Let the singing singers

With vocal voices, most vociferous,
In sweet vociferation out-vociferize
Even sound itself.

To thee, and gentle Rigdom Funnidos,
Our gratulations flow in streams unbounded.

Go call a coach, and let a coach be called;
And let the man who calleth be the caller;
And in his calling let him nothing call

Ibid.

Sc. 3.

But "Coach! Coach! Coach! Oh for a coach, ye gods!"

Genteel in personage,

Conduct, and equipage;

Noble by heritage,

Generous and free.

Act ii. Sc. 4.

The Contrivances. Act i. Sc. 2.

What a monstrous tail our cat has got!

The Dragon of Wantley. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Of all the girls that are so smart,
There's none like pretty Sally.1
Of all the days that's in the week

I dearly love but one day,

And that's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday.

1 Of all the girls that e'er was seen,

There's none so fine as Nelly.

Sally in our Alley.

Ibid.

SWIFT: Ballad on Miss Nelly Bennet.

1

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there; 1
And 't will be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.

The True-Born Englishman. Part i. Line 1.

Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.

Ibid.

TOM BROWN. 1663-1704.

I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.2

To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, and fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.

Laconics.

In the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the Gospel, but abandon yourselves to

1 See Burton, page 192.

2 A slightly different version is found in Brown's Works collected and published after his death:

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;

Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te

(I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I de not love thee). - MARTIAL: Epigram i. 33.

your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place which 't is not good manners to mention here." 1

Laconics.

MATTHEW PRIOR. 1664-1721.

All jargon of the schools.2

Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
The little pleasure of the game
Is from afar to view the flight.3

I am that I am. An Ode.

To the Hon. Charles Montague.

From ignorance
our comfort flows.
The only wretched are the wise.*

Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song ?

Be to her virtues very kind;

Be to her faults a little blind.

That if weak women went astray,
Their stars were more in fault than they.

Ibid.

A Better Answer.

An English Padlock.

The end must justify the means.
And thought the nation ne'er would thrive
Till all the whores were burnt alive.
They never taste who always drink ;
They always talk who never think."

Hans Carvel.

Ibid.

Paulo Purganti.

Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.

That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less."

Henry and Emma.

Who never mentions hell to ears polite. - POPE: Moral Essays, epistle

iv. line 149.

2 Noisy jargon of the schools. - POMFRET: Reason.

The sounding jargon of the schools. - COWPER: Truth, line 367.

3 But all the pleasure of the game

Is afar off to view the flight.

• See Davenant, page 217.

Variations in a copy dated 1692.

POPE: Moral Essays, epistle ii

5 See Jonson, page 180. Also Dryden, page 268.

6 Fine by defect, and delicately weak.

line 43.

Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave, but was loth to depart.1

Nobles and heralds, by your leave,

The Thief and the Cordelier.

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior; The son of Adam and of Eve:

2

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher ??

Epitaph. Extempore.

Soft
peace she brings; wherever she arrives
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives;
Lays the rough paths of peevish Nature even,
opens in each heart a little heaven.

And

His noble negligences teach

What others' toils despair to reach.

Charity.

Alma. Canto ii. Line 7.

Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em,
And oft repeating, they believe 'em.

Abra was ready ere I called her name;
And though I called another, Abra came.

Canto iii. Line 13.

Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book i. Line 364

For hope is but the dream of those that wake.3

Book iii. Line 102

1 As men that be lothe to departe do often take their leff. [John Clerk to Wolsey.] ELLIS: Letters, third series, vol. i. p. 262.

"A loth to depart" was the common term for a song, or a tune played, on taking leave of friends. TARLTON: News out of Purgatory (about 1689). CHAPMAN: Widow's Tears. MIDDLETON: The Old Law, act iv. sc. 1. BEAU MONT AND FLETCHER: Wit at Several Weapons, act ii. sc. 2.

2 The following epitaph was written long before the time of Prior:

Johnnie Carnegie lais heer,

Descendit of Adam and Eve.

Gif ony con gang hieher,
Ise willing give him leve.

This thought is ascribed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laertius (Aristotle. v. xi.), who, when asked what hope is, answered, "The dream of a waking ." Menage, in his "Observations upon Laertius," says that Stobaus (Serm. cix.) ascribes it to Pindar, while Ælian (Var. Hist. xiii. 29) refers it

man.

to Plato.

Et spes inanes, et velut somnia quædam, vigilantium (Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake). QUINTILIAN: vi. 2, 27.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 240.

A Rechabite poor Will must live,

And drink of Adam's ale.1

The Wandering Pilgrim.

JOHN POMFRET. 1667-1703.

We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe,
And still adore the hand that gives the blow.

Verses to his Friend under Affliction.

Heaven is not always angry when he strikes,
But most chastises those whom most he likes.

Ibid.

JONATHAN SWIFT. 1667-1745.

I've often wish'd that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year;
A handsome house to lodge a friend;
A river at my garden's end;
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land set out to plant a wood.

Imitation of Horace. Book ii. Sat. 6.

So geographers, in Afric maps,

With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs

8

Place elephants for want of towns. Poetry, a Rhapsody..

1 A cup of cold Adam from the next purling stream.

Works, vol. iv. p. 11.

2 See Dryden, page 277.

As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs. — PLUTARCH: Theseus.