Less sure thick lips the fate of Austria doom,
Or eagle noses ruled almighty Rome.
Good shape to various kinds old bards confine; Some praise the Greek and some the Roman line: And dogs to beauty make as differing claims As Albion's nymphs and India's jetty dames. Immense to name their lands, to mark their bounds, And paint the thousand families of hounds! First count the sands, the drops where oceans flow, Or Gauls by Marlborough sent to shades below. The task be mine to teach Britannia's swains, My much-loved country and my native plains.
Such be the dog I charge thou mean'st to train; His back is crooked and his belly plain, Of fillet stretch'd, and huge of haunch behind, A tapering tail that nimbly cuts the wind, Truss'd thigh, straight hamm'd, and fox-like form'd
Large legg'd, dry soled, and of protended claw;
His flat wide nostrils snuff the savoury steam,
And from his eyes he shoots pernicious gleam;
Middling his head, and prone to earth his view,
With ears and chest that dash the morning dew:
He best to stem the flood, to leap the bound,
And charm the dryads with his voice profound;
To pay large tribute to his weary lord,
And crown the silvan hero's plenteous board.
The matron bitch whose womb shall best produce
The hopes and fortune of the' illustrious house,
Derived from noble but from foreign seed,
For various nature loaths incestuous breed,
Is like the sire throughout: nor yet displease
Large flanks and ribs, to give the teemer ease.
In spring let loose thy pairs; then all things prove The stings of pleasure and the pangs of love; Etherial Jove then glads with genial showers Earth's mighty womb, and strews her lap with flowers;
Hence juices mount, and buds embolden'd try
More kindly breezes and a softer sky.
Kind Venus revels. Hark! on every bough
In lulling strains the feather'd warblers woo;
Fell tigers soften in the' infectious flames,
And lions, fawning, court their brinded dames.
Great love pervades the deep: to please his mate
The whale in gambols moves his monstrous weight;
Heaved by his wayward mirth old Ocean roars,
And scatter'd navies bulge on distant shores.
All Nature smiles. Come now, nor fear, my love!
To taste the odours of the woodbine grove,
To pass the evening glooms in harmless play,
And, sweetly swearing, languish life away.
An altar bound with recent flowers I rear
To thee, best season of the various year!
All hail! such days in beauteous order ran,
So swift, so sweet, when first the world began;
In Eden's bowers when man's great sire assign'd
The names and natures of the brutal kind;
Then lamb and lion friendly walk'd their round,
And hares, undaunted, lick'd the fondling hound;
Wondrous to tell! but when with luckless hand
Our daring mother broke the sole command,
Then want and envy brought their meagre train,
Then wrath came down, and Death had leave to
reign;
Hence foxes earth'd, and wolves abhorr'd the day, And hungry churls ensnared the nightly prey;
Rude arts at first, but witty Want refined
The huntsman's wiles, and Famine form'd the mind.
Bold Nimrod first the lion's trophies wore,
The panther bound, and lanced the bristling boar:
He taught to turn the hare, to bay the deer,
And wheel the courser in his mid career.
Ah! had he there restrain'd his tyrant hand!
Let me, ye Powers! an humbler wreath demand:
No pomp I ask which crowns and sceptres yield,
Nor dangerous laurels in the dusty field;
Fast by the forest and the limpid spring
Give me the warfare of the woods to sing,
To breed my whelps and healthful press the game,
A mean, inglorious, but a guiltless name.
And now thy female bears in ample womb
The bane of hares, and triumphs yet to come.
No sport I ween, nor blast of sprightly horn,
Should tempt me then to hurt the whelps unborn.
Unlock'd in covers let her freely run
To range thy courts, and bask before the sun.
Near thy full table let the favourite stand,
Stroked by thy son's or blooming daughter's hand.
Caress, indulge, by arts the matron bribe,
To' improve her breed and teem a vigorous tribe.
So, if small things may be compared with great,
And Nature's works the Muse's imitate,
So stretch'd in shades and lull'd by murmuring
Great Maro's breast received the heavenly dreams.
Recluse, serene, the musing prophet lay
Till thoughts in embryo ripening burst their way.
Hence bees in state and foaming coursers come,
Heroes and gods, and walls of lofty Rome.
MUCH had I heard of fair Francelia's name,
The lavish praises of the babbler Fame;
I thought them such, and went prepared to pry
And trace the charmer with a critic's eye,
Resolved to find some fault before unspied,
And disappointed if but satisfied.
Love pierced the vassal heart that durst rebel,
And where a judge was meant, a victim fell.
On those dear eyes, with sweet perdition gay,
I gazed at once my pride and soul away;
All o'er I felt the luscious poison run,
And in a look the hasty conquest won.
Thus the fond moth around the taper plays, And sports and flutters near the treacherous blaze; Ravish'd with joy he wings his eager flight, Nor dreams of ruin in so clear a light;
He tempts his fate and courts a glorious doom, A bright destruction and a shining tomb.
THERSITES; OR, THE LORDLING;
THE GRANDSON OF A BRICKLAYER-GREAT-GRANDSON
OF A BUTCHER.
THERSITES, of amphibious breed,
Motley fruit of mongrel seed,
By the dam from lordlings sprung,
By the sire exhaled from dung:
Think on every vice in both;
Look on him, and see the growth.
View him on the mother's side,
Fill'd with falsehood, spleen, and pride,
Positive and overbearing,
Changing still, and still adhering,
Spiteful, peevish, rude, untoward,
Fierce in tongue, in heart a coward:
When his friends he most is hard on,
Cringing comes to beg their pardon ;
Reputation ever tearing,
Ever dearest friendship swearing;
Judgment weak and passion strong,
Always various, always wrong;
Provocation never waits
Where he loves, or where he hates;
Talks whate'er comes in his head,
Wishes it were all unsaid.
Let me now the vices trace
From his father's scoundrel race.
Who could give the looby such airs?
Were they masons? Were they butchers?
Herald, lend the Muse an answer,
From his atavus and grandsire;
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