Hear how a ghost in dead of night,

With saucer eyes of fire,
In woful wise did sore affright

A wit and courtly squire:
Rare imp of Phæbus, hopeful youth!

Like puppy tame, that uses
To fetch and carry in his mouth

The works of all the Muses. Ah! why did he write poetry,

That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity

To rhyming and the devil ?
A desk he had of curious work,

With glittering studs about;
Within the same did Sandys lurk,

Though Ovid lay without. Now, as he scratch'd to fetch up thought,

Forth popp'd the sprite so thin,
And from the keyhole bolted out,

All upright as a pin.
With whiskers, band, and pantaloon,

And ruff compos’d most duly,
This 'squire he dropp'd his pen full soon,

While as the light burnt bluely. Ho! master Sam, quoth Sandys' sprite,

Write on, nor let me scare ye! Forsooth, if rhymes fall not in right, To Budgell seek or Carey.

14

VOL. II.

Í hear the beat of Jacob's 3 drums,

Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P- * comes

In haste without his garter.
Then lords and lordlings, 'squires and knights,

Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers:
Garth at St. James's, and at White's,

Beats up for volunteers.
What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,

Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnet, or Tom D'Urfey may,

John Dunton, Steele, or any one.
If Justice Philips' costive head

Some frigid rhymes disburses,
They shall like Persian tales be read,

And glad both babes and nurses.
Let Warwick's Muse with Ash-t join,

And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's,
Tickell and Addison combine,

And Pope translate with Jervas.
L- himself, that lively lord,

Who bows to every lady,
Shall join with F— in one accord.

And be like Tate and Brady.

8 Old Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the Metamorphoses. * Perhaps Pembroke.

Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen ;
I
pray,

where can the hurt lie ? Since

you

have brains as well as men, As witness Lady Wortley.

Now, Tonson, list thy forces all,

Review them and tell noses ; For to poor Ovid shall befall

A strange metamorphosis ;

A metamorphosis more strange

Than all his books can vapour“ To what (quoth 'squire) shall Ovid change?"

Quoth Sandys, “ To waste paper."

UMBRA.1

" 2

Close to the best known author Umbra sits, The constant index to old Button's wits. “ Who's here?” cries Umbra.“ Only Johnson.

-"0! Your slave,” and exit ; but returns with Rowe. “Dear Rowe, let's sit and talk of tragedies :" Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies. Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel, And in a moment fastens upon Steele ;

But cries as soon, “ Dear Dick, I must be gote,
For, if I know his tread, here's Addison.”
Says Addison to Steele, “ 'Tis time to go:”
Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.
Poor Umbra, left in this abandon’d pickle,
E'en sits him down, and writes to honest Tickell.

Fool! 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam ;
Know, sense like charity "begins at home.”

SYLVIA, A FRAGMENT.1

Sylvia my heart in wondrous wise alarm’d,
Aw'd without sense, and without beauty charm'd:
But some odd graces and some flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad.
Her tongue stił ran on credit from her eyes,
More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:
Good-nature, she declar'd it, was her scorn,
Though 'twas by that alone she could be borne.
Affronting all, yet fond of a good name,
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame:
Now
coy,

and studious in no point to fall,
Now all agog for D-y at a ball :
Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres.

1 Introduced, with some alterations, into the Second of the Jloral Epistles, of the Characters of Women.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman's in her soul a rake. Frail, feverish sex; their fit now chills, now burns; Atheism and superstition rule by turns ; And a mere heathen in the carnal part, Is still a sad good Christian at her heart.

IMPROMPTU, TO LADY WINCHELSEA.1

OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS,

IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.

In vain you boast poetic names of yore,
And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:
Fate doom'd the fall of every female wit;
But doom'd it then, when first Ardelia writ.
Of all examples by the world confess'd,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best ;
Who, like her mistress on Britannia's throne,
Fights and subdues in quarrels not her own.
To write their praise you but in vain essay;
E’en while you write, you take that praise away:
Light to the stars the sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.