Her arguments directly tend
Against the side she would defend;
Will prove herself a tory plain,
From principles the whigs maintain;
And, to defend the whiggish cause,
Her topics from the tories draws.
O yes! if any man can find
More virtues in a woman's mind,
Let them be sent to Mrs Harding;'
She'll pay the charges to a farthing;
Take notice, she has my commission
To add them in the next edition;
They may outsell a better thing:
So, holloo, boys; God save the king!
As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling, Rode stately through Holborn to die in his calling. He stopt at the George for a bottle of sack,
And promis'd to pay for it when he came back. His waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches, were white;
cap had a new cherry riband to tye't.
* Widow of John Harding, the Drapier's printer.-F.
The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
And said, "Lack-a-day, he's a proper young man
But, as from the windows the ladies he spy'd,
Like a beau in the box, he bow'd low on each side!
And when his last speech the loud hawkers did cry,
He swore from his cart, "It was all a damn'd lie!"
The hangman for pardon fell down on his knee ;
Tom gave him a kick in the guts for his fee:
Then said, I must speak to the people a little;
But I'll see you all damn'd before I will whittle. *
My honest friend Wild (may he long hold his
place)
He lengthen'd my life with a whole year of grace.
Take courage, dear comrades, and be not afraid,
Nor slip this occasion to follow your trade;
My conscience is clear, and my spirits are calm,
And thus I go off, without prayer-book or psalm;
Then follow the practice of clever Tom Clinch,
Who hung like a hero, and never would flinch.
* A cant word for confessing at the gallows.-F.
+ The noted thief-catcher, under-keeper of Newgate, who was hanged for receiving stolen goods.-F.
THE GRUB-STREET VERSE WRITERS.
Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your still-born poems shall revive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
Then let them well be dried;
And Curll must have a special care
To leave the margin wide.
Send these to paper-sparing * Pope;
And when he sets to write,
No letter with an envelope
Could give him more delight.
* The original copy of Pope's celebrated translation of Homer (preserved in the British Museum) is almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letters themselves.
When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
Why then recal your loan;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
And swear they are your own.
WHILE HE WAS WRITING THE DUNCIAD.
POPE has the talent well to speak,
But not to reach the ear;
His loudest voice is low and weak,
The Dean too deaf to hear.
A while they on each other look,
Then different studies choose;
The Dean sits plodding on a book;
Pope walks, and courts the Muse.
Now backs of letters *, though design'd
For those who more will need 'em,
Are fill'd with hints, and interlin'd,
Himself can hardly read 'em.
Each atom by some other struck,
All turns and motions tries ;
Till in a lump together stuck,
Behold a poem rise:
Yet to the Dean his share allot;
He claims it by a canon;
That without which a thing is not,
Is, causa sine quá non.
Thus, Pope, in vain you boast
For, had our deaf divine
Been for your conversation fit,
You had not writ a line.
Of Sherlock *, thus, for preaching fam'd,
The sexton reason'd well;
And justly half the merit claim'd,
Because he rang the bell.
FROM A PHYSICIAN TO HIS MISTRESS.
By poets we are well assur'd
That love, alas! can ne'er be cur'd;
A complicated heap of ills,
Despising boluses and pills.
Ah! Chloe, this I find is true,
Since first I gave my heart to you.
Now, by your cruelty hard bound,
I strain my guts, my colon wound.
* The Dean of St Paul's, father to the bishop.-H.
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