VERSES IN REPLY TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER AT DR. BAKER'S.1 [c. 1769.] "This is a poem! This is a copy of verses!" OUR mandate I got, You may all go to pot; Had your senses been right, As I hope to be saved, I put off being shaved; For I could not make bold, Or to put on my duds; So tell Horneck and Nesbitt, And Baker and his bit, And Kauffman beside, The Reynoldses two, 3 Little Comedy's face, 10 And the Captain in lace.1 (By the bye you may tell him, I have something to sell him; 20 'The above verses were first published in 1837, by the late Sir Henry Bunbury, Bart. 2 Miss Mary Horneck, afterwards Mrs. Gwyn. 3 Miss Catherine Horneck, afterwards Mrs. Bunbury 4 Ensign (afterwards General) Horneck. Of use I insist, When he comes to enlist. Your worships must know For the foot guards so stout Yet how can I when vext, To one of my state. 30 40 But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser, When both have been spoiled in to-day's Advertiser? OLIVER GOLDSMITH. A MADRIGAL.1 EEPING, murmuring, complaining, Fears the approaching bridal night. Yet why impair thy bright perfection? SONG. HE wretch, condemned with life to part, And every pang that rends the heart, Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, 1 First printed in The Bee, p. 94. SONG.1 MEMORY! thou fond deceiver, Thou, like the world, opprest oppressing, This and the preceding are variations of songs in the Oratorio of The Captivity. A ROMAN KNIGHT, WHOM CÆSAR FORCED UPON THE PRESERVED BY MACROBIUS.1 STAGE. HAT! no way left to shun th' inglorious stage, And save from infamy my sinking age! a year, What in the name of dotage drives me here? 1 This translation was first printed in the first edition of one of our Author's earliest works, The Present State of Learning in Europe, 12mo. 1759. It was omitted in the second edition, 1774. |