Can in her female clubs dispute, What linen best the silk will suit, What colours each complexion match, And where with art to place a patch.
If chance a mouse creeps in her sight, Can finely counterfeit a fright;
So sweetly screams, if it comes near her, She ravishes all hearts to hear her. Can dextrously her husband tease, By taking fits whene'er she please; By frequent practice learns the trick At proper seasons to be sick;
Thinks nothing gives one airs so pretty, At once creating love and pity; If Molly happens to be careless, And but neglects to warm her hairlace, She gets a cold as sure as death,
And vows she scarce can fetch her breath; Admires how modest women can Be so robustious, like a man.
In party, furious to her power; A bitter whig, or tory sour; Her arguments directly tend Against the side she would defend; Will prove herself a tory plain, From principles the whigs maintain ; And, to defend the whiggish cause, Her topics from the tories draws. O yes! if any man can find More virtues in a woman's mind, Let them be sent to Mrs. Harding;* She'll pay the charges to a farthing;
*Widow of John Harding, the Drapier's printer. F.
Take notice, she has my commission To add them in the next edition; They may outsell a better thing:
So, holloo, boys; God save the king!
As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling,
Rode stately through Holborn to die in his calling, He stopt at the George for a bottle of sack, And promis'd to pay for it when he came back. His waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches, were
His cap had a new cherry ribband to tye't.
The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
And said, Lack-a-day he's a proper young
But, as from the windows the ladies he spy'd, Like a beau in the box, he bow'd low on each
And, when his last speech the loud hawkers did cry, He swore from his cart "It was all a damn'd lie!" The hangman for pardon fell down on his knee; Tom gave him a kick in the guts for his fee: Then said, I must speak to the people a little; But I'll see you all damn'd before I will whittle.
* A cant word for confessing at the gallows. F.
My honest friend Wild * (may he long hold his
He lengthen'd my life with a whole year of grace. Take courage, dear comrades, and be not afraid, Nor slip this occasion to follow your trade; My conscience is clear, and my spirits are calm, And thus I go off without prayer-book or psalm; Then follow the practice of clever Tom Clinch, Who hung like a hero and never would flinch.
WHILE HE WAS WRITING THE DUNCIAD. 1727.
POPE has the talent well to speak,
But not to reach the ear; His loudest voice is low and weak, The Dean too deaf to hear.
A while they on each other look, Then different studies choose; The Dean sits plodding on a book; Pope walks, and courts the Muse.
Now backs of letters, † though design'd For those who more will need 'em, Are fill'd with hints, and interlin'd, Himself can hardly read 'em.
* The noted thief-catcher, under-keeper of Newgate, who was hanged for receiving stolen goods. F,
Each atom by some other struck All turns and motions tries:
Till, in a lump together stuck, Behold a poem rise:
Yet to the Dean his share allot; He claims it by a canon; That without which a thing is not, Is, causa sine quê nạn.
Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your
For, had our deaf divine
Been for your conversation fit,
You had not writ a line.
Of Sherlock * thus, for preaching fam'd, The sexton reason'd well; And justly half the merit claim'd, Because he rang the bell.
FROM A PHYSICIAN TO HIS MISTRESS.
poets we are well assur'd
That love, alas! can ne'er be cur'd:
A complicated heap of ills,
Despising boluses and pills.
Ah! Chloe, this I find is true, Since first I gave my heart to you.
* The dean of St. Paul's, father to the bishop. H.
Now, by your cruelty hard bound, I strain my guts, my colon wound, Now jealousy, my grumbling tripes. Assaults with grating, grinding gripes. When pity in those eyes I view, My bowels wambling make me spew. When I an amorous kiss design'd, I belch'd a hurricane of wind. Once you a gentle sigh let fall; Remember how I suck'd it all: What cholic pangs from thence I felt, Had you but known, your heart yould melt, Like ruffling winds in caverns pent, Till Nature pointed out a vent.
How have you torn my heart to pieces With maggots, humours, and caprices! By which I got the hemorrhoids ; And loathsome worms my anus voids. Whene'er I hear a rival nam'd,
I feel my body all inflam'd ;
Which, breaking out in boils and blains, With yellow filth my linen, stains; Or, parch'd with unextinguish'd thirst, Smallbeer I guzzle till I burst; And then I drag a bloated: corpus, Swell'd with a dropsy, like a porpoise; When, if I cannot purge or stale, I must be tapp'd to fill a pail.
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