With underlings thy flock to teach,
With no desire to pray or preach;
With haughty spouse in vesture fine,
With plenteous meals and generous wine;
Wouldst thou not wish, in so much ease,
Thy years as numerous as thy days?
THE HARDSHIP UPON THE LADIES.
POOR ladies! though their business be to play,
'Tis hard they must be busy night and day:
Why should they want the privilege of men,
Nor take some small diversions now and then?
Had women been the makers of our laws,
(And why they were not, I can see no cause)
The men should slave at cards from morn to night;
And female pleasures be to read and write.
FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart:
I, a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Meander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela drooping
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to fate.
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 Horte,
And she would kindly thank him for't;
A wretch! whom English rogues, to spite her, Had lately honour'd with a mitre.
The god, who favour'd her request, Assur'd her he would do his best: But Venus had been there before, Pleaded the bishop lov'd a whore, And had enlarg'd her empire wide; He own'd no deity beside.
At sea or land, if e'er you found him
Without a mistress, hang or drown him
Since Burnet's death, the bishops' bench,
Till Horte arriv'd, ne'er kept a wench
If Horte must sink, she grieves to tell it,
She'll not have left one single prelate;
For, to say truth, she did intend him,
Elect of Cyprus in commendam.
And, since her birth the ocean gave her,
She could not doubt her uncle's favour.
Then Proteus urg'd the same request,
But half in earnest, half in jest;
Said he " Great sovereign of the main,
To drown him all attempts are vain.
Horte can assume more forms than I,
A rake, a bully, pimp, or spy;
Can creep, or run, or fly or swim;
All motions are alike to him:
Turn him adrift, and you shall find
He knows to sail with every wind;
Or, throw him overboard, he'll ride
As well against as with the tide.
But, Pallas, you've applied too late ;
For, 'tis decreed, by Jove and Fate,
That Ireland must be soon destroy'd,
And who but Horte can be employ'd?
You need not then have been so pert,
In sending Bolton * to Clonfert.
I found you did it, by your grinning;
Your business is to mind your spinning.
But how you came to interpose
In making bishops, no one knows :
Or who regarded your report;
For never were you seen at court.
And if you must have your petition,
There's Berkeley † in the same condition;
Look, there he stands, and 'tis but just,
If one must drown the other must;
But, if you'll leave us Bishop Judas,
We'll give you Berkeley for Bermudas.
Now, if 'twill gratify your spite,
To put him in a plaguy fright,
Although 'tis hardly worth the cost,
You soon shall see him soundly tost.
You'll find him swear, blaspheme, and damn
(And every moment take a dram)
His ghastly visage with an air
Of reprobation and despair:
Or else some hiding-hole he seeks,
For fear the rest should say he squeaks;
Or, as Fitzpatrick § did before,
Resolve to perish with his whore;
* Dr Theophilus Bolton, afterwards Archbishop of Cashell.
+ Dr George Berkeley, a senior fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, from whence he was made Dean of Derry, and after. wards bishop of Cloyne.-F.
See his scheme in his Miscellanies for erecting an university at Bermudas.-F.
§ Brigadier Fitzpatrick was drowned in one of the packet boats in the Bay of Dublin, in a great storm.-F.
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