Works

A set of phrases learn'd by rote;
A passion for a scarlet coat;
When at a play, to laugh or cry,
Yet cannot tell the reason why;
Never to hold her tongue a minute,...

IN A LETTER TO A PERSON OF QUALITY. 1728


SIR, 'twas a most unfriendly part
In you, who ought to know my heart,
Are well acquainted with my zeal
For all the female commonweal -...

Did ever problem thus perplex,
Or more employ the female sex?
So sweet a passion who would think,
Jove ever form'd to make a stink?
The ladies vow and swear, they'll try,
Whether it be a truth or lie....

AETATIS SUAE fifty-two,
A reverend Dean began to woo[2]
A handsome, young, imperious girl,
Nearly related to an earl.[3]
Her parents and her friends consent;
The couple to the temple went:...

Venus one day, as story goes,
But for what reason no man knows,
In sullen mood and grave deport,
Trudged it away to Jove's high court;
And there his Godship did entreat
To look out for his best receipt:...

From distant regions Fortune sends
An odd triumvirate of friends;
Where Phoebus pays a scanty stipend,
Where never yet a codling ripen'd:
Hither the frantic goddess draws...

Pallas, a goddess chaste and wise
Descending lately from the skies,
To Neptune went, and begg'd in form
He'd give his orders for a storm;
A storm, to drown that rascal Hort,[1]...

The rod was but a harmless wand,
While Moses held it in his hand;
But, soon as e'er he laid it down,
Twas a devouring serpent grown.
Our great magician, Hamet Sid,
Reverses what the prophet did:...

The greatest monarch may be stabb'd by night
And fortune help the murderer in his flight;
The vilest ruffian may commit a rape,
Yet safe from injured innocence escape;
And calumny, by working under ground,...

From the Gentleman's London Magazine for January.

My lines to him you give; to speak your due,
'Tis what no man alive will say of you.
Your works are like old Jacob's speckled goats,...

Mordanto fills the trump of fame,
The Christian world his deeds proclaim,
And prints are crowded with his name.

In journeys he outrides the post,
Sits up till midnight with his host,...

Among the numbers who employ
Their tongues and pens to give you joy,
Dear Harley! generous youth, admit
What friendship dictates more than wit.
Forgive me, when I fondly thought...

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1693


Thrice, with a prophet's voice, and prophet's power,
The Muse was called in a poetic hour,
And insolently thrice the slighted maid
Dared to suspend her unregarded aid;...

OCT. 10, 1718 NINE IN THE MORNING

To you whose virtues, I must own
With shame, I have too lately known;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have sought,...

You always are making a god of your spouse;
But this neither Reason nor Conscience allows;
Perhaps you will say, 'tis in gratitude due,
And you adore him, because he adores you....

REVEREND AND LEARNED SIR,
...

Pallas, observing Stella's wit
Was more than for her sex was fit,
And that her beauty, soon or late,
Might breed confusion in the state,
In high concern for human kind,
Fix'd honour in her infant mind....

APPLES

Come buy my fine wares,
Plums, apples, and pears.
A hundred a penny,
In conscience too many:
Come, will you have any?
My children are seven,
I wish them in Heaven;...

Libertas et natale solum: [2]
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.
Could nothing but thy chief reproach
Serve for a motto on thy coach?
But let me now the words translate:
Natale solum, my estate;...

Behold, those monarch oaks, that rise
With lofty branches to the skies,
Have large proportion'd roots that grow
With equal longitude below:
Two bards that now in fashion reign,...