Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen; Now, Tonson, list thy forces all, Review them and tell noses: A metamorphosis more strange Than all his books can vapour— UMBRA. [Curll says this character was intended to ridicule a very worthy gentleman, probably Ambrose Philips.] CLOSE to the best known author UMBRA sits, "Who's here?" cries Umbra: "Only Johnson'."—“O! Your slave," and exit; but returns with Rowe: "Dear Rowe, let's sit and talk of tragedies:" gone, Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies. 1 Charles Johnson, a second-rate dramatist, and great frequenter of Button's. Pope elsewhere classes him with Philips : "Lean Philips and fat Johnson." Farewell to London.-Bowles. SYLVIA, A FRAGMENT. SYLVIA my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd, Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs, Frail, feverish sex; their fit now chills, now burns: And a mere heathen in the carnal part, IMPROMPTU, TO LADY WINCHELSEA. OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS, IN THE In vain you boast poetic names of yore, But doom'd it then, when first Ardelia writ. 1 I have been informed, on good authority, that this character was designed for the then Duchess of Hamilton.-Warton. Swift describes this lady as handsome, airy, and violent tempered, with abundance of wit and spirit. See Swift's Works, vol. iii. p. 118.—Sir W. Scott. Of all examples by the world confess'd, EPIGRAM. A BISHOP by his neighbours hated I'll lay my life I know the place : 'Tis where God sent some that adore him, EPIGRAM, ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL AND BONONCINI. STRANGE! all this difference should be ON MRS. TOFTS, A CELEBRATED OPERA-SINGER. So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along: But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, That the beasts must have starved, and the poet have died. VOL. V. K THE BALANCE OF EUROPE. Now Europe balanced, neither side prevails; For nothing's left in either of the scales. APPLIED TO F. C. HERE Francis Chartres lies'-be civil! EPIGRAM. You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come : Knock as you please, there's nobody at home. EPIGRAM FROM THE FRENCH. PRIOR. SIR, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool: But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet. EPITAPH. WELL then, poor G▬▬ lies under ground! So there's an end of honest Jack. So little justice here he found, "Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back. 1 Thus applied by Mr. Pope: "Here lies Lord Coningsby." EPIGRAM, ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716'. WHENCE deathless KIT-CAT took its name, Few critics can unriddle: Some say from PASTRYCOOK it came, From no trim beaux its name it boasts, TO A LADY, WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME. WHAT'S fame with men, by custom of the nation, About them both why keep we such a pother? ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON PALLAS grew vapourish once and odd; Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing. The Kit-cat Club, which was the point of convivial union among the friends of the Hanoverian succession, was sometimes said to have derived its name from Christopher Kat, a pastry-cook, remarkable for the excellence of his twopenny pies. Others supposed it was from a cat and fiddle, the sign of the tavern. But the epigrammatist, with no very pregnant humour, derives it from their toasts, upon each of whom they wrote verses, which were engraved upon the glasses consecrated to the health proposed.-Sir W. Scott. |