While with'ring seasons in fucceffion, here,
Strip the gay gardens, and deform the year.
But thou (fince Nature bids) the world refign,
'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine,
With more addrefs, (or fuch as pleases more)
She runs her female exercises o'er,
Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan,
And fmiles, or blushes at the creature Man.
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass,
In fideling courtesy fhe drops the glass.
With better strength, on vifit-days, fhe bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.
Her mein, her shape, her temper, eyes and tongue
Are fure to conquer, -for the rogue is young;
And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,
We call it only pretty Fanny's way.
Let time, that makes you homely, make you fage
The fphere of wisdom is the sphere of age.
'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire,
And hears the flatt'ring tongues of foft defire,
If not from virtue, from its gravest ways
The foul with pleafing avocation strays.
But beauty gone, 'tis eafier to be wife;
As harpers better, by the lofs of
Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs, Haunt lefs the plays, and more the public pray'rs, Reject the Mechlin head, and gold brocade, Go pray, in fober Norwich crape array'd.
Thy pendent diamonds let thy Fanny take,
(Their trembling luftre fhows how much you fhake;)
Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl,
You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl.
So for the reft, with lefs incumbrance hung,
You walk thro' life, unmingled with the young;
And view the Shade and Substance as you pass
With joint endeavour trifling at the glass,
Or Folly dreft, and rambling all her days,
To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise :
Yet ftill fedate yourself, and gravely plain,
You neither fret, nor envy at the vain.
'Twas thus (if man with woman we compare)
The wife Athenian croft a glittering fair,
Unmov'd by tongues and fights, he walk'd the place,
Thro' tape, toys, tinfel, gimp, perfume, and lace;
Then bends from Mars's hill his awful eyes,
And What a world I never want? he cries;
But cries unheard: for Folly will be free.
So parts the buzzing gaudy crowd, and he:
As careless he for them, as they for him;
He wrapt in Wisdom, and they whirl'd by Whim.
OME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day
The Book-Worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds
(As fame reports it) with the Gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thoufand authors lives:
Thro' all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with cluft'ring eyes,
With horns without, and tufks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Obferve him nearly, left he climb
To wound the bards of antient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear fome modern wretch below:
On ev'ry corner fix thine
Or ten to one he flips thee by.
See where his teeth a paffage eat:
We'll roufe him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis facred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from fong to fong,
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he fcuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Infatiate Brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse.
(Nay never offer to deny,
I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipt in ev'ry page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage.
By thee
my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's Sparrow dies:
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for ev'ry single deed,
Relentless Justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a Victim to the Nine,
Myself the Priest, my desk the Shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Taffo near,
To pile a facred altar here;
Hold, boy, thy hand out-runs thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that D-s writ;
You reach'd me Ph
Pray take your mortal bards again.
Come bind the victim,-there he lies,
And here between his num'rous eyes
This venerable dust I lay,
From manufcripts just swept away.
The goblet in my hand I take,
(For the libation's yet to make)
A health to poets! all their days
May they have bread, as well as praife;
Senfe may they feek, and lefs engage
In papers fill'd with party-rage.
But if their riches fpoil their vein,
Ye Muses, make them poor again.
Now bring the weapon, yonder blade,
With which my tuneful pens are made.
I ftrike the scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the wound;
The facred altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he's dead.
How like the fon of Jove I stand, This Hydra ftretch'd beneath my hand! Lay bare the monster's entrails here, To see what dangers threat the year: Ye Gods! what fonnets on a wench? What lean translations out of French? 'Tis plain, this lobe is fo unfound, S-prints, before the months go round. But hold, before I close the scene, The facred altar fhou'd be clean.
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