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EPIGRAM.

ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS.

1

AM his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are
you ? 2

INSCRIPTION ON A PUNCH-BOWL,

IN THE SOUTH-SEA YEAR, FOR A CLUB, CHASED WITH JUPITER PLACING CALLISTO IN THE SKIES, AND EUROPA WITH THE BULL.

OME, fill the South Sea goblet full;

The gods shall of our stock take

[graphic]

care;

Europa pleased accepts the Bull, And Jove with joy puts off the Bear.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.
Un Jour dit un Auteur, &c.

NCE (says an author; where, I need
not say)

Two travellers found an oyster in their way;

Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew

strong,

1 Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III. 2 This is taken from Sir William Temple's Heads designed for an Essay on Conversation. "Mr. Grantam's fool's reply to a great man that asked whose fool he was,- I am Mr. Grantam's fool-pray tell me whose fool are you?""-Roscoe.

While scale in hand Dame Justice passed along. Before her each with clamour pleads the laws, Explained the matter, and would win the cause. Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right, Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight. The cause of strife removed so rarely well, There, take," says Justice, "take ye each a

66

shell.

We thrive at Westminster on fools like you: 'Twas a fat oyster-live in peace—Adieu.”

BISHOP HOUGH.1

BISHOP, by his neighbours hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated;
But why should Hough desire trans-
lation,

Loved and esteemed by all the nation?
Yet if it be the old man's case,

I'll lay my life I know the place:

'Tis where God sent some that adore him, And whither Enoch went before him.

EPIGRAM.

Y Lord' complains that Pope, stark mad with gardens,

M

Has cut three trees, the value of three farthings.

"But he's my neighbour," cries the peer polite : "And if he visit me, I'll waive the right." What! on compulsion, and against my will, Let him file his bill!

A lord's acquaintance?

1 See Epilogue to Satires, ii. 240.
2 Lord Radnor.-Warton.

EPIGRAM.1

ES! 'tis the time (I cried), impose the chain,

Destined and due to wretches selfenslaved;

But when I saw such charity remain,

I half could wish this people should be saved. Faith lost, and Hope, our Charity begins; Aud 'tis a wise design in pitying Heaven, If this can cover multitude of sins,

To take the only way to be forgiven.

ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING
QUESTION OF MRS. HOWE.2

HAT is PRUDERY ?

'Tis a beldam,

Seen with wit and beauty seldom, 'Tis a fear that starts at shadows, 'Tis (no, 'tisn't) like Miss Meadows.

1 The Countess of Hertford, in a letter to the Countess of Pomfret, dated Feb. 20, 1740, says: "The severity of the weather has occasioned greater sums of money to be given in charity than was heard of before. Mr. Pope has written two stanzas on the occasion."

2 Mary Howe, daughter of Viscount Howe and Maid of Honour to Princess Caroline. She married Lord Pembroke, and afterwards John Mordaunt, brother to the Earl of Peterborough.

"A prude would never have had any charms for Mr. Pope, to whom Mrs. Howe said one day, 'You men call us strange names; some of them I don't understand. Coquetry, indeed, I guess at; but prudery,-for Heaven's sake, make me know thoroughly what that prudery is.' Mr. Pope wrote her an answer in the leaf of an ivory book.”—AYRE's Life of Pope, vol. ii. p. 48.

'Tis a virgin hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful, would seem wise;
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly envious shrew,

That rails at dear Lepell, and you.'

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.2

KNOW the thing that's most uncommon;

(Envy, be silent, and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warped by passion, awed by rumour,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,
An equal mixture of good humour,

And sensible soft melancholy.

"Has she no faults then (Envy says), sir ?"
Yes, she has one, I must aver;

When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.

1 Miss Meadows and Mary Lepell were also Maids of Honour to Princess Caroline. See "The Challenge," vv. 6, 25.

2 Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk.

LINES TO LORD BATHURST.1

WOOD!" quoth Lewis, and with that

He laughed, and shook his sides of
fat.

His tongue, with eye that marked his cunning,
Thus fell a-reasoning, not a-running;
"Woods are not to be too prolix-
Collective bodies of straight sticks.
It is, my Lord, a mere conundrum

To call things woods for what grows under 'em,
For shrubs, when nothing else at top is,

Can only constitute a coppice.

But if you will not take my word,

See anno quint. of Richard Third;

And that's a coppice called, when docked,
Witness an. prim. of Harry Oct.

If this a wood you will maintain,
Merely because it is no plain,
Holland, for all that I can see,
May e'en as well be termed the sea,
Or C-by be fair harangued

3

An honest man, because not hanged."

1 Sent in a letter to Lord Bathurst, July 5, 1718, but first published by Mr. Mitford in his edition of Gray's correspondence (1843).

2 Erasmus Lewis. See Imitations of Horace, Sat. i. 64.

3 Thomas, the first Lord Coningsby, a zealous promoter of the Revolution of 1688.-Carruthers.

III.

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