TO LADY H

ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS, August, 1805.

WHEN Grammont grac'd these happy springs And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles, The merriest wight of all the kings

That ever rul'd these gay, gallant isles;

Like us, by day, they rode, they walk'd,
At eve, they did as we may do,
And Grammont just like Spencer talk'd
And lovely Stewart smil'd like you!

The only different trait is this,

That woman then, if man beset her,
Was rather given to saying "yes,"
Because, as yet, she knew no better!

Each night they held a coterie,
Where every fear to slumber charm'd
Lovers were all they ought to be,
And husbands not the least alarm'd!

They call'd up all their school-day pranks,
Nor thought it might their sense beneath
To play at riddles, quins, and cranks,

And lords show'd wit, and ladies teeth.

As" Why are busbands like the Mint!"
Because, forsooth, a husband's duty
Is just to set the name and print

That give a currency to beauty..

'Why is a garden's wilder'd maze

"Like a young widow, fresh and fair!" Because it wants some hand to raise

The weeds, which "have no business there!"

And thus they miss'd and thus they hit,
And now they struck and now they parried,
And some lay-in of full-grown wit,

While others of a pun miscarried.

"Twas one of those facetious nights
That Grammont gave this forfeit ring,
For breaking grave conundrum rites,
Or punning ill, or—some such thing;

From whence it can be fairly trac'd
Though many a branch and many a bough,
From twig to twig, until it grac'd

The snowy hand that wears it now.

All this I'll prove, and then-to you
Oh Tunbridge! and your springs ironical,
I swear by H-the-te's eye of blue
To dedicate the important chronicle.

Long may your ancient inmates give

Their mantles to your modern lodgers, And Charles' love in H-the-te live, And Charles' bards revive in Rogers!

Let no pedantic fools be there,

For ever be those fops abolish'd

With heads as wooden as thy ware,

And, Heaven knows! not half so polish'd.

But still receive the mild, the gay,
The few, who know the rare delight
Of reading Grammont every day,
And acting Grammont every night!

ΤΟ

NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses,
You want not antiquity's staip,
The lip, that's so scented by roses,
Oh! never must smell of the lamp.

Old Cloe, whose withering kisses
Have long set the loves at defiance,
Now done with the of science blisses!
May fly to the blisses of science!

Young Sappho, for want of employments,
Alone o'er her Ovid may melt,
Condemn'd but to read of enjoyments,
Which wiser Corinna had felt.

But for you to be buried in booksOh, FANNY! they're pitiful sages, Who could not in one of your looks Read more than in millions of pages!

Astronomy finds in your eye

Better light than she studies above,
And music must borrow your sigh
As the melady dearest to love.

In Ethics-'tis you that can check,

In a minute, their doubts and their quar

rels;

Oh! show but that mole on your neck,

And 'twill soon put an end to their morals.

Your Arithmetic only can trip

When to kiss and to count you endeavour: But eloquence glows on your lip

When you swear, that you'll love me for

ever.

Thus you see, what a brilliant alliance
Of arts is assembled in you—
A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to go through!

And, oh!--if a fellow like me

May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lip thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts!

EXTRACT

FROM

"THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS."*

ΝΟΣΤΟΥ ΠΡΟΦΑΣΙΣ ΓΑΥΚΕΡΟΥ.
Chrysost. Homlin. in Epist. ad Hebræos.

But, whither have these gentle ones,
The rosy nymphs and black-eyed nuns,
With all of Cupid's wil romancing,
Led my truant brains a dancing!
Instead of wise encomiastics
Upon the Doctors and Scholastics,
Polymaths, and Polyhistors,
Polyglots and-all thei sisters,
The instant I have got the whim in,
Off I fly with nuns and women,
Like epic poets, ne'er at ease
Until I've stol'n "in medias res 197
So have I known a hopeful youth
Sit down, in quest of lore and truth,

*1 promised that I would give the remainder of this Poem, but, as my critics do not seem to relish the sublime learning which it contains, they shall have no more of it. With a view however to the edification of these gentlemen, I have prevailed on an industrious friend of raine, who has read a great number of unnecessary books, to illuminate the extract with a little of his precious erudition.