Our care is, to improve the mind
With what concerns all humankind;
The various scenes of mortal life;
Who beats her husband, who his wife;
Or how the bully at a stroke

Knock'd down the boy, the lantern broke.
One tells the rise of cheese and oatmeal;
Another when he got a hot meal;
One gives advice in proverbs old,
Instructs us how to tame a scold;
One shows how bravely Audouin died,
And at the gallows all denied;
How by the almanac 'tis clear
That herrings will be cheap this year.
T. Dear Mullinix, I now lament
My precious time so long misspent,
By nature meant for nobler ends:
O, introduce me to your friends!
For whom by birth I was design'd,
Till politics debased my mind;
I give myself entire to you;
G-d d-n the Whigs and Tories too!

TIM AND THE FABLES.

My meaning will be best unravell'd
When I premise that Tim has travell'd.
In Lucas's by chance there lay
The Fables writ by Mr. Gay.
Tim set the volume on a table,
Read over here and there a fable:
And found, as he the pages twirl'd,
The Monkey who had seen the World:
(For Tonson had, to help the sale,
Prefix'd a cut to every tale).

The monkey was completely dress'd,
The beau in all his airs express'd.

Tim, with surprise and pleasure staring,

Ran to the glass, and then comparing

His own sweet figure with the print,

Distinguish'd every feature in't,

The twist, the squeeze, the rump, the fidge in all Just as they look'd in the original.

66

66

By," says Tim, and let a

This graver understood his art.

'Tis a true copy, I'll say that for't;
I well remember when I sat for't.
My very face, at first I knew it;

Just in this dress the painter drew it."
Tim, with his likeness deeply smitten,

TOM MULLINIX AND DICK.
Toм and Dick had equal fame,
And both had equal knowledge;
Tom could write and spell his name,
But Dick had seen the college.
Dick a coxcomb, Tom was mad,
And both alike diverting;
Tom was held the merrier lad,
But Dick the best at

Dick would cock his nose in scorn,
But Tom was kind and loving;
Tom a footboy bred and born,
But Dick was from an oven.

Dick could neatly dance a jig,
But Tom was best at borees;
Tom would pray for every Whig,
And Dick curse all the Tories.

Dick would make a woful noise,
And scold at an election;
Tom huzza'd the blackguard boys,
And held them in subjection.
Tom could move with lordly grace,
Dick nimbly skipp'd the gutter;
Tom could talk with solemn face,
But Dick could better sputter.

Dick was come to high renown
Since he commenced physician;
Tom was held by all the town
The deeper politician.

Tom had the genteeler swing,
His hat could nicely put on;
Dick knew better how to swing
His cane upon a button.

Dick for repartee was fit,

And Tom for deep discerning; Dick was thought the brighter wit,

Dick with zealous noes and ayes

Could roar as loud as Stentor,
In the house 'tis all he says;
But Tom is eloquenter.

DICK, A MAGGOT.

As when, from rooting in a bin,
All powder'd o'er from tail to chin,
A lively maggot sallies out,

You know him by his hazel snout:
So when the grandson of his grandsire
Forth issuing wriggling, Dick Drawcansir,
With powder'd rump and back and side,
You cannot blanch his tawny hide;
For 'tis beyond the power of meal
The gipsy visage to conceal;

For, as he shakes his wainscot chaps,
Down every mealy atom drops,

And leaves the tartar phiz in show,

Like a fresh

just dropp'd on snow.

CLAD ALL IN BROWN. TO DICK.

FOULEST brute that stinks below,

Why in this brown dost thou appear For would'st thou make a fouler show, Thou must go naked all the year. Fresh from the mud a wallowing sow Would then be not so brown as thou.

'Tis not the coat that looks so dun, His hide emits a foulness out; Not one jot better looks the sun

Seen from behind a dirty clout.

So t-ds within a glass enclose,
The glass will seem as brown as those.

Thou now one heap of foulness art,

All outward and within is foul: Condensed filth in every part,

?

Thy body's clothed like thy soul: Thy soul, which through thy hide of bluff, Scarce glimmers like a dying snuff.

Old carted bawds such garments wear, When pelted all with dirt they shine; Such their exalted bodies are,

As shrivell'd and as black as thine. If thou wert in a cart, I fear

Thou would'st be pelted worse than they're.

Yet, when we see thee thus array'd,
The neighbors think it is but just
That thou should'st take an honest trade.
And weekly carry out the dust.

Of cleanly houses who will doubt,
When Dick cries "Dust to carry out!"

DICK'S VARIETY.

DULL uniformity in fools

I hate, who gape and sneer by rules;
You, Mullinix, and slobbering C-
Who every day and hour the same are;
That vulgar talent I despise

Of- in the rabble's eyes.

And when I listen to the noise
Of idiots roaring to the boys;
To better judgment still submitting,
I own I see but little wit in:

Such pastimes, when our taste is nice,
Can please at most but once or twice.
But then consider Dick, you'll find
His genius of superior kind;
He never muddles in the dirt,
Nor scours the streets without a shirt;
Though Dick, I dare presume to say,
Could do such feats as well as they.
Dick I could venture everywhere,
Let the boys pelt him if they dare;
He'd have them tried at the assizes
For priests and jesuits in disguises;
Swear they were with the Swedes at Bender,
And listing troops for the pretender.

-

But Dick can and dance, and frisk,
No other monkey half so brisk;
Now has the speaker by his ears,
Next moment in the house of peers;
Now scolding at my lady Eustace,
Or thrashing baby in her new stays.
Presto! begone; with t'other hop
He's powdering in a barber's shop;
Now at the antechamber thrusting
His nose, to get the circle just in;
And damns his blood that in the rear
He sees a single Tory there:

Then woe be to my lord-lieutenant,
Again he'll tell him, and again on't.

TRAULUS. PART I.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TOM AND ROBIN. 1730.

Toм. Say, Robin, what can Traulus mean
By bellowing thus against the dean?
Why does he call him paltry scribbler,
Papist, and Jacobite, and libeller,

Yet cannot prove a single fact?

ROBIN. Forgive him, Tom: his head is crack'd.
T. What mischief can the dean have done him,
That Traulus calls for vengeance on him?
Why must he sputter, sprawl, and slaver it
In vain against the people's favorite?
Revile that nation-saving paper

Which gave the dean the name of Drapier?
R. Why, Tom, I think the case is plain;
Party and spleen have turn'd his brain.

T. Such friendship never man profess'd,
The dean was never so caress'd;
For Traulus long his rancor nursed,
Till, God knows why, at last it burst.
That clumsy outside of a porter,
How could it thus conceal a courtier ?
R. I own appearances are bad;
Yet still insist the man is mad.

T. Yet many a wretch in Bedlam knows
How to distinguish friends from foes;
And though perhaps among the rout
He wildly flings his filth about,
He still has gratitude and sap'ence,

To spare the folks that give him ha'pence;
Nor in their eyes at random

But turns aside like mad Ulysses;
While Traulus all his ordure scatters
To foul the man he chiefly flatters.
Whence comes these inconsistent fits?

R. Why, Tom, the man has lost his wits.
T. Agreed: and yet, when Towzer snaps
At people's heels, with frothy chaps,
Hangs down his head, and drops his tail,
To say he's mad will not avail;

The neighbors all cry "Shoot him dead,
Hang, drown, or knock him on the head."
So Traulus, when he first harangued,
I wonder why he was not hang'd;
For of the two, without dispute,
Towzer's the less offensive brute.

R. Tom, you mistake the matter quite;
Your barking curs will seldom bite;