But from my branching arms this infant bear,
Let some kind nurse supply a mother's care;
And to his mother let him oft be led,
Sport in her shades, and in her shades be fed:
Teach him, when first his infant voice shall framt
Imperfect words, and lisp his mother's name,
To hail this tree, and say, with weeping eyes,
"Within this plant my hapless parent lies:"
And when in youth he seeks the shady woods,
Oh! let him fly the crystal lakes and floods,
Nor touch the fatal flowers; but, warn'd by me,
Believe a goddess shrin'd in every tree.
My sire, my sister, and my spouse, farewell!
If in your breasts or love or pity dwell,
Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel
The browsing cattle or the piercing steel.
Farewell! and since I cannot bend to join
My lips to yours, advance at least to mine.
My son, thy mother's parting kiss receive,
While yet thy mother has a kiss to give.
I can no more; the creeping rind invades
My closing lips, and hides my head in shades:
Remove your hands, the bark shall soon suffice
Without their aid to seal these dying eyes.'

"She ceas'd at once to speak and ceas'd to be,
And all the nymph was lost within the tree;
Yet latent life through her new branches reign'd,
And long the plant a human heat retain'd."

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

Un jour, dit un auteur, &c.

ONCE (says an author, where I need not say)

Two travellers found an oyster in their way: Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong, While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass'd along. Before her each with clamour pleads the laws, Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.

Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful right, Takes, opens, swallows it before their sight. The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well, "There take, (says justice) take ye each a shell. We thrive at Westminster on fools like you: "Twas a fat oyster-live in peace-Adieu."

Answer to the following Question of Mrs. HOWE.

WHAT is prudery?

'Tis a beldam,

Seen with wit and beauty seldom.
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis (no 'tis n't) like Miss Meadows.
'Tis a virgin hard of feature,

Old, and void of all good nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise,
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell and you.

PROLOGUE

To Mr. Addison's Cato.

wake the soul by tender strokes of art,

To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, Commanding tears to stream through every age; Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept. Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move The hero's glory, or the virgin's love; In pitying love, we but our weakness show, And wild ambition well deserves its woe. Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause, Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws: He bids your breast with ancient ardour rise, And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.

Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,

What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Ev'n when proud Cæsar 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead father's reverend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast;
The triumph ceas'd, tears gush'd from every eye;
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her last good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæsar's less than Cato's sword.
Britons! attend: be worth like this approv'd,
And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
1 Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd:
Your scene precariously subsists too long

On French translation and Italian song.

Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage,
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.

EPILOGUE

To Mr. Rowe's Jane Shore.

PRODIGIOUS this! the frail one of our play

From her own sex should mercy find to-day!
You might have held the pretty head aside,
Peep'd in your fans, been serious, thus, and cried,- |
"The play may pass-but that strange creature, Shore,
I can't-indeed now-1 so hate a whore-"

Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
So from a sister sinner you shall hear,
"How strangely you expose yourself, my dear !"
But let me die, all raillery apart,

Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;
And, did not wicked custom so contrive,
We'd be the best good-natur'd things alive.
There are, 'tis true, who tell another tale,
That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;
Such rage without betrays the fire within;
In some close corner of the soul they sin;
Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,
Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice.

The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,
Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.
Would you enjoy soft nights, and solid dinners?
Faith, gallants! board with saints,and bed with sinners.
Well, if our author in the wife offends,

He has a husband that will make amends:
He draws him gentle, tender and forgiving;
And sure such kind good creatures may be living.
In days of old, they pardon'd breach of vows,
Stern Cato's self was no relentless spouse:
Plu-Plutarch, what's his name, that writes his life?
Tells us, that Cato dearly lov'd his wife:
Yet if a friend, a night or so, should need her,
He'd recommend her as a special breeder.
To lend a wife, few here would scruple make ;
But, pray, which of you all would take her back?
Though with the stoic chief our stage may ring,
The stoic husband was the glorious thing.
The man had courage, was a sage, 'tis true,
And lov'd his country-but what's that to you?
Those strange examples ne'er were made to fit ye,
But the kind cuckold might instruct the city:
There, many an honest man may copy Cato,
Who ne'er saw naked sword, or look'd in Plato.
T

If, after all, you think it a disgrace,

That Edward's miss thus perks it in your face;
To see a piece of failing flesh and blood,
In all the rest so impudently good;

Faith, let the modest matrons of the town
Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down.

Occasioned by some Verses of His Grace the Duk of Buckingham.

MUSE, 'tis enough, at length thy labour ends,

And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.

Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail ;
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

A PROLOGUE

To a Play for Mr. Dennis's Benefit, in 1733, When he was old, blind, and in great distress, a little before his death.

As when that hero, who in each campaign

Had brav'd the Goth, and many a Vandal slain, Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe! Wept by each friend, forgiv'n by every foe; Was there a generous, a reflecting mind, But pitied Belisarius old and blind? Was there a chief but melted at the sight? A common soldier but who clubb'd his mite? Such, such emotions should in Britons rise, When press'd by want and weakness Dennis lies; Dennis! who long had warr'd with modern Huns, Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns; A desperate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce, Against the gothic sons of frozen verse: How chang'd from him who made the boxes groan, Aud shook the stage with thunders all his own!