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 robustióus, 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

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!

CLEVER TOM CLINCH

GOING TO BE HANGED.

1727.

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

white;

had a new cherry ribband to tye't.

The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,

And said, "Lack-a-day

Lack-a-day he's a proper young

man !"

But, as from the windows the ladies he spy'd, Like a beau in the box, he bow'd low on each

side!

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

place)

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.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE,

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.

† See P. 404.

N.

Each

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 quá non.

your wit;

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.

A LOVE POEM

FROM A PHYSICIAN TO HIS MISTRESS,

WRITTEN AT LONDON.

BY 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.

ΤΟ