wrote copy to the prefs, And by difclofing, end them. To print, to doubt No more; and by one act to fay we end The head-ach, and a thousand natural fhocks Of fcribbling frenzy-'tis a confummation Devoutly to be with'd. To print—to beam From the fame fhelf withPope, in calf well bound: To fleep, perchance, with Quarles-Ay, there's the rub

For to what class a writer may be doom'd, When he hath shuffled off some paltry stuff, Must give us paufe. There's the refpect that

Th' unwilling poet keep his piece nine years.
For who would bear th' impatient thirst of fame,
The pride of conscious merit, and, 'bove all,
The tedious importunity of friends,
When as himself might his quietus make
With a bare inkhorn? Who would fardles bear,
To groan and sweat under a load of wit,
But that the tread of steep Parnaffus' hill,
(That undiscover'd country, with whose bays
Few travellers return) puzzles the will,
And make us rather bear to live unknown,
Than run the hazard to be known, and damn'd?
Thus critics do make cowards of us all ;
And thus the healthful face of many a poem
Is fickly'd o'er with a pale manufcript;
And enterprizes of great fire and fpirit
With this regard from Dodfley turn away,
And lofe the name of Authors.

Give forrow and revenge their scope,
My prefent joy, your future hope,
Lies murder'd in his cage.

Matzel's no more; ye graces, loves,
Ye linnets, nightingales, and doves,
Attend the untimely bier;

Let every forrow be exprcft,

Beat with your wings each mournful breast,
And drop the natʼral tear.

In height of fong, in beauty's pride,
By fell Grimalkin's claws he died-

But vengeance hall have way;
On pains and tortures I'll refine;
Yet, Matzel, that one death of thine,
His nine will ill repay.

For thee, my bird, the facred Nine,
Who lov'd thy tuneful notes, fhall join
In thy funereal verse :
My painful task shall be to write
Th' eternal dirge which they indite,
And hang it on thy hearie.

In vain I lov'd, in vain I mourn
My bird, who never to return

Is fled to happier shades,
Where Lesbia fhall for him prepare
The place most charming, and most fair,
Of all th' Elyfian glades.

There shall thy notes in cyprefs grove
Soothe wretched ghofts that died for love,
There thall thy plaintive ftrain
Lull impious Phædra's endless grief,
To Procris yield fome fhort relief,
And foften Dido's pain.

'Till Proferpine by chance shall hear
Thy notes, and make thee all her care,

And love thee with my love; While each attendant foul fhall praise The matchless Matzel's tuneful lays, And all his fongs approve.

Pereunt et Imputantur. TO-MORROW, didft thou fay!

Methought I heard Horatio fay, To-morrow. Go to-I will not hear of it-To-morrow! 'Tis a fharper, who takes his penury Against thy plenty-who takes thy ready cash, And pays thee nought but wishes, hopes, and promifes,

And though their flight be filent, and their path
Tracklefs, as the wing'd couriers of the air,
They poft to heav'n, and there record thy folly.
Besaufe, though ftation'd on th' important
Thou, like a fleeping, faithlefs centinel, [watch,
Didft let them país unnotic'd, unimprov`d.
And know, for that thou flumber'dft on the
Thou fhalt be made to answer at the bar [guard,
For every fugitive; and when thou thus
Shalt ftand impleaded at the high tribunal
Of hood-wink'd Juftice, who fhall tell thy audit!
Then stay the prefent inftant, dear Horatio;
Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings.
'Tis of more worth than kingdoms ! far more
precious

Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain.
O let it not elude thy grafp; but, like
The good old patriarch upon record,
Hold the fleet angel faft, until he bless thee.

$17. On Lord Cobham's Gardens. COTTON.
T puzzles much the sages` brains,
Where Eden ftood of yore;
Some place it in Arabia's plains;
Some fay, it is no more.

But Cobham can these tales confute,
As all the curious know;
For he has prov'd beyond dispute,
That Paradife is Stow.

18. To a Child of five Years old. COTTON.

FAIREST flower, all flowers excelling,

Which in Eden's garden grew;
Flowers of Eve's embower'd dwelling
Are, my fair-one, types of you.
Mark, my Polly, how the rofes
Emulate thy damask cheek;
How the bud its fweets difclofes ;
Buds thy opening bloom bespeak.
Lilies are, by plain direction,
Emblems of a double kind;
Emblems of thy fair complexion,
Emblems of thy fairer mind.
But, dear girl, both flowers and beauty
Bloffom, fade, and die away;
Then purfue good fenfe and duty,
Evergreens, that ne'er decay.

$ 19. To Mifs Lucy Fortescue. LYTTELTON.
ONCE by the Mufe alone inspir'd,

I fung my am'rous ftrains:
No ferious love my bofom fir'd;
Yet every tender maid deceiv'd,
The idly mournful tale believ'd,

And wept my fancy'd pains.
But Venus now, to punish me,

The currency of idiots-injurious bankrupt,
That gulls the eafy creditor!-To-morrow!
It is a period no where to be found
In all the hoary registers of Time,
Unless perchance in the fool's calendar,
Wildom difclaims the word, nor holds society
With those who own it. No, my Horatio,
"Tis Fancy's child, and Folly is its father;
Wrought of fuch stuff as dreams are; and baseless
As the fantastic visions of the evening. [ments;
But foft, my friend-arreft the prefent mo-Can accents foft enough inspire,
For be affur'd they all are arrant tell-tales ; Its real flame to tell.

For having feign'd fo well,
Has made my heart fo fond of thee,
That not the whole Aonian quire