With cautious and with thankful eye
We scan the great variety :
Each good within our reach we taste,
And call our neighbour to the feast.
Our fouls do gen'rously disown
All pleasure that's confin'd to one;
The only rational employment
Is, to receive and give emjoyment:
To ev'ry pleasure we attend,
Not to enjoy is to offend.
But ftill, amidst the various crowd
Of goods, that call with voices loud,
Our nat❜ral genius, education,
Parents, companions, or our ftation,
Direct us to fome fingle choice,
In which we chiefly muft rejoice.
Pleasures are ladies-fome we court
To pass away an hour in sport :
We like them all for this or that,
For filence fome, and fome for chat;
For ev'ry one, as Cowley fings,
Or arrows yields, or bows, or strings.
But, after all this rambling life,
Each man must have his proper wife.
Felt, heard, or feen, or understood,
Will captivate the heart's affection,
And bring the reft into fubjection.
Pray mind the tenor of my song;
It holds together, tho' 'tis long.
You've made an early choice, and wife one;
The best I know within th' horizon.
My lady Law is rich and handfome:
May the be worth you a king's ranfom!
But I must tell you, (you'll excufe
My friendly, tho' plain dealing Mufe)
In her own hands is all her dower;
There's not a groat within your power;
And yet you're whoring with the Nine;
With them you breakfast, fup and dine,
With them you spend your days and nights.
Is't fitting the fhou'd bear fuch flights?
Beggarly, ballad-finging carrions,
Can they advance you to the barons ?
You've made me too an old Tom Dingle,
And I, forfooth, muft try to jingle.
Your lady wou'd not do you wrong;
She owns you're tender yet, and young-
She'd wink at now and then a fong :
But ftill expects to share the time,
Which now is all beftow'd on rhime.
Read in the morning Hobbes de Homine,
At noon, e'en fport with your Melpomene.
Youngster, I've something more to fay,
To wean you from this itch of play. ·
In his Officiis old Marc Tully,
'Mongst certain points he handles fully,
(A book I ever muft delight in
Far beyond all that fince is written!)-
He tells us there, our parents' praise
Their children's virtue ought to raise:
Their worth and praise fhou'd prick us on
To labour after like renown.
Who but thy father has been able,
Since Hercules, to cleanse a stable?
About his ears how strange a rattle!
Who ever stood fo tough a battle ?
H' has tam'd the most unruly cattle.—
Juft two fuch jobbs as yet remain
To be dispatch'd by you and B.
Your father with Herculean club
The tyrants of our fouls did drub;
Bfor our bodies, you our chattels,
Muft undertake the self-fame battles.
The world on you have fix'd their eyes,
"Tis you must quell these tyrannies:
So fhall fome title, now unknown,
Bangorian-like your labours crown.
Ravish'd, methinks, in thought I fee
The univerfal liberty.
But after all, I know what's in you: You'll do't, a thousand to one guinea.
Time flies-the work and pleasure's great;
Begin, before it grows too late.
Where the plays ftand the ftatutes lodge;
And dance not, 'till you dance a judge;
Then, tho' you are not half so taper,
My Lord, you'll cut a higher caper.
To the Rev. Mr. J. S. 1731.
PROMISES are different cases
At various times, in various places.
In crowded street of Arlington,
Where flaves of hope to levées run,
A promise fignifies no more,
Than in the chamber of a whore.
And when the good deceiv'd Sir Francis
With madam up from Yorkshire dances,
To claim the great man's promife given
Some fix years fince, or (some say) seven ;
No one can blame that curious writer,
That fays, they'll both return the lighter.
But can we hence affirm that no mifs
Of all the fex can keep a promife?
Or fay, from what our courtier speaks,
That all men's faiths are wafer-cakes?
That courts make rogues is my belief,
As 'tis the mill that makes the thief.
But 'caufe one limb is none o' th' beft,
Shall I for that cut off the reft?
Sure it may be with fafety faid,
A parfon's promise duely made
Beneath a prelate's holy roof,
Muft ftand 'gainst all assaults a proof.
Yet he, who thinks the church unshaken,
May find himself in time mistaken.
I know the man, and grieve to say't,
Who fo did fail-and that was S.
And can we then no more depend on
Our good forgetful friend at Findon,
Than on a courtier promiseful,
Or a whore's oath to cheat her cull ?
Can S― no better promise keep?
If that were true-I e'en fhou'd weep.
In Sarum's town when last we met,
I told you 'mongst much other prate,
That my design was to withdraw,
And leave the craggy paths of law:
And as the skilful pilot fteers
Wide of the dreadful rocks he fears,
And in the fafer ocean rides,
Nor fears his veffel's bulging fides;
|