Whence look the soldiers' cheeks dismay'd and pale?

Erst ever dreadful, know they now to dread?
The hostile troops, I ween, almost prevail;
And the pursuers only not recede.

Alas! their lessen'd rage proclaims their grief! For, anxious, lo! they crowd around their falling chief.

"I thank thee, Fate!" exclaims the fierce Bavar; "Let Boya's trumpet grateful lö`s sound:

saw him fall, their thunderbolt of war:-
Ever to Vengeance sacred be the ground."
Vain wish! short jov! the hero mounts again
In greater glory, and with fuller light:
The evening star so falls into the main,
To rise at morn more prevalently bright.
He rises safe; but near, too near his side,

A good man's grievous loss, a faithful servant died.
Propitious Mars! the battle is regain'd:
The foe, with lessen'd wrath, disputes the field:
The Briton fights, by favouring gods sustain'd:
Freedom must live; and lawless Power must yield.
Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell,
That wavering Conquest still desires to rove!
In Marlborough's camp the goddess knows to dwell:
Long as the hero's life remains her love.
Again France flies, again the duke pursues,
And on Ramilia's plains he Blenheim's fame re-

news.

Great thanks, captain great in arms! receive From thy triumphant country's public voice: Thy country greater thanks can only give To Anne, to her who made those arms her choice. Recording Schellenberg's and Blenheim's toils, We dreaded lest thou should'st those toils repeat: We view'd the palace charg'd with Gallic spoils, And in those spoils we thought thy praise complete. For never Greek, we deem'd, nor Roman knight, In characters like these did e'er his acts indite.

Yet, mindless still of ease, thy virtue flies A pitch to old and modern times unknown: Those goodly deeds, which we so highly prize, Imperfect seem, great chief, to thee alone. Those heights, where William's virtue might have staid,

And on the subject world look'd safely down, By Marlborough pass'd, the props and steps were made

Sublimer yet to raise his queen's renown:

Still gaining more, still slighting what he gain'd, Nought done the hero deem'd, while aught undone remain'd.

When swift-wing'd Rumour told the mighty Gaul, How lessen'd from the field Bavar was fled; He wept the swiftness of the champion's fall; And thus the royal treaty-breaker said: "And lives he yet, the great, the lost Bavar, Ruin to Gallia in the name of friend? Tell me, how far has Fortune been severe ? Has the foe's glory, or our grief, an end? Remains there, of the fifty thousand lost,

To save our threaten'd realm, or guard our shatter'd coast?

"To the close rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rising eagle cuts the air:
The shaggy wolf, unseen and trembling, lies,
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near.

flame,

Nor great Pelides' arm, nor Juno's rage, could tame.'

"Their Tudors hence, and Stuarts offspring flow: Hence Edward, dreadful with his sable shield, Talbot to Gallia's power eternal foe,

And Seymour, fam'd in council or in field:
Hence Nevil, great to settle or dethrone,
And Drake, and Ca'ndish, terrours of the sea:
Hence Butler's sons, o'er land and ocean known,
Herbert's and Churchill's warring progeny:
Hence the long roll which Gallia should conceal:
For, oh! who, vanquish'd, loves the victor's fame
to tell?

Envy'd Britannia, sturdy as the oak, Which on her mountain top she proudly bears, Fludes the ax, and sprouts against the stroke; Strong from her wounds, and greater by her wars. And as those teeth, which Cadmus sow'd in earth, Produc'd new youth, and furnish'd fresh supplies: So with young vigour, and succeeding birth, Her losses more than recompens'd arise; And every age she with a race is crown'd, For letters more polite, in battles more renown'd

"Obstinate power, whom nothing can repel; Not the fierce Saxon, nor the cruel Dane, Nor deep impression of the Norman steel, Nor Europe's force amass'd by envious Spain, Nor France, on universal sway intent, Oft breaking leagues, and oft renewing wars, Nor (frequent bane of weaken'd government) Their own intestine feuds and mutual jars : Those feuds and jars, in which I trusted more, Than in my troo, s, and fleets, and all the Gallie

power.

TEN months after Florimel happen'd to wed,
And was brought in a laudable manner to bed,
She warbled her groans with so charming a voice,
That one half of the parish was stunn'd with the
noise.

But, when Florimel deign'd to lie privately in,
Ten months before she and her spouse were a kin;
She chose with such prudence her pangs to con-
ccal,
[once squeal.
That her nurse, nay her midwife, scarce heard her
Learn, husbands, from hence, for the peace of your
lives,

That maids make not half such a tumult as wives.

A REASONABLE AFFLICTION,
Os his death-bed poor Lubin lies;
His spouse is in despair:

With frequent sobs, and mutual cries,
They both express their care.
"A different cause," says parson Sly,
The same effect may give :

Poor Lubin fears that he shall die;
His wife, that he may live."

ANOTHER REASONABLE AFFLICTION.

FROM her own native France as old Alison past, She reproach'd English Nell with neglect or with malice,

That the slattern had left, in the hurry and haste, Her lady's complexion and eye-brows at Calais.

ANOTHER.

HER eye-brow box one morning lost, (The best of folks are oftenest crost) Sad Helen thus to Jenny said, (Her careless but afflicted maid) "Put me to bed then, wretched Jane; Alas! when shall I rise again?

I can behold no mortal now :

For what's an eye without a brow ?”

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

In a dark corner of the house

Poor Helen sits, and sobs, and cries; She will not see her loving spouse, Nor her more dear picquet allies: Unless she find her eye-brows, She'll e'en weep out her eyes.

ON THE SAME,

HELEN was just slipt into bed: Her eye-brows on the toilet lay} Away the kitten with them fled, As fees belonging to her prey.

For this misfortune careless Jane, Assure yourself, was loudly rated: And madam, getting up again, With her own hand the mouse-trap baited, On little things, as sages write, Depends our human joy or sorrow :

If we don't catch a mouse to-night, Alas! no eye-brows for to morrow.

PHYLLIS'S AGE.

How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task:

For she has really two ages.
Stiff in brocade, and pinch'd in stays,

Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let Envy view her face,

And Phyllis is but twenty-one. Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,

At night, astronomers ågree, The evening has the day bely'd;

And Phyllis is some forty-three.

FORMA BONUM FRAGILE.

WHAT a frail thing is beauty!" says Baron le Perceiving his mistress had one eye of glass: [Cras, And scarcely had he spoke it,

When she more confus'd, as more angry she grew, By a negligent rage prov'd the maxim too true: She dropt the eye, and broke it.

AN EPIGRAM.

WRITTEN TO THE DUKE DE NOAILLES.

VAIN the concern which you express,
That uncall'd Alard will possess

Your house and coach, both day and night, And that Macbeth was haunted less

By Banquo's restless spright.

With fifteen thousand pounds a year,
Do you complain, you cannot bear
An ill, you may so soon retrieve?
Good Alard, faith, is modester

By much than you believe.
Lend him but fifty Louis-d'or;
And you shall never see him inore:
Take the advice; probatum est.
Why do the gods indulge our store,
But to secure our rest?

EPILOGUE

TO SMITH'S PHÆDRA AND HIPPOLYTUS,

SPOKEN BY Mrs. Oldfield, WHO ACTED ISMENA.

LADIES, to night your pity I implore
For one, who never troubled you before:
An Oxford man, extremely read in Greek,
Who from Euripides makes Phædra speak;
And comes to town to let us moderns know,
How women lov'd two thousand years ago.

"If that be all," said I, "e'en burn your play:
Egad! we know all that as well as they :
Show us the youthful, handsome charioteer,
Firm in his seat, and running his career;
Our souls would kindle with as generous flames,
As e'er inspir'd the ancient Grecian dames :
Every Ismena would resign her breast;
And every dear Hippolytus be blest.

"But, as it is, six flouncing Flanders mares
Are e'en as good as any two of theirs:
And, if Hippolytus can but contrive
To buy the gilded chariot, John can drive."

Now of the bustle you have seen to-day,
And Phædra's morals in this scholar's play,
Something at least in justice should be said;
But this Hippolytus so fills one's head-
Well! Phædra liv'd as chastely as she cou'd;
For she was father Jove's own flesh and blood.
Her aukward love indeed was oddly fated;
She and her Poly were too near related;
And yet that scruple had been laid aside,
If honest Theseus had but fairly died:
But when he came, what needed he to know,
But that all matters stood in statu quo?
There was no harm, you see; or, grant there were,
She might want conduct; but he wanted care.

'Twas in a husband little less than rude,
Upon his wife's retirement to intrude-
He should have sent a night or two before,
That he would come exact at such an hour;
Then he had turn'd all tragedy to jest;
Found every thing contribute to his rest;
The picquet friend dismiss'd, the coast all clear,
And spouse alone impatient for her dear.

But, if these gay reflections come too late,
To keep the guilty Phædra from her fate;
If your more serious judgment must condemn
The dire effects of her unhappy flame:
Yet, ye chaste matrons, and ye tender fair,
Let Love and Innocence engage your care:
My spotless flames to your protection take;
And spare poor Phædra for Ismena's sake.

EPILOGUE TO MRS. MANLEY'S LUCIUS.
THE female author who recites to day,
Trusts to her sex the merit of her play.
Like father Bayes securely she sits down:
Pit, box, and gallery, 'gad! all's our own.
In ancient Greece, she says, when Sappho writ,
By their applause the critics show'd their wit,
They tun'd their voices to her lyric string;
Tho' they could all do something more than sing.
But one exception to this fact we find ;
That booby Phaon only was unkind,

An ill-bred boat-man, rough as waves and wind.
From Sappho down through all succeeding ages,
And now on French or on Italian stages,
Rough satyrs, sly remarks, ill-natur'd speeches,
Are always aim'd at poets that wear breeches.
Arm'd with Longinus, or with Rapin, no man
Drew a sharp pen upon a naked woman.
The blustering bully, in our neighbouring streets,
Scorns to attack the female that he meets :
Fearless the petticoat contemns his frowns:
The hoop secures whatever it surrounds.
The many-colour'd gentry there above,
By turns are rul'd by tumult and by love:
And, while their sweethearts their attention fix,
Suspend the din of their damn'd clattering sticks
Now, sirs-

To you our author makes her soft request,
Who speak the kindest, and who write the best,
Your sympathetic hearts she hopes to move,
From tender friendship, and endearing love.
If Petrarch's Muse did Laura's wit rehearse;
And Cowley flatter'd dear Orinda's verse ;
She hopes from you-Pox take her hopes and fears!
I plead her sex's claim; what matters hers?
By our full power of beauty we think fit
To damn the Salique law impos'd on wit:
We'll try the empire who so long have boasted;
And, if we are not prais'd, we'll not be toasted.
Approve what one of us presents to night,
Or every mortal woman here shall write:
Rural, pathetic, narrative, sublime,

We'll write to you, and make you write in rhymej

Female remarks shall take up all your time.
Your time, poor souls! we'll take your very money;
Female third-days shall come so thick upon ye,
As long as we have eyes, or hands, or breath,
We'll look, or write, or talk you all to death,
Unless you yield for better and for worse:
Then the she-Pegasus shall gain the course;
And the grey mare will prove the better horse.

THE THIEF AND THE CORDELIER,

A BALLAD TO THE TUNE OF

KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY.

WHO has e'er been at Paris, must needs know the
Greve,

The fatal retreat of th' unfortunate brave;
Where Honour and Justice most oddly contribute
To ease heroes' pains by a halter and gibbet.
Derry down, down, hey derry down,

There Death breaks the shackles which Force had put on,

And the hangman completes what the judge but begun;

There the squire of the pad, and the knight of the [no more crost.

post,

Find their pains no more balk'd, and their hopes Derry down, &c.

Great claims are there made, and great secrets are known; [own; And the king, and the law, and the thief, has his But my hearers cry out, "What a duce dost thou ail?

Cut off thy reflections, and give us thy tale."
Derry down, &c.

"Twas there then, in civil respect to harsh laws, And for want of false witness to back a bad cause, A Norman, though late, was oblig'd to appear; And who to assist, but a grave Cordelier?

Derry down, &c,

The squire, whose good grace was to open the

scene,

Seem'd not in great haste that the show should

begin:

Now fitted the halter, now travers'd the cart; And often took leave, but was loth to depart. Derry down, &c.

"What frightens you thus, my good son?" says the priest:

"You murder'd, are sorry, and have been confest." "O father! my sorrow will scarce save my bacon; For 'twas not that I murder'd, but that I was taken," Derry down, &c.

"Pough! pr'ythee ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies:

Rely on the aid you shall have from Saint Francis: If the money you promis'd be brought to the chest, You have only to die: let the church do the rest. Derry down, &c.

"And what will folks say, if they see you afraid? It reflects upon me, as I knew not my trade:

Courage, friend; for to day is your period of sorrow; And things will go better, believe me, tomorrow.”.› Derry down, &c.

"To morrow!" our hero replied, in a fright: "He that's hang'd before noon, ought to think of to night."[truss'd up, "Tell your beads," quoth the priest, "and be fairly For you surely to night shall in Paradise sup." Derry down, &c.

"Alas!" quoth the squire, "howe'er sumptu ous the treat,

Parbleu! I shall have little stomach to eat;
I should therefore esteem it great favour and grace,
Would you be so kind as to go in my place."
Derry down, &c.

"That I would," quoth the father, "and thank

you to boot;

INTERR'D beneath this marble stone
Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run;
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rose or fell,
The morning past, the evening came,
And found this couple still the same.
They walk'd, and eat, good folks: what then?
Why then they walk'd and eat again :
They soundly slept the night away;
They did just nothing all the day:
And, having bury'd children four,
Would not take pains to try for more.
Nor sister either had nor brother;
They seem'd just tally'd for each other.

Their moral and œconomy
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Most perfectly they made agree:
Nor trespass'd on the other's ground.