Was rather given to saying " yes," Because, as yet, she knew no better! Each night they held a coterie, Where, every fear to slumber charm'd, Lovers were all they ought to be, And husbands not the least alarm'd! They call'd up all their school-day pranks, And lords show'd wit, and ladies teeth. As-"Why are husbands like the Mint?" Is just to set the name and print Why is a garden's wilder'd maze "Like a young widow, fresh and fair?" Because it wants some hand to raise The weeds, which "have no business there! And thus they miss'd and thus they hit, And now they struck and now they parried, And some lay-in of full-grown wit, While others of a pun miscarried. VOL. II. 13 'Twas one of those facetious nights From whence it can be fairly traced All this I'll prove, and then-to you, Long may your ancient inmates give Let no pedantic fools be there, For ever be those fops abolish'd, With heads as wooden as thy ware, And, Heaven knows! not half so polish'd. But still receive the mild, the gay, The few, who know the rare delight Of reading Grammont every day, ΤΟ NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses, The lip that's so scented by roses, Old Cloe, whose withering kisses Young Sappho, for want of employments, But for you to be buried in books- Read more than in millions of pages! Astronomy finds in your eye Better light than she studies above, In Ethics-'tis you that can check, In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels; Oh! show but that mole on your neck, And 'twill soon put an end to their morals. Your Arithmetic only can trip When to kiss and to count you But eloquence glows on your lip endeavour; When you swear that you'll love me for ever. Thus you see what a brilliant alliance Of arts is assembled in you A course of more exquisite science Man never need wish to go through ! And, oh!—if a fellow like me May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lip thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts! EXTRACT FROM "THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS."* ΤΙ ΚΑΚΟΝ Ὁ ΓΕΛΩΣ ; CHRYSOST. Homil. in Epist. ad Hebræos. BUT, whither have these gentle ones, Upon the Doctors and Scholastics, Polymaths, and Polyhistors, Polyglots and all their sisters, * I promised that I would give the remainder of this Poem, but, as my critics do not seem to relish the sublime learning which it contains, they shall have no more of it. With a view, however, to the edification of these gentlemen, I have prevailed on an industrious friend of mine, who has read a great number of unnecessary books, to illuminate the extract with a little of his precious erudition. |