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To Mr. THOMAS SOUTHERN,

On his Birth-day, 1742.

R

ESIGN'D to live, prepar❜d to die,
With not one fin, but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of fweet fingers,
Prefents her harp ftill to his fingers.
The feaft, his tow'ring genius marks
In yonder wild goofe and the larks!
The mushrooms fhew his wit was sudden!
And for his judgment, lo a pudden !
Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him ftout,
And grace, altho' a bard, devout.

NOTES.

10

VER. 6. Atable] He was invited to dine on his birthday with this Nobleman, who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill of fare is here fet down.

VER. 8. Presents her barp] The Harp is generally wove on the Irish Linen; fuch as Table-cloths, etc.

I

May

I

I

May Toм, whom heav'n sent down to raise 15
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be ev'ry birth-day more a winner,
Digeft his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.

NOTES.

20.

VER. 16. The price of prologues and of plays,] This alludes to a story Mr. Southern told about the fame time, to Mr. P. and Mr. W. of Dryden; who, when Southern first wrote for the ftage, was fo famous for his Prologues, that the players would act nothing without that decoration. His ufual price till then had been four guineas: But when Southern came to him for the Prologue he had bespoke, Dryden told him he must have fix guineas for "which (faid he) young man, is out of no difrefpect to you, but the Players have had my goods too cheap."We now look upon thefe Prologues with the lame admiration that the Virtuofi do on the Apothecaries' pots painted by Raphael.

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EPITAPHS.

F3

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