2 Soft Bs and rough C-s, adieu! Earl Warwick, make your moan, The lively H-k and you

May knock up whores alone.

3 To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Till the third watchman's toll;
Let Jervas gratis paint, and Frowde
Save threepence and his soul.

4 Farewell, Arbuthnot's raillery
On every learned sot;

And Garth, the best good Christian he,
Although he knows it not.

5 Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go ;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!

Heaven gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips and fat Johnson.

6 Why should I stay? Both parties rage; My vixen mistress squalls;

The wits in envious feuds engage;
And Homer (damn him!) calls.

7 The love of arts lies cold and dead In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed

8 My friends, by turns, my friends confound,

Betray, and are betray'd:

Poor Y-r's sold for fifty pounds,
And Bll is a jade.

9 Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls seven hours in eight? -
I need but once a week.

10 Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake alive.

11 Solicitous for others' ends,

Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.

12 Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For salads, tarts, and pease!

13 Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul, sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.

SANDYS' GHOST; 1

OR, A PROPER NEW BALLAD ON THE NEW OVID'S METAMORPHOSES: AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY PERSONS OF QUALITY.

1 YE Lords and Commons, men of wit

And pleasure about town,

Read this, ere you translate one bit

Of books of high renown.

16 Sandys: George Sandys, the old, and as yet unequalled, translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

2 Beware of Latin authors all!
Nor think your verses sterling,

Though with a golden pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a berlin :

3 For not the desk with silver nails,
Nor bureau of expense,

Nor standish well japann'd, avails
To writing of good sense.

4 Hear how a ghost in dead of night,
With saucer eyes of fire,

In woful wise did sore affright
A wit and courtly squire.

5 Rare imp of Phoebus, hopeful youth!
Like puppy tame that uses

To fetch and carry, in his mouth,
The works of all the Muses.

6 Ah! why did he write poetry,
That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity
To rhyming and the devil?

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

8 Now, as he scratch'd to fetch up thought, Forth popp'd the sprite so thin,

And from the keyhole bolted out,
All upright as a pin.

26

9 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.

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

11 I hear the beat of Jacob's1 drums,
Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P 2 comes
In haste without his garter.

12 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.

13 What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnet, or Tom D'Urfey may,

John Dunton, Steele, or any one.

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

15 'Let Warwick's Muse with Ashurst join,
And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's,

Tickell and Addison combine,
And Pope translate with Jervas.

16 Jacob's

old Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the Metamorphoses.

2P-' perhaps Pembroke.

16L himself, that lively lord,

Who bows to every lady,

Shall join with F

in one accord,

And be like Tate and Brady.

17 Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen;
I pray, where can the hurt lie?
Since you have brains as well as men,
As witness Lady Wortley.

19 'A metamorphosis more strange
Than all his books can vapour'

To what (quoth squire) shall Ovid change?

CLOSE to the best known author Umbra sits,
The constant index to old Button's wits,
'Who's here?' cries Umbra: Only Johnson.' 2
-Oh!

Your slave,' and exit; but returns with Rowe :
'Dear Rowe, let's sit and talk of tragedies;'
Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies.
Then up comes Steele he turns upon his heel,
And in a moment fastens upon Steele ;

'' Umbra:' intended, it is said, for Ambrose Philips.—2 'Only Johnson: ' Charles Johnson, a second-rate dramatist.