WHO HAD BEEN MUCH ABUSED IN DIFFERENT LIBELS.
THE greatest monarch may be stabb'd by night,
And Fortune help the murderer in his flight;
The vilest ruffian may commit a rape,
Yet safe from injured innocence escape;
And Calumny, by working under ground,
Can, unrevenged, the greatest merit wound.
What's to be done? Shall wit and learning choose To live obscure, and have no fame to lose?
By Censure frighted out of Honor's road,
Nor dare to use the gifts by Heaven bestow'd?
Or fearless enter in through Virtue's gate,
And buy distinction at the dearest rate?
Lesbia mi dicit semper male; nec tacet unquam
De me.
Lesbia me, dispeream, nisi amat.
Quo signo? quia sunt totidem mea: deprecor illam
Assidue; verum, dispeream, nisi amo.
LESBIA for ever on me rails,
To talk of me she never fails.
Now, hang me, but for all her art,
I find that I have gain'd her heart.
My proof is this: I plainly see
The case is just the same with me;
I curse her every hour sincerely,
Yet, hang me, but I love her dearly.
ON A CURATE'S COMPLAINT OF HARD DUTY.
I MARCH'D three miles through scorching sand,
With zeal in heart, and notes in hand;
I rode four more to great St. Mary,
Using four legs when two were weary:
To three fair virgins I did tie men
In the close bands of pleasing Hymen;
I dipp'd two babes in holy water,
And purified their mother after.
Within an hour and eke a half,
I preach'd three congregations deaf;
Where, thundering out, with lungs long-winded,
I chopp'd so fast, that few there minded.
My emblem, the laborious sun,
Saw all these mighty labors done
Before one race of his was run.
All this perform'd by Robert Hewit:
TO BETTY,
THE GRISETTE. 1730.
QUEEN of wit and beauty, Betty,
Never may the Muse forget ye,
How thy face charms every shepherd,
Spotted over like a leopard!
And thy freckled neck, display'd,
Envy breeds in every maid;
Like a fly-blown cake of tallow,
Or on parchment ink turn'd yellow;
Or a tawny speckled pippin,
Shrivell'd with a winter's keeping.
And thy beauty thus despatch'd,
Let me praise thy wit unmatch'd.
Sets of phrases, cut and dry,
Evermore thy tongue supply;
And thy memory is loaded
With old scraps from plays exploded;
Stock'd with repartees and jokes,
Suited to all christian folks;
Shreds of wit and senseless rhymes,
Blunder'd out a thousand times;
Nor wilt thou of gifts be sparing,
Which can ne'er be worse for wearing.
Picking wit among collegians,
In the playhouse upper regions;
Where in the 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 scurrilous and rude;
When you pertly raise your snout,
Fleer and gibe, and laugh and flout;
This among Hibernian asses
For sheer wit and humor passes.
Thus indulgent Chloe, bit,
Swears you have a world of wit.
[A French gentleman dining with some company on a fastday, called for some bacon and eggs. The rest were very angry, and reproved him for so heinous a sin; whereupon he wrote the following lines, which are translated.]
PEUT on croire avec bon sens
Qu'un lardon le mit en colère,
Ou, que manger un hareng,
C'est un secret pour lui plaire?
En sa gloire envelopé,
WHо can believe with common sense
A bacon slice gives God offence;
Or, how a herring has a charm
Almighty vengeance to disarm?
Wrapp'd up in majesty divine,
Does he regard on what we dine?
As Thomas was cudgell'd one day by his wife,
He took to the street, and fled for his life:
Tom's three dearest friends came by in the squabble,
And saved him at once from the shrew and the rabble;
Then ventured to give him some sober advice
But Tom is a person of honor so nice,
Too wise to take counsel, too proud to take warning,
That he sent to all three a challenge next morning.
Three duels he fought, thrice ventured his life;
Went home and was cudgell'd again by his wife.
ON TWO CELEBRATED MODERN POETS.
BEHOLD, those monarch oaks, that rise
With lofty branches to the skies,
Have large proportion'd roots that grow
With equal longitude below:
Two bards that now in fashion reign
Most aptly this device explain:
If this to clouds and stars will venture,
That creeps as far to reach the centre;
Or, more to show the thing I mean,
Have you not o'er a sawpit seen
A skill'd mechanic, that has stood
High on a length of prostrate wood,
Who hired a subterraneous friend
To take his iron by the end?
But which excell'd was never found,
The man above or under ground.
The moral is so plain to hit,
That, had I been the god of wit,
Then, in a sawpit and wet weather,
Should Young and Philips drudge together.
TO BETTY,
THE GRISETTE. 1730.
QUEEN of wit and beauty, Betty,
Never may the Muse forget ye,
How thy face charms every shepherd,
Spotted over like a leopard!
And thy freckled neck, display'd,
Envy breeds in every maid;
Like a fly-blown cake of tallow,
Or on parchment ink turn'd yellow;
Or a tawny speckled pippin,
Shrivell'd with a winter's keeping.
And thy beauty thus despatch'd,
Let me praise thy wit unmatch'd.
Sets of phrases, cut and dry,
Evermore thy tongue supply;
And thy memory is loaded
With old scraps from plays exploded;
Stock'd with repartees and jokes,
Suited to all christian folks;
Shreds of wit and senseless rhymes,
Blunder'd out a thousand times;
Nor wilt thou of gifts be sparing,
Which can ne'er be worse for wearing.
Picking wit among collegians,
In the playhouse upper regions;
Where in the 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 scurrilous and rude;
When you pertly raise your snout,
Fleer and gibe, and laugh and flout;
This among Hibernian asses
For sheer wit and humor passes.
Thus indulgent Chloe, bit,
Swears you have a world of wit.
[A French gentleman dining with some company on a fastday, called for some bacon and eggs. The rest were very angry, and reproved him for so heinous a sin; whereupon he wrote the following lines, which are translated.]
PEUT on croire avec bon sens
Qu'un lardon le mit en colère,
Ou, que manger un hareng,
C'est un secret pour lui plaire?
En sa gloire envelopé,
WHо can believe with common sense
A bacon slice gives God offence;
Or, how a herring has a charm
Almighty vengeance to disarm?
Wrapp'd up in majesty divine,
Does he regard on what we dine?
As Thomas was cudgell'd one day by his wife,
He took to the street, and fled for his life:
Tom's three dearest friends came by in the squabble,
And saved him at once from the shrew and the rabble;
Then ventured to give him some sober advice-
But Tom is a person of honor so nice,
Too wise to take counsel, too proud to take warning,
That he sent to all three a challenge next morning.
Three duels he fought, thrice ventured his life;
Went home and was cudgell'd again by his wife.
JOAN CUDGELS NED. 1723.
JOAN cudgels Ned, yet Ned's a bully;
Will cudgels Bess, yet Will's a cully.
Die Ned and Bess; give Will to Joan,
She dares not say her life's her own.
Die Joan and Will; give Bess to Ned,
And every day she combs his head.
ON TWO CELEBRATED MODERN POETS.
BEHOLD, those monarch oaks, that rise
With lofty branches to the skies,
Have large proportion'd roots that grow
With equal longitude below:
Two bards that now in fashion reign
Most aptly this device explain:
If this to clouds and stars will venture,
That creeps as far to reach the centre;
Or, more to show the thing I mean,
Have you not o'er a sawpit seen
A skill'd mechanic, that has stood
High on a length of prostrate wood,
Who hired a subterraneous friend
To take his iron by the end?
But which excell'd was never found,
The man above or under ground.
The moral is so plain to hit,
That, had I been the god of wit,
Then, in a sawpit and wet weather,
Should Young and Philips drudge together.
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