EPIGRAM FROM THE FRENCH.

SIR, I admit your gen'ral rule,
That ev'ry poet is a fool :

But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

EPITAPH.

WELL then, poor G

lies under ground!

So there's an end of honest Jack.

So little justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

EPIGRAM.

ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB.

ANNO 1716.

WHENCE deathless KIT-CAT took its name,

Few critics can unriddle:

Some say from PASTRY COOK it came,

And some, from CAT and FIDDLE.
From no trim beaux its name it boasts,
Gray statesmen, or green wits;
But from this pellmell pack of toasts

Of old cats and young KITS.

TO A LADY,

WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

WHAT'S fame with men, by custom of the nation,
Is call'd, in women, only reputation:

About them both why keep we such a pother?
Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

VERSES

To be placed under the Picture of England's Arch Poet, [Sir Richar Blackmore,] containing a complete Catalogue of his Works.

SEE who ne'er was or will be half read!

Who first sung Arthur,* then sung Alfred ;f
Prais'd great Eliza‡ in God's anger,
Till all true Englishmen cried, Hang her!
Made William's virtues wipe the bare a—,
And hanged up Marlborough in arras:§
Then, hiss'd from earth, grew heavenly quite :
Made every reader curse the light;||

Maul'd human wit, in one thick satire;**
Next in three books sent Human Nature;††

Undid Creation‡‡ at a jerk;

And of redemption§§ made damn'd work.

*Two heroic poems in folio, twenty books.

† An heroic poem, in twelve books.

An heroic poem in folio, ten books.

Instructions to Vanderbank, a tapestry weaver.

Hymn to the Light.

**Satire against Wit.

++ Of the Nature of Man.

Creation, a poem, in seven books.

The Redeemer, another heroic poem, in six books.

Then took his Muse, at once, and dipp'd her
Full in the middle of the Scripture:

What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself he out-Sternholded;
Made David* seem so mad and freakish,
All thought him just what thought King Achish.
No mortal read his Solomon,†

But judg'd R'oboam his own son.
Mosest he serv'd as Moses Pharaoh,
And Deborah as she Siserah;

Made Jeremy full sore to cry,
And Job himself curse God and die.

What punishment all this must follow?
Shall Arthur use him like King Tollo?
Shall David as Uriah slay him?
Or dext'rous Deb'rah Siserah him?
Or shall Eliza lay a plot

To treat him like her sister Scot?

Shall William dub his better end ?**

Or Marlb'rough serve him like a friend?
No, none of these-Heaven spare his life!
But send him, honest Job, thy wife.

*Translation of all the Psalms.

+ Canticles and Ecclesiastes.

Paraphrase of the Canticles of Moses and Deborah, &c. The Lamentations.

The whole book of Job, a poem, in folio.

** Kick him on the breech, not knight him on the shoulder.

BOUNCE TO FOP:

AN EPISTLE FROM A DOG AT TWICKENHAM TO A DOG AT COURT.

To thee, sweet Fop, these lines I send,
Who, though no spaniel, am a friend.
Though once my tail, in wanton play
Now frisking this and then that way,
Chanc'd with a touch of just the tip
To hurt your lady-lapdog-ship:

Yet thence to think I'd bite your head off!
Sure, Bounce is one you never read of.
Fop! you can dance, and make a leg,
Can fetch and carry, cringe and beg,
And (what's the top of all your tricks)
Can stoop to pick up strings and sticks.
We country dogs love nobler sport,
And scorn the pranks of dogs at court.
Fie, naughty Fop! where'er you come,
To fart and piss about the room,

To lay your head in ev'ry lap,

And, when they think not of you-snap!
The worst that envy or that spite
E'er said of me, is, I can bite;

That idle gipsies, rogues in rags,

Who poke at me, can make no brags;
And that, to touse such things as flutter,
To honest Bounce is bread and butter.
While you, and ev'ry courtly fop,
Fawn on the devil for a chop,
I've the humanity to hate

A butcher, though he brings me meat;

And, let me tell you, have a nose
(Whatever stinking Fops suppose,)
That under cloth of gold or tissue
Can smell a plaster or an issue.

Your pilf'ring lord, with simple pride,
May wear a picklock at his side;
My master wants no key of state,

For Bounce can keep his house and gate.
When all such dogs have had their days,
As knavish Pams, and fawning Trays;
When pamper'd Cupid's, beastly Venis,
And motley, squinting Harlequinis,*
Shall lick no more their ladies br—,
But die of looseness, claps, or itch;
Fair Thames, from either echoing shore,
Shall hear and dread my manly roar.
See Bounce, like Berecynthia crown'd
With thund'ring offspring all around;
Beneath, beside me, and at top,
A hundred sons, and not one fop!

Before my children set your beef,
Not one true Bounce will be a thief!
Not one without permission feed
(Though some of J―n's hungry breed :)
But, whatsoe'er the father's race,

From me they suck a little grace :

While your fine whelps learn all to steal,

Bred

up by hand on chick and veal.

My eldest born resides not far,

Where shines great Strafford's glittering star:

My second (child of fortune!) waits

At Burlington's Palladian gates:
A third majestically stalks

(Happiest of dogs!) in Cobham's walks:

* Alii legunt Harvequinis.