Did not the mind unlock her treasure,
And fancy feed on promis'd pleasure.
Delia surveys, with curious eyes,
The clouds collected in the skies;
Wishes no storm may rend the air,
And Tuesday may be dry and fair;
And I look round, my boys, and pray,
That Tuesday may be holiday.
Things duly settled-what remains?
Lo! Tuesday comes-alas! it rains;
And all our visionary schemes
Have died away, like golden dreams.
Once on a time, a rustic dame,
(No matter for the lady's name)
Wrapt up in deep imagination,
Indulg'd her pleasing contemplation;
While on a bench she took her seat,
And plae'd the milk-pail at her feet,
Oft in ber hand she chink'd the pence,
The profits which arose from thence;
While fond ideas fill'd her brain,
Of layings up, and monstrous gain,
Till every penny which she told,
Creative Fancy turn'd to gold;

And reasoning thus from computation,
She spoke aloud her meditation.

"Please Heav'n but to preserve my health, No doubt I shall have store of wealth; It must of consequence ensue

I shall have store of lovers too.

Oh! how I'll break their stubborn hearts,
With all the pride of female arts.
What suitors then will kneel before me!
Lords, earls, and viscounts shall adore me.
When in my gilded coach I ride,
My lady at his lordship's side,
How will I laugh at all I meet
Clatt'ring in pattens down the street!
And Lobbin then I'll mind no more,
Howe'er I lov'd him heretofore;
Or, if he talks of plighted truth,
I will not hear the simple youth,
But rise indignant from my seat,
And spurn the lubber from my feet.”
Action, alas! the speaker's grace,
Ne'er came in more improper place,
For in the tossing forth her shoe,
What fancied bliss the maid o'erthrew!
While down at once, with hideous fall,
Came lovers, wealth, and milk, and all.

Thus fancy ever loves to roam,
To bring the gay materials home;
Imagination forms the dream,
And accident destroys the scheme.

"What did his lordship say?-O! fine! The very thing! bravo! divine!" And then 'tis buzz'd from route to route, While ladies whisper it about, "Well, I protest, a charming hit! His lordship has a deal of wit: How elegant that double sense! Perdigious! vaistly fine! immense!" When all my lord has said or done, Was but the letting off a pun.

Mark the fat eit, whose good round sum,
Amounts at least to half a plumb;
Whose chariot whirls him up and down
Some three or four miles out of town;
For thither sober folks repair,

To take the dust, which they call air.
Dull Folly (not the wanton wild
Imagination's younger child)
Has taken lodgings in his face,
As finding that a vacant place,
And peeping from his windows, tells
To all beholders, where she dwells.
Yet once a week, this purse-proud cit
Shall ape the sallies of a wit,
And after ev'ry Sunday's dinner,
To priestly saint, or city sinner,
Shall tell the story o'er and o'er,
H' has told a thousand times before:
Like gamesters, who, with eager zeal,
Talk the game o'er between the deal.

Mark! how the fools and knaves admire
And chuckle with their Sunday 'squire:
While he looks pleas'd at every guest,
And laughs much louder than the rest;
And cackling with incessant grin,
Triples the double of his chin.

Birth, rank, and wealth, have wond'rous skill;
Make wits and statesmen when they will;
While Genius holds no estimation,

From luckless want of situation;
And, if through clouded scenes of life,
He takes dame Poverty to wife,
Howe'er he work and tease his brain,
His pound of wit scarce weighs a grain;
While with his lordship it abounds,
And one light grain swells out to pounds.
Receive, good sir, with aspect kind,
This wanton gallop of the mind;
But since all things increase in worth,
Proportion'd to their rank and birth;
Lest you should think the letter base,
While I supply the poet's place,
I'll tell you hence and what I am,
My breed, my blood, my sire, my dam.
My sire was Pindar's Eagle, son
Of Pegasus of Helicon;

My dam, the Hippogryph, which whirl'd
Astolpho to the lunar world.

Both high-bred things of mettled blood,
The best in all Apollo's stud.

Now critics here would bid me speak
The old horse language, that is, Greek;
For Homer made us talk, you know,
Almost three thousand years ago;
And men of taste and judgment fine,
Allow the passage is divine.
They were fine mettled things indeed,
And of peculiar strength and breed,
What leaps they took, how far and wide!
-They'd take a country at a stride.

How great each leap, Longinus knew, Who from dimensions ta'en of two, Affirms, with equal ardour whirl'd,

A third, good lord! would clear the world.
But till some learned wight shall show
If accents must be us'd, or no,
A doubt, which puzzles all the wise
Of giant and of pigmy size,

Who waste their time, and fancies vex
With asper, lenis, circumflex,
And talk of mark and punctuation,
As 't were a matter of salvation;
For when your pigmies take the pen
They fancy they grow up to men,
And think they keep the world in awe
By brandishing a very straw;

Till they have clear'd this weighty doubt,
Which they'll be centuries about,
As a plain nag, in homely phrase,
I'll use the language of our days;
And, for this first and only time,
Just make a trot in easy rhyme.

Nor let it shock your thought or sight,
That thus a quadruped should write;
Read but the papers, and you'll see
More prodigies of wit than me;
Grown men and sparrows taught to dance,
By monsieur Passerat from France;
The learned dog, the learned mare,
The learned bird, the learned hare;
And all are fashionable too,
And play at cards as well as you.

Of paper, pen, and ink possess'd,
With faculties of writing blest,
Why should not I then, Hownnyhwm bred
(A word that must be seen, not said)
Rid you of all that anxious care,
Which good folks feel for good and fair,
And which your looks betray'd indeed,
To more discerning eyes of steed;
When in the shape of useful hack,
I bore a poet on my back?

Know, safely rode my master's bride,
The bard before her for my guide.
Yet think not, sir, his awkward care
Ensur'd protection to the fair.
No conscious of the prize I bore,
My wayward footsteps slipt no more.
For though I scorn the poet's skill,
My mistress guides me where she will.
Abstract in wond'rous speculation,
Lost in laborious meditation,
As whether 'twould promote sublime
If silver could be pair'd in rhyme;
Or, as the word of sweeter tune,

Month might be clink'd instead of moon:
No wonder poets hardly know

Or what they do, or where they go.
Whether they ride or walk the street,
Their heads are always on their feet;
They now and then may get astride
Th' ideal Pegasus, and ride
Prodigious journeys round a room,
As boys ride cock-horse on a broom.

Whether Acrostics tease the brain,
Which goes a hunting words in vain,
(For words most capitally sin,
Unless their letters right begin.)
Since how to man or woman's name,
Could you or 1 acrostic frame.

Or make the staring letters join,

To form the word, that tells us thine,
Unless we'ad right initials got,

S, C, O, T, and so made Scot?

Or whether Rebus, Riddle's brother,

(Both which had Dullness for their mother) Employ the gentle poets care,

To celebrate some town or fair,
Which all ad libitum he slits

For you to pick it up by bits,

Which bits together plac'd, will frame
Some city's or some lady's name;
As when a worm is cut in twain,

It joins and is a worm again;
When thoughts so weighty, so intense,
Above the reach of common sense,
Distract and twirl the mind about,
Which fain would hammer something out;
A kind discharge relieves the mind,
As folks are eas'd by breaking wind;
Whatever whims or maggots bred
Take place of sense in poet's head,
They fix themselves without control,
Where'er its scat is on the soul.
Then, like your heathen idols, we
Have eyes indeed, but cannot see.
(We, for I take the poet's part,
And for my blood, am bard at heart)
For in reflection deep immerst,
The man muse-bitten and be-verst,
Neglectful of externals all,

Will run his head against a wall,
Walk through a river as it flows,
Nor sce the bridge before his nose.

Are things like these equestrians fit
To mount the back of mettled tit?
Are-but farewel, for here comes Bob,
And I must serve some hackney job;
Fetch letters, or, for recreation,
Transport the bard to our plantation.

Robert joins compts with Burnham Black, Your humble servant, Hanbury's back.

DEAR Wilkes, whose lively social wit

Disdains the prudish affectation Of gloomy folks, who love to sit

As doctors should at consultation, Permit me, in familiar strain,

To steal you from the idle hour Of combating the northern thane, And all his puppet tools of pow'r.

Shame to the wretch, if sense of shame Can ever touch the miscreant's breast, Who dead to virtue as to fame,

(A monster whom the gods detest) Turns traitor to himself, to court

Or minister or monarch's smile; And dares, in insolence of sport, Invade the charter of our isle.

But why should I, who only strive By telling of an easy tale,

To keep attention half alive

'Gainst Bolgolam and Flimnap rail? For whether England be the name,

(Name which we're taught no more to prize) Or Britain, it is all the same,

The Lilliputian statesmen rise
To malice of gigantic size.
Let them enjoy their warmth a while,
Truth shall regard them with a smile,
While you, like Gulliver, in sport
Piss out the fire, and save the court.
But to return-The tale is old;

Indecent, truly none of mine-
What Beroaldus gravely told;

I read it in that sound divine.
And for indecency, you know
He had a fashionable turn,
As prim observers clearly show

In t' other parson, doctor Sterne.
Yet Pope denies it all defence,
And calls it, bless us! want of sense.
But e'en the decent Pope can write

Of bottles, corks, and maiden sighs,
Of charming beauties less in sight,

Of the more secret precious hair1, "And something else of little size, You know where "."

If such authorities prevail,

To varnish o'er this petty sin, I plead a pardon for my tale,

And having hemm'd and cough'd-begin.

A Genius (one of those I mean,

We read of in th' Arabian Nights;
Not such as every day are seen

At Bob's or Arthur's, whilom White's;
For howsoe'er you change the name,
The clubs and meetings are the same;
Nor those prodigious learned folks,
Your haberdashers of stale jokes,
Who dress them up so neat and clean
For newspaper or magazine;

But one that could play wond'rous tricks,
Changing the very course of Nature,
Not Asmodeus on two sticks

Or sage Urganda could do greater.)
Once on a time incog came down
From his equivocal dominions,
And travell'd o'er a country town
To try folks' tempers and opinions.
When to accomplish his intent

(For had the cobbler known the king,
Lord! it would quite have spoil'd the thing)
In strange disguise he slily went
And stump'd along the high-way track,
With greasy knapsack at his back;
And now the night was pitchy dark,
Without one star's indulgent spark,
Whether he wanted sleep or not,
Is of no consequence to tell;
A bed and lodging must be got,
For geniuses live always well.
At the best house in all the town,

(It was the attorney's you may swear) He knock'd as he'd have beat it down, Knock as you would, no entrance there. ! Rape of the Lock, ? Pope's Letters.

But from the window cried the dame,
"Go, sirrah, go from whence you came.
Here, Nell, John, Thomas, see who knocks,
Fellow, I'll put you in the stocks."
"Be Gentle, ma'm," the Genius cried;

"Have mercy on the wand'ring poor,
Who knows not where his head to hide,
And asks a pittance at your door.
A mug of beer, a crust of bread-
Have pity on the houseless head;
Your husband keeps a lordly table,
I ask but for the offal crumbs,

And for a lodging-barn or stable
Will shroud me till the morning comes."

'Twas all in vain; she rang the bell,
The servants trembl'd at the knell;
Down flew the maids to tell the men,
To drive the vagrant back agen.

He trudg'd away in angry mind,
And thought but cheaply of mankind,
Till through a casement's dingy pane,
A rush-light's melancholy ray,

Bad him e'en try his luck again;
Perhaps beneath a house of clay
A wand'ring passenger might find,
A better friend to human kind,
And far more hospitable fare,
Though not so costly, nice, or rare,
As smokes upon the silver plate
Of the luxurious pamper'd great.

So to this cot of homely thatch,
In the same plight the Genius came:
Down comes the dame, lifts up the latch;
"What want ye, sir?"

"God save you, dame." And so he told the piteous tale, Which you have heard him tell before; Your patience and my own would fail Were I to tell it o'er and o'er, Suffice it, that my goody's care Brought forth her best, though simple fare, And from the corner-cupboard's hoard, Her stranger guest the more to please, Bespread her hospitable board

With what she had-'t was bread and cheese.

"'Tis honest though but homely cheer;
Much good may't do ye, eat your fill,
Would I could treat you with strong beer,
But for the action take the will,
You see my cot is clean, though small,
Pray Heav'n increase my slender stock!
You're welcome, friend, you see my all;
And for your bed, sir, there's a flock."
No matter what was after said,
He eat and drank and went to bed.

And now the cock his mattins sung,

(Howe'er such singing's light esteem'd,

'Tis precious in the Muses' tongue,

When sung, rhymes better than he scream'd;) The dame and pediar both arose,

At early dawn of rising day,

She for her work of folding clothes,

And he to travel on his way;
But much he thought himself to blame,
If, as in duty surely bound,

He did not thank the careful dame
For the reception he had found.

For this your entertainment's sake,

If aught of good my wish can do,

May what you first shall undertake,
Last without ceasing all day through.”
Madam, who kindly understood
His wish effectually good,

Straight dropp'd a curtsie wond'rous low,
For much she wanted him to go,
That she might look up all her store,
And turn it into thousands more.
Now all the maids were sent to look
In every cranny, hole and nook,
For every rag which they could find
Of any size, or any kind,

Draw'rs, boxes, closets, chests and cases
Were all unlock'd at once to get
Her point, her gauze, her Prussia-net,
With fifty names of fifty kinds,
Which suit variety of minds.

How shall I now my tale pursue,
So passing strange, so passing true?
When every bit from every hoard,
Was brought and laid upon the board,
Lest some more urgent obligation
Might interrupt her pleasing toil,

And marring half her application,
The promis'd hopes of profit spoil,
Before she folds a single rag,

Or takes a cap from board or bag, That nothing might her work prevent, (For she was now resolv'd to labour, With earnest hope and full intent

To get the better of her neighbour) Into the garden she would go

To do that necessary thing,
Which must by all be done, you know,
By rich and poor, and high and low,
By male and female, queen and king;
She little dream'd a common action,
Practis'd as duly as her pray'rs,
hould prove so tedious a transaction,
Or cost her such a sea of cares.
n short the streams so plenteous flow'd,
That in the dry and dusty weather,
he might have water'd all the road
For ten or twenty miles together.
What could she do? as it began,
'h' involuntary torrent ran,

Instead of folding cap or mob,
o dreadful was this distillation,
That from a simple watering job,
The fear'd a general inundation.

While for her indiscretion's crime,
And coveting too great a store,
She made a river at a time,
Which sure was never done before1.

A FAMILIAR LETTER OF RHYMES.
TO A LADY.

ES-I could rifle grove and bow'r
nd strip the beds of every flow'r,

1 This story, which occurs in the conference tween a papish priest and Villiers duke of ckingham (see the works of the latter) bas been ersified by Mr. Merrick. Dodsley's Poems, vol. v. 230. C.

And deck them in their fairest hue,
Merely to be out-blush'd by you.
The lily, pale, by my direction,
Should fight the rose for your complexion:
Or I could make up sweetest posies,
Fit fragrance for the ladies' noses,
Which drooping, on your breast reclining,
Should all be withering, dying, pining,
Which every songster can display,
I've more authorities than Gay;
Nay, I could teach the globe its duty
To pay all homage to your beauty,
And wit's creative pow'r to show,
The very fire should mix with snow;
Your eyes, that brandish burning darts
To scorch and singe our tinder hearts,
Should be the lamps for lover's ruin,
And light them to their own undoing;
While all the snow about your breast
Should leave them hopeless and distrest.
For those who rarely soar above
The art of coupling love and dove,
In their conceits and amorous fictions,
Are mighty fond of contradictions,
Above, in air; in earth, beneath;
And things that do, or do not breathe,
All have their parts, and separate place,
To paint the fair one's various grace.

Her cheek, her eye, her bosom show
The rose, the lily, diamond, snow.

Jet, milk, and amber, vales and mountains,
Stars, rubies, suns, and mossy fountains,
The poet gives them all a share

In the description of his fair.

She burns, she chills, she pierces hearts
With locks, and bolts, and flames, and darts.
And could we trust th' extravagancy
Of every poet's youthful fancy,

They'd make each nymph they love so well,
As cold as snow, as hot as

-O gentle lady, spare your fright,
No horrid rhyme shall wound your sight.
I would not for the world be heard,

To utter such unseemly word,
Which the politer parson fears
To mention to politer ears.

But, could a female form be shown,
(The thought, perhaps, is not my own)
Where every circumstance should meet
To make the poet's nymph complete,
Form'd to his fancy's utmost pitch,
She'd be as ugly as a witch.

Come then, O Muse, of trim conceit,
Muse, always fine, but never neat,
Who to the dull unsated ear

Of French or Tuscan sonneteer,
Tak'st up the same unvaried tone,
Like the Scotch bagpipe's favourite drone,
Squeezing out thoughts in ditties quaint,
To poet's mistress, whore, or saint;
Whether thou dwell'st on ev'ry grace,
Which lights the world from Laura's face,
Or amorous praise expatiates wide
On beauties which the nymph must hide;
For wit affected, loves to show
Her every charn from top to toe,
And wanton Fancy oft pursues
Minute description from the Muse,
Come and pourtray, with pencil fine,
The poet's mortal nymph divine.