Metals I like them subdue,

Slave like them to Vulcan too,
Emblem of a monarch old,
Wise, and glorious to behold ;'
Wasted he appears, and pale,
Watching for the public weal :
Emblem of the bashful dame,
That in secret feeds her flame,
Often aiding to impart

All the secrets of her heart:
Various is my bulk and hue,
big like Bess, and Small Like Sue:
Now brown and burnish'd like a nut,
At other times a very slut;

Often fair, and soft, and tender,

Taper, tall, and smooth, and slender ;
Like Flora, deck'd with fairest flowers,
Like Phoebus, guardian of the hours;
But whatever be my dress,
Greater be my size or less,
Swelling be my shape or small,
Like thyself I shine in all.
Clouded if my face is seen,
My complexion wan and green,
Languid like a lovesick maid,
Steel affords me present aid.
Soon or late, my date is done,
As thread of life is spun ;
my
Yet to cut the fatal thread
Oft revives my drooping head;
Yet I perish in my prime,
Seldom by the death of time;
Die like lovers as they gaze,
Die for those I live to please;

Pine unpitied to my urn,

Nor warm the fair for whom I burn;
Unpitied, unlamented too,
Die like all that look on you.

XXV, TO LADY CARTERET,

BY DR. DELANY.

I REACH all things near me, and far off to boot,
Without stretching a finger, or stirring a foot;
I take them all in too, to add to your wonder,
Though many and various, and large and asunder.
Without jostling or crowding they pass side by side,
Through a wonderful wicket, not half an inch wide:
Then I lodge them at ease in a very large store,
Of no breadth or length, with a thousand things

more.

All this I can do without witchcraft or charm, Though sometimes, they say, I bewitch and do harm;

Though cold, I inflame; and though quiet, invade;
And nothing can shield from my spell but a shade,
A thief that has robb'd you, or done you disgrace,
In magical mirror, I'll show you his face:

Nay, if you'll believe what the poets have said,
They'll tell you I kill, and can call back the dead.
Like conjurers safe in my circle I dwell,
I love to look black too, it heightens my spell;
Though my magic is mighty in every hue,
Who see all my power must see it in You.

ANSWERED

ANSWERED BY DR. SWIFT,

WITH half an eye your riddle I spy,

I observe your wicket hemm'd in by a thicket,
And whatever passes is strained through glasses,
You say it is quiet: I flatly deny it.

It wanders about, without stirring out;
No passion so weak but gives it a tweak;
Love, joy, and devotion, set it always in motion,
And as for the tragic effects of its magic,
When you say it can kill, or revive at its, will,
The dead are all sound, and the live above ground;
After all you have writ, it cannot be wit;

Which plainly does follow, since it flies from Apollo.
Its cowardice such it cries at a touch;

'Tis a perfect milksop, grows drunk with a drop, Another great fault, it cannot bear salt: And a hair can disarm it of every charm.

XXVI. TO LADY CARTERET.

BY DY. SWIFT.'

FROM India's burning clime I'm brought,
With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.
Nor Iris, when she paints the sky,
Can show more different hues than I;

*This and the following Riddle were originally communicated by Swift to Oldisworth, who published them in the Muse's Mercury. N.

Nor

Nor can she change her form so fast,
I'm now a sail, and now a mast.

I here am red, and there am green,
A beggar there and here a queen.
I sometimes live in house of hair,
And oft in hand of lady fair.

I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold.
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.

ANSWERED BY DR. SHERIDAN.

YOUR house of hair, and lady's hand,
At first did put me to a stand.
I have it now-'tis plain enough-
Your hairy business is a muff.

Your engine fraught with cooling gales,
At once so like your masts and sails;
And for the rhyme to you're the man,
What fits it better than a fan?

A RIDDLE,

I'M wealthy and poor,
I'm empty and full,
I'm humble and proud,

I'm witty and dull.
I'm foul and yet fair;

I'm old, and yet young;

I lie with Moll Kerr,

And toast Mrs. Long.

ANSWER

ANSWER, BY MR. FR.

In rigging he's rich, though in pocket he's poor,
He cringes to courtiers, and cocks to the cits;
Like twenty he dresses, but looks like threescore;
He's a wit to the fools, and a fool to the wits.
Of wisdom he's empty, but full of conceit;
He paints and perfumes, while he rots with the

scab;

'Tis a beau you may swear by his sense and his gait; He boasts of a beauty, and lies with a drab,

A RECEIPT

TO RESTORE STELLA'S YOUTH.

1724-5.

THE Scottish hinds, too poor to house
In frosty nights their starving cows,
While not a blade of grass or hay
Appears from Michaelmas to May,.
Must let their cattle range in vain
For food along the barren plain :
Meagre and lank with fasting grown,
And nothing left but skin and bone;
Expos'd to want, and wind and weather,
They just keep life and soul together,
Till summer showers and evening's dew
Again the verdant glebe renew;
And, as the vegetables rise,
The famish'd cow her want supplies

Without