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GAY.

VERSES TO BE PLACED UNDER THE PICTURE OF SIR
RICHARD BLACKMORE,

CONTAINING A COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF HIS WORKS.1

SEE who ne'er was nor will be half read,
Who first sang Arthur, then sang Alfred;
Praised great Eliza in God's anger,

Till all true Englishmen cried " Hang her!"
Mauled human wit in one thick satire;
Next in three books spoiled human nature;
Undid Creation at a jerk,

And of Redemption made damned work;
Then took his Muse at once, and dipped her
Full in the middle of the Scripture.

What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself he out-Sternholded;
Made David seem so mad and freakish

All thought him just what thought King Achish;
No mortal read his Solomon

But judged Rebo am his own son ;
Moses he served as Moses Pharaoh,
And Deborah as she Sisèra;
Made Jeremy full sore to cry,

And Job himself curse God and die.

What punishment all this must follow?

Shall Arthur use him like King Tollo?
Shall David as Uriah slay him?

Or dexterous Deborah Siserà him?

Or shall Eliza lay a plot

To treat him like her sister Scot?

No, none of these; Heaven save his life,—
But send him, honest Job, thy wife!

A NEW SONG OF NEW SIMILES.
My passion is as mustard strong;
I sit all sober sad;

Drunk as a piper all day long,

Or like a March-hare mad.

Round as a hoop the bumpers flow;
I drink, yet can't forget her;

For, though as drunk as David's sow,

I love her still the better.

Pert as a pear-monger I'd be,
If Molly were but kind;
Cool as a cucumber, could see

The rest of womankind.

195

1 Blackmore, a versifier now remembered only by name, was the author of

King Arthur (an epic), The Creation, &c. &c.

Like a stuck pig, I gaping stare,
And eye her o'er and o'er ;

Lean as a rake, with sighs and care,—
Sleek as a mouse before.

Plump as a partridge was I known,
And soft as silk my skin;
My cheeks as fat as butter grown,
But as a goat now thin!

I, melancholy as a cat,
Am kept awake to weep;
But she, insensible of that,
Sound as a top can sleep.

Hard is her heart as flint or stone,
She laughs to see me pale;
And merry as a grig is grown,
And brisk as bottled ale.

The god of love, at her approach,
Is busy as a bee;

Hearts, sound as any bell or roach,
Are smit, and sigh like me.

Ah me! as thick as hops or hail
The fine men crowd about her;
But soon as dead as a door-nail
Shall I be, if without her.

Straight as my leg her shape appears :
Oh were we joined together!
My heart would be scot-free from cares,
And lighter than a feather.

As fine as fivepence is her mien,
No drum was ever tighter;
Her glance is as the razor keen,
And not the sun is brighter.

As soft as pap her kisses are,-
Methinks I taste them yet;
Brown as a berry is her hair,
Her eyes as black as jet.

As smooth as glass, as white as curds,
Her pretty hand invites ;
Sharp as her needle are her words,
Her wit like pepper bites.

Brisk as a body-louse she trips,

Clean as a penny dressed;

Sweet as a rose her breath and lips,

Round as the globe her breast.

Full as an egg was I with glee,
And happy as a king:

Good Lord! how all men envied me!
She loved like anything.

But false as hell, she, like the wind,
Changed, as her sex must do :
Though seeming as the turtle kind,
And like the gospel true.

If I and Molly could agree,
Let who would take Peru!
Great as an Emperor should I be,
And richer than a Jew.

Till you grow tender as a chick,
I'm dull as any post;
Let us like curs together stick,
And warm as any toast.

You'll know me truer than a die,
And wish me better speed,-
Flat as a flounder when I lie,
And as a herring dead.

Sure as a gun she'll drop a tear,

And sigh, perhaps, and wish,
When I am rotten as a pear,
And mute as any fish.

LISLE.1

EURYDICE.

WHEN Orpheus went down to the regions below,

Which men are forbidden to see;

He tuned up his lyre, as old histories show,

To set his Eurydice free.

All hell was astonished a person so wise

Should rashly endanger his life,

And venture so far; but how vast their surprise
When they heard that he came for his wife!

To find out a punishment due for his fault
Old Pluto long puzzled his brain;

But hell had not torments sufficient, he thought,—

So he gave him his wife back again.

1 I have looked in various books for any particulars about this writer, but without success. His Eurydice is given in Aikin's Collection of English Songs (edition 1810): the first edition of which book was published in 1772. From a peculiarity of rhyming common at one time--"fault" with "thought"-I pre sume the poem may have been written at some such date as 1720 to 1750.

But pity, succeeding soon vanquished his heart;
And, pleased with his playing so well,
He took her again in reward of his art,—
Such merit had music in hell.

SAMUEL WESLEY (JUNR.)

[See Samuel Wesley (Sen.), p. 154. The Rev. Samuel Wesley, Jun., was born towards 1692, and died in 1739. He was for many years an usher in Westminster School, and afterwards Head Master of Tiverton School. He was an extreme high Tory, and strongly disapproved of the religious movement promoted by his brother John].

ON THE SETTING-UP MR. BUTLER'S1 MONUMENT IN
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

WHILE Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give :

See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust !

The poet's fate is here in emblem shown;

He asked for bread, and he received a stonę.

ADVICE TO ONE WHO WAS ABOUT TO WRITE, TO AVOID THE IMMORALITIES OF THE ANCIENT AND

MODERN POETS.

IF e'er to writing you pretend,
Your utmost aim and study bend
The paths of virtue to befriend,
However mean your ditty;

That, while your verse the reader draws
To reason's and religion's laws,
None e'er hereafter may have cause

To curse your being witty.

No gods or weak or wicked feign;
Where foolish blasphemy is plain,
But good to wire-draw from the strain
The critic's art perplexes.

Make not a pious chief forego
A Princess he betrayed to woe,
Nor shepherd, unplatonic, show
His fondness for Alexis.

With partial blindness to a side,
Extol not surly stoic pride,
When wild ambition's rapid tide
Bursts nature's bonds asunder :

1 Butler, the author of Hudibras.

Nor let a hero loud blaspheme,
Rave like a madman in a dream,
Till Jove himself affrighted seem,
Not trusting to his thunder.

Nor choose the wanton Ode, to praise
Unbridled loves or thoughtless days,
In soft Epicurean lays;

A numerous melting lyric:
Nor satire that would lust chastise
With angry warmth and maxim wise,
Yet, loosely painting naked vice,
Becomes its panegyric.

Nor jumbled atoms entertain
In the void spaces of your brain,-
Deny all gods, while Venus vain

Stands without vesture painted:
Nor show the foul nocturnal scene
Of courts and revellings unclean,
Where never libertine had been

Worse than the poet tainted.
Nor let luxuriant fancy rove

Through nature, and through art of love,
Skilled in smooth Elegy to move,
Youth unexperienced firing:
Nor gods as brutes expose to view,
Nor monstrous crimes, nor lend a clue
To guide the guilty lover through
The mazes of desiring.

Nor sparrow mourn, nor sue to kiss;
Nor draw your fine-spun wit so nice
That thin-spread sense like nothing is,
Or worse than nothing showing:
Nor spite in Epigram declare,
Pleasing the mob with lewdness bare,
Or flattery's pestilential air

In ears of princes blowing.

Through modern Italy pass down
(In crimes inferior she to none),
Through France, her thoughts in lust alone
Without reserve proclaiming :

Stay there who count it worth the while!
Let us deduce our useful style

To note the poets of our isle,

And only spare the naming.

Sing not loose stories for the nonce,}
Where mirth for bawdry ill atones,

Nor long-tongued wife of Bath, at once

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