Ah! why did he write poetry,
That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity,

To rhyming and the devil?

A desk he had of curious work,
With glittering studs about;
Within the same did Sandys lurk,1
Though Ovid lay without.

Now as he scratch'd to fetch up thought,
Forth popp'd the sprite so thin;
And from the key-hole bolted out,
All upright as a pin.

With whiskers, band, and pantaloon,
And ruff composed most duly;
This 'squire he dropp'd his pen
full soon,
While as the light burnt bluely.

Ho, Master Sam, quoth Sandys' sprite,
Write on, nor let me scare ye;
Forsooth, if rhymes fall in not right,
To Budgell seek, or Carey.

I hear the beat of Jacob's drums,2
Poor Ovid finds no quarter !
See first the merry P-
comes 3
In haste without his garter.

Then lords and lordlings, 'squires and knights,
Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers;
Garth at St. James's, and at White's,
Beats up for volunteers.

What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,

Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom B-t4 or Tom D'Urfey may,
John Dunton, Steele, or any one.

1 [Sandys (whom Dryden terms "the best versifier of the last age") published his translation of Ovid in 1627.]

2 [Jacob Tonson, the publisher.] 3 [The Earl of Pembroke.]

4 [Tom Burnet.]

If Justice Philips' costive head
Some frigid rhymes disburses;
They shall like Persian tales be read,
And glad both babes and nurses.

Let W-rw-k's muse with Ash-t join,5
And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's:
Tickell and Addison combine,

And P- pe translate with Jervas.

"To what (quoth 'squire) shall Ovid change?"
Quoth Sandys: "To waste paper."

5 [Lord Warwick and Dr. Ashurst.] 6 Pope.

7 Lord Lansdowne.

8 [Philip Frowde, a dramatic writer and fine scholar, a friend of Addison's.]

9 [Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Some of Lady Mary's Town Eclogues were published in 1716.]

THE TRANSLATOR.

OZELL, at Sanger's call, invoked his Muse

For who to sing for Sanger could refuse?
His numbers such as Sanger's self might use.
Reviving Perrault, murdering Boileau, he
Slander'd the ancients first, then Wycherley;
Which yet not much that old bard's anger raised,
Since those were slander'd most, whom Ozell praised.
Nor had the gentle satire caused complaining,
Had not sage Rowe pronounced it entertaining:
How great must be the judgment of that writer
Who the Plain Dealer damns, and prints the Biter!

[Sanger was a bookseller who published Ozell's translation of Boileau's Lutrin, which Rowe considered entertaining. The Plain Dealer is Wycherley's best comedy; the Biter, a very indifferent one, by Rowe. As to Ozell, he will be found in the Dunciad.]

THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS.

[The three shepherds-two of whom Pope never tired of satirising-were Ambrose Philips, Eustace Budgell, and Henry Carey. What poor Carey had done to irritate the poet does not appear. He, too, had ridiculed Philips's namby-pamby verses; and his song of Sally in our Alley, should have formed a passport to favour. Addison, however, had praised it in the Spectator, and to this circumstance probably Carey owed his being ranked with the Whig poets. In the last line Pope alludes to Curll's boast, that in prose he was equal to Pope, but in poetry Pope had a particular knack! Mr. Pope, he said, is no more a gentleman than Mr. Curll, nor more eminent as a poet than he as a bookseller.]

OF gentle Philips will I ever sing,

With gentle Philips shall the valleys ring;
My numbers too for ever will I vary,
With gentle Budgell and with gentle Carey.
Or if in ranging of the names I judge ill,
With gentle Carey and with gentle Budgell:
Oh! may all gentle bards together place ye,
Men of good hearts, and men of delicacy.
May satire ne'er befool ye, or beknave ye,
And from all wits that have a knack, God save ye.

IV.

Ꮪ

THE CHALLENGE.

A COURT BALLAD. [1716.]

To the tune of "To all you Ladies now at Land," &c.

I.

one fair lady out of Court,
And two fair ladies in,

то

Who think the Turk and Pope a sport,
And wit and love no sin!

Come, these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,
To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.1
With a fa, la, la.

II.

What passes in the dark third row,
And what behind the scene,
Couches and crippled chairs I know,
And garrets hung with green;
I know the swing of sinful hack,
Where many damsels cry alack.
With a fa, la, la.

III.

Then why to Courts should I repair,
Where 's such ado with Townshend? 2
To hear each mortal stamp and swear,

And every speeeh with "zounds" end;
To hear 'em rail at honest Sunderland,3
And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland.
With a fa, la, la.

1 [Ladies of the Court of the Princess Caroline. Mary Bellenden became the wife of Colonel Campbell (afterwards Duke of Argyll), and Mary Lepell married Lord Hervey. Both marriages took place in October, 1720, and the Court was thus deprived of its most popular and beautiful ornaments.]

* [Lord Townshend, a rough but popular minister, who was then out of favour with the Court, and had a rupture with his colleague, Stanhope, which ended in his being forced to resign.]

3 [The Earl of Sunderland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, had been charged with encouraging the native Irish, and appointing them to public offices.

IV.

Alas! like Schutz I cannot pun,*
Like Grafton court the Germans;
Tell Pickenbourg how slim she's grown,
Like meadows run to sermons;
To court ambitious men may roam,
But I and Marlborough stay at home.
With a fa, la, la.

V.

In truth, by what I can discern
Of courtiers, 'twixt you three,
Some wit you have, and more may learn
From Court, than Gay or me:
Perhaps, in time, you'll leave high diet,
To sup with us on milk and quiet.
With a fa, la, la.

VI.

At Leicester Fields, a house full high,
With door all painted green,
Where ribbons wave upon the tie,

(A milliner, I mean;)

There may you meet us three to three,
For Gay can well make two of me.
With a fa, la, la.

VII.

But should you catch the prudish itch,
And each become a coward,

Bring sometimes with you Lady Rich,5
And sometimes Mistress Howard;

Hence the talk concerning " Blunderland." Sunderland exchanged the LordLieutenancy for the Privy Seal in 1715, and was afterwards Prime Minister. His death took place in 1722.]

[Augustus Schutz, Equerry to Prince George. The “ Grafton" mentioned in the next line was the Duke of Grafton, the second duke, who was one of the Lords of the Bedchamber in 1714, and next year of the Privy Council. "Pickenbourg" and "Meadows" were maids of honour, the latter a sister of Sir Sidney Meadows.]

5 [Lady Rich, one of the correspondents of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was the wife of Sir Robert Rich, Bart. She was a daughter of Colonel Griffin, and sister of Miss Griffin, of the Princess's establishment, alluded to in the