As Thomas was cudgelled one day by his wife,
He took to his heels and ran for his life:
Tom’s three dearest friends came by in the squabble,
And skreened him at once from the shrew and the rabble;
Then ventured to give him some wholesome advice:
But Tom is a fellow of humour so nice,
Too proud to take counsel, too wise to take warning,
He sent to all three a challenge next morning:
He fought with all three, thrice ventured his life,
Then went home again, and was thrashed by his wife.
_Translated from_ BUCHANAN.
_Beginning_, Pauper eram juvenis, _&c._
Poor, when in youth, now worn with feeble age
I’m rich; but wretched still in either stage:
When wealth I could enjoy I then had none;
Now plenty’s come, all power of use is gone.
_On a Company of bad Dancers to good Music._ BY MR. BUDGELL.
How ill the motion with the music suits!
So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes.
_The Lover’s Legacy._
Unhappy Strephon, dead and cold,
His heart was from his bosom rent,
Embalmed, and in a box of gold,
To his beloved Kitty sent.
Some ladies might, perhaps, have fainted,
But Kitty smiled upon the bauble;
A pin-cushion, said she, I wanted,
Go put it on the dressing-table.
_The Scotch Weather-Wife._
Scotland, thy weather’s like a modish wife;
Thy winds and rains maintain perpetual strife;
So termagant, a while, her thunder hies;
And when she can no longer scold―she cries.
_On Milton._ BY MR. DRYDEN.
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpast;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no farther go―
To make a third she joined the former two.
_Written, in the leaves of a Fan._