BAFFLED in this his firft love-project, Dick, in order to dispel that fplenetic melancholly natural to a forfaken fwain, and to avoid impertinent questions about the affair, now become public, retired to a friend's houfe, four miles from Norwich, who was with Dick contemporaries at Cambridge, but unfortunately for our hero, this gentleman had one fault, if it can be so called, be could not bear a pun, which made Dick, who was often guilty of punning, more referved than agreeable.

Pocentes vario multum diverfa palato.

DICK feemed a little below par at dinner, thinking, we fuppofe, upon his late amour; but from this he was foon relieved by the lively conversation of JACK FRIENDLY, a clergyman of great wit and humour, and who understood raillery so well, that DICK would, without any fcruple, apply to him what was faid of Horace by Perfeus.

Omne vafer vitium ridenti FLACCU's amico
Tangit, & admiffus circum præcordia ludit.

DICK had recovered his ufual cheerfulness,

"Thou Cheerfulness, by Heav'n defign'd
"To rule the pulfe that moves the mind,
"Whatever fretful paffion fprings,
"Whatever chance or nature brings,

" To

:

To ftrain the tuneful poize within, "And difarrange the fweet machine; "Thou, goddefs, with a matter-hand, "Doft each attemper'd key cómmand, "Refine the foft, and fwell the ftrong,

"Till all is concord, all is fong."

1

and intirely forgot his mistress, when he received advice of the death of a friend, and contemporary at college, of whom he fays, " he was that ami"able character, fo feldom known in the world, a man of whom all other men spoke well.”

86

Gratior & pulchro veniens in corpore virtus.

THE following epitaph Dick MERRY-FELLOW DICK wrote to his memory.

EDMUNDUS BACON BARONULUS,

Avi Flos & Decus Sui

A. M. M.DCC.XLIII.

SEE! mortal, where yon hallow'd tapers burn,
Another BACON bearing to his urn;

Born with all charms, and bleft with ev'ry art
To win, to warm, to captivate the heart i
The joys of VIRTUE all the joys he knew,
Tho' brave, and fair, and gay, and young as you
To footh affliction, or to foften pain,

He never spoke, nor ever look'd in vain.

LOVE's fweeteft SMILES fat blooming on his brow,
GRACEFUL in all he did, as thou art now:
LOVE's sweetest SMILES, alas! too weak to fave,
See! doom'd, like thee, and victims to the grave:
Yet fhall he live, grim TYRANT, and defy,
Thy fting, O! Death, O! GRAVE, thy victory.
Far from the white-plum'd Hearfe ASTREA fled,
The penfive GRACES, weeping, hung the head;
Ev'n ENVY figh'd, as fhe beheld the bier,
And from her eye burft forth th' unwilling tear.

O! friend, for let me call thee by that name,
What VERSE, O! fay, can give thee all thy FAME?
Or to BRITANNIA's fons his VIRTUES tell,

Who died fo LOVELY, and who lived fo WELL!

2

DICK MERRY-FELLOW having formerly learned upon the flute abroad, was just able to fret a pipe, as Hamlet fays, though not to play upon it; when requefted to entertain a company, he was univerfally complimented on his inclination to oblige, but feldom on his play, which, it must be confeffed, was not the most harmonious: a lady once told him, that rather than want mufic, The would call in the first fow-gelder with his

born.

Mufic has charms!

We have already remarked, that Dick poffeffed no small share of vanity, and fometimes confoled himself in the pleafing idea of having two strings to his bow. He took it into his head to imagine that a lady, whom he calls CANIDIA, had a liking for him;

"Her mind was virtue by the Graces drest.”

and truly because the approved herself the real friend of PUDICA, by acquainting her with the irregularities of our hero: "For, quoth he, it "is no uncommon thing for a lady greatly and "frequently to abufe the object of her paffion." As a further proof of his confummate vanity, he once told the father of PUDICA, "that it was not be made love to his daughter, but his daughter

that made love to him."

What shall I do? go hang myself? or marry?

MR. MERRY-FELLOW, during his temporary refidence in Norwich, preached in several of the churches of that city, with popular applaufe: one of his fermons is remembered, as being applicable to himself,-On the Vanity of all buman Expectation.

HE retired from the church foon after the éclaircissement of the amour with PUDICA, being

only

only in Deacon's orders, and going abroad into Germany, and afterwards into Ireland, he found upon his return to England, in 1752, that three gentlemen had, fince him, offered their fervices to his first flame, and that a young lady, who he called Mifs BELL SHADWELL, was deceased at Bath.

"Not with lefs luftré Cleopatra shin'd.

"The faireft, in her time, of woman-kind."

To this lady our enterprizing hero had thought proper to pay his addreffes before he went abroad, and according to his own account, had kept up a conftant correfpondence with her during his ftay in Germany and Ireland, contrary to the opinion of all her, friends: but Dick thought himfelf extremely ill ufed, that, as the had an independent fortune, fhe had neglected to remember him in her will.

To trace the current upwards, as it flows,

And mark the fecret fpring, whence first it rose.

HER brother was the fourth admirer of PuDICA, and Mr. MERRY-FELLOW thought he had a right to expect from him a catagorical account of her illness and teflament, for which purpofe he threatened him with a bill in Chancery, and publicly affronted him at Thetford; but hearing that Mr. SHADWELL entertained a defign of applying to the judges for a warrant to take him

up,