Th' aforesaid fiends, for reasons good,
Coupled the sexes as they cou'd.
For instance-Women made for thrones
Were match'd with ideots, sots, and drones;
And wits were every day disgrac'd
By honeys without sense or taste:
Gay libertines of sixty-five,
With scarce a single limb alive,

Had young coquettes just in their teens,
As wanton as Circassia's queens;

And youths, whose years were scarce a score,
Were pair'd with nymphs of sixty-four.
Matters, in short, were so contriv'd,
The men were most divinely wiv'd;
The women too, to grace their houses,
Were blest with most accomplish'd spouses.
In two short months, perhaps in one,
Both sexes found themselves undone,
And came in crowds, with each an halter,
To hang poor Hymen on his altar.
The god, though arm'd but with his torch,
Intrepid met them in the porch;
And, while they hector, brawl, and bully,
Harangu'd them with the ease of Tully.
"Good folks!" says he," it gives me pain
To hear you murmur and complain,
When every barber in the town
Knows that the fault is all your own.
Seduc'd by show, misled by wealth,
Regardless of your peace and health,
Panting for feather, whims, and fashions,
You left plain Nature's genuine passions,
And gave up all your real joys,
As Indians sell their gold for toys.
You, madam! who was pleas'd to fix
Your wishes on a coach and six,
Obtain'd your end, and now you find
Your husband ought to ride behind;
You might have had, without offence,
A man of spirit, soul, and sense,
Wou'd you have stoop'd to take the air
In a plain chariot and pair.
You too, my venerable sage!
Had you reflected on your age,
Wou'd scarce have took, to be undone,
A sprightly girl of twenty-one.
Your ladyship disdain'd to hear
Of any husband but a peer;
Was pleas'd your angel-form to barter
For a blue ribbon and a garter:
And now, magnificently great,
You feel the wretchedness of state;
Neglected, injur'd, spurn'd, and poor,
The victim of an opera whore.

Your neighbour there, the wealthy cit,
Like you is miserably bit:

Too proud to drag the nuptial chain
With the grave nymphs of Foster-lane,
He married, such his fatal aim was,
A lady Charlotte, from St. James's;
And now supports, by scores, and dozens,
His very honourable cousins,
And entertains, with wine and cards,
Half the gay colonels of the guards.
Away, ye triflers! bear, endure
Afflictions which ye cannot cure;
At least with decency conceal
The pangs your follies make you feel,
In hopes that some obliging fever
Will ease you of your dears for ever."

The crowd dismiss'd-the god began To muse upon a better plan: He saw that things grew worse and worse, That marriage was become a curse; And therefore thought it just and wise was To rectify this fatal bias,

And in a tasteless world excite

Due rev'rence for his holy rite.

Full of his scheme he went one day

To a lone cottage in a shaw,

Where dwelt a nymph of strong and shrewd sense,

Known by the name of Gammer Prudence,
Whom Hymen, with a bow and buss,
Address'd most eloquently thus.

"Goody! I've order'd Love to go
This evening to the world below;
He travels in a coach and sparrows,
With a new set of bows and arrows:
But yet the rogue's so much a child,
So very whimsical, and wild,

His head has such strange fancies in it,
I cannot trust him half a minute.
Were I to let the little wanton
Rove as he lists through every canton,
Without a check, without a rein,
The world would be undone again-
We soon shou'd see the lawns and groves
Quite fill'd with zephyrs, sighs, and doves,
With am'rous ditties, fairy dances,
Such as we read of in romances;
Where princes haunt the lonely rocks,
And dutchesses are feeding flocks.
Go then, my venerable dame!
And qualify his idle flame;
Instruct those hearts his arrows hit,
To pause, and have a little wit:
Bid them reflect, amidst their heat,
'Tis necessary Love should eat;
That in his most ecstatic billing
He possibly may want a shilling.
Persuade them, ere they first engage,
To study temper, rank, and age,
To march beneath my holy banners,
Congenial in their tastes and manners,
Completing just as Heav'n design'd,
An union both of sex and mind."

He said-he press'd-the matron maid,
Benevolent of heart, obey'd;
Forsook her solitary grove,

And, waiting in the train of Love,
Watch'd with the sober eye of Truth
The workings of misguided youth:
And when the heart began to sigh,
To melt, to heave, to bleed, to die,
She whisper'd many a wise remark
With all the dignity of Clark-

She hop'd the ladies, in their choice,
Would listen to her awful voice:
She begg'd the men, while yet their lives
Were free from fevers, plagues, and wives,
Ere yet the chariot was bespoke,
To pause before they took the yoke.-
In short, when Cupid's lucky darts
Had pierc'd a pair of kindred hearts,
And Goody Prudence lik'd the houses,
Estates, and minds, of both the spouses,
And found, exact to form and law,
The settlement without a flaw,
She frankly gave them leave to wed,
And sanctified the nuptial bed.

Born but to vex, to torture, to destroy,
Too wild for use, too exquisite for joy;
By some mysterious curse ordain'd to know
Each wit a rival, and each fool a foe.
For 'tis a crime too great to be forgiv'n,
A giant sin that bars the gate of Heav'n.
If these meridian suns but dare to shine
In the same orb with Cibber's Muse and mine.
Yet, spite of Envy, Science might be great,
Could Science but allow her sons to eat:
Could he, whose name along the stream of time
Expanded flies, and lives in ev'ry clime,
Exalt his spirits with some nobler fare
Than the thin breezes of St. James's air.

Immortal Halley! thy unwearied soul
On Wisdom's pinion flew from pole to pole,
Th' uncertain compass to its task restor'd,
Each ocean fathom'd, and each wind explor'd,
Commanded trade with ev'ry breeze to fly,
And gave to Britain half the Zemblian sky.

And see, he comes, distinguish'd, lov'd, carest,
Mark'd by each eye, and hugg'd to ev'ry breast;
His godlike labours wit and science fire,
All factions court him, and all sects admire:
While Britain, with a gratitude unknown
To ev'ry age but Nero's and our own,
A gratitude that will for ever shame
The Spartan glory, and th' Athenian name-
Tell it, ye winds! that all the world may hear-
Blest his old age with-ninety pounds a year.
Are these our triumphs? these the sums we give
To ripen genius, and to bid it live?
Cau Britain in her fits of madness pour
One half her Indies on a Roman whore,
And still permit the weeping Muse to tell
How poor neglected Desaguliers fell?

How he, who taught two gracious kings to view
All Boyle ennobled, and all Bacon knew,
Died in a cell, without a friend to save,
Without a guinea, and without a grave?

Posterity, perhaps, may pay the debt
That senates cancel, and that courts forget:
Yet, ah! what boots it when our bards expire
That Earth's last ages hang upon the lyre?
Can Middleton the dust of Tully raise?
Does Pompey listen in his urn to praise?
Tell me if Philip's son enjoy to day
Ta' applauding pean, or the loud huzza,
That shook pale Asia through her ev'ry shore
When Porus fell, and Freedom was no more?
Yet though Content's fantastic image flies
From the bright mirrors of the learn'd and wise,
Perhaps the fair, too partial to the great,
Lres but amidst the luxuries of state:
Fond to instruct Ambition how to please,
She joins the pomps of majesty with ease,
Forsakes the cottage to adorn the court,
Alike at Rome, Vienna, or the Porte.

Tell me, O visier! if th' imperial robe That gives a slave to nod o'er half the globe, Say, if yon crescent, by each Turk ador'd, The plume's proud sables, and the hallow'd sword, Fxpand the heart, the gleams of bliss refine, And make the virtues of the bosom thine? I-fated wretch! to ev'ry storm a slave That caprice wings, or madness bids to rave; rever jealous of a woman's pow'r, For ever trembling at the midnight hour, Through life's wild eddies toss'd by hope and fear, Kais'd by a smile, and murder'd by a tear!

At length, each wish destroy'd, each vision fled,
The black seraglio steals upon his bed:
And he, whose glories mingled with the skies,
Adores the bowstring, licks the dust, and dies.

O! could a king in Heav'n's bright pomps ap-
And make an angel as he makes a peer; [pear,
Could he command the heart to beam as far
As the soft radiance of the ducal star;
Forbid one sad anxiety to glow,

One pang to torture, and one tear to flow:
Fly then on all the whirlwind's rapid wing,
To steal a title, or to bribe a string;
In the full blaze of glory be display'd,
And leave Affliction to the vale and shade.
Yet, ere you go, ere proud Ambition call
Each yielding wish to Marli, or Whitehall,
O pause-lest virtue ev'ry guard resign,
And the sad fate of Ripperda be thine.

This glorious wretch, indulg'd at once to move
A nation's wonder, and a monarch's love,
Blest with each charm politer courts admire,
The grace to soften, and the soul to fire,
Forsook his native bogs with proud disdain,
And, though a Dutchman, rose the pride of Spain.
This hour the pageant waves th' imperial rod,
All Philip's empire trembling at his nod;
The next disgrac'd he flies to Britain's isle,
And courts the sunshine of a Walpole's smile:
Unheard, despis'd, to southern climes he steers,
And shines again at Sallé and Algiers,
Bids pale Morocco all his schemes adore,
And pours her thunder on th' Hesperian shore:
All Nature's ties, all Virtue's creeds belied,
Each church abandon'd, and each God denied,
Without a friend, a sepulchre to shield
His carcass from the vultures of the field,
He dies, of all Ambition's sons the worst,
By Afric hated, and by Europe curst.

"He earns his fate who will for phantoms toil," Exclaims the goddess of the mirthful smile. "From wild ambition, with her every care, The scenes of grandeur, and the pomps of war, From all a court's proud pageantry admires, All science wishes, and all glory fires,

Fly to my arms, from fame, from anguish free,
And taste a luxury of bliss with me.
For me the genial spring, the vernal show'r,
Wake the bright verdure, and th' unfolding flow'r;
Arabia's sweets in all my moments fly,
The zephyr's plumage, and the wing of joy,
Each richer viand that the air provides,
That earth unbosoms, or that ocean hides,
All that can Nature's finer organs move,
The pow'rs of music, and the folds of love,
To my keen senses are indulgent giv'n,
In one wild ecstasy of life and Heav'n.

"Yet, yet, dear youth! the fair enchantress shun,

To yield a moment is to be undone :

All Etna's poisons mingle with her breath,
The seeds of sickness, and the gales of death,

She aims to rain, lives but to beguile,

And all Hell's horrors brood beneath her smile."
"Tis thus, my Lyttelton! that men pursue
Each varied mode of pleasure but the true;
To ev'ry vice, each luxury a prey,
That murders bliss, and hurries life away,
Their headstrong passions after phantoms run,
And still mistake a meteor for a sun.

Yet hear, ye wand'rers! hear, while we impart A light that sheds fair peace on ev'ry heart;

Which, Aristides! beam'd on thy exile,
And made a Regulus mid tortures smile.

Virtue, immortal Virtue! born to please,
The child of Heaven, and the source of ease,
Bids ev'ry bliss on human life attend,
To ev'ry rank a kind, a faithful friend;
Inspirits Nature midst the scenes of toil,
Smoothes Languor's cheek, and bids fell Want re-
coil;

Shines from the mitre with unsullied rays,

Glares on the crest, and gives the star its blaze;
Supports Distinction, spreads Ambition's wings,
Forms saints of queens, and demigods of kings;
O'er grief, oppression, envy, scorn prevails,
And makes a cottage greater than Versailles.

WIT AND LEARNING:

AN ALLEGORY.

SPOKEN AT THE ANNIVERSARY, 1757.

WHOEVER looks on life will see
How strangely mortals disagree:
This reprobates what that approves,
And Tom dislikes what Harry loves;
The soldier's witty on the sailor,
The barber drolls upon the tailor;
And he who makes the nation's wills,
Laughs at the doctor and his pills.

Yet this antipathy we find
Not to the sons of Earth confin'd;
Each schoolboy sees, with half an eye,
The quarrels of the Pagan sky:
For all the poets.fairly tell us,

That gods themselves are proud and jealous;
And will, like mortals, swear and hector,
When mellow'd with a cup of nectar.

But waving these, and such like fancies,
We meet with in the Greek roinances,
Say, shall th' historic Muse retail
A little allegoric tale?

Nor stole from Plato's mystic tome, nor
Translated from the verse of Homer,
But copied, in a modern age,
From Nature, and her fairest page.
Olympian Jove, whose idle trade is
Employ'd too much among the ladies,
Though not of manners mighty chaste,
Was certainly a god of taste;
Would often to his feasts admit
A deity, whose name was Wit;
And, to amuse the more discerning,
Would ask the company of Learning.
Learning was born, as all agree,
Of Truth's half sister, Memory;
A nymph who rounded in her shape was
By that great artist Esculapius.

Euphrosine, the younger grace,
Matchless in feature, mien, and face,
Who, like the beauties of these late days,
Was fond of operas and cantatas,
Would often to a grot retire
To listen to Apollo's lyre;

And thence became, so Ovid writ,

A mother to the god of wit.

Wit was a strange unlucky child,

Exceeding sly, and very wild;

Too volatile for truth or law,
He minded but his top or taw;
And, ere he reach'd the age of six,
Had play'd a thousand waggish tricks.→→→
He drill'd a hole in Vulcan's kettles,
He strew'd Minerva's bed with nettles,
Climb'd up the solar car to ride in 't,
Broke off a prong from Neptune's trident,
Stole Amphitrite's fav'rite sea-knot,
And urin'd in Astrea's tea-pot.

Learning, a lad of sober mien,
And half a pedant at fifteen,
Had early thrown away his corals,
To study Nature, and her morals; 、
Was always, let who would oppose it,
Fast by Minerva in her closet;

And while gay Wit, as black as soot all,
Was kicking up and down a foot-bail,
Learning, with philosophic eye,
Rang'd ev'ry corner of the sky;
Spent many a play-day to unriddle
The music of Apollo's fiddle;
And, if he ever chanc'd to meet.
His uncle Merc'ry in the street,
Or on his flight, th' audacious brat
Stopp'd him to ask of this or that:
As how the Moon was evanescent,
Was now an orb, and now a crescent?
Why of the Graces each undrest was?
Why Pallas never wore a cestus?
Why Ceres reign'd o'er corn and sallads?
And why the Muses dealt in ballads?

With these discordant tastes and manners,
And listed under diff'rent banners,
Learning and Wit, as says the fable,
Appear'd at Jove's imperial table,
And threw out all their force and fire,
Obedient to th' ethereal sire.

Wit, with his sly satiric vein,
Was always sure to entertain:
He rallied with a tongue as keen
As Rab'lais, or the Irish dean;
And told his tale with such a grace,
With such an eye, and such a face,
As made the nectar flow each cup o'er,
And set the synod in an uproar.

Learning had not the skill to hit
The comic cast, and life of Wit:
With look morose, and awkward air,
He sat ungraceful in his chair;
With diffidence and blushes spoke,
And had no relish for a joke;
So that the little urchin Cupid
Thought him insensible and stupid;
And Hebe, though a well-bred lass,
Would scarcely offer him his glass.

However, when the sprightly bowl
Had thaw'd the ice about his soul,
He then, with majesty, began
To talk of letters, and of man;
Correct, sententious, cool, severe,
He gain'd upon the attentive ear,
Charm'd all the gods, but Wit and Comus,
And that abusive cynic, Momus.

In length of time, as oft the case is
In many sublunary places,
These demigods with jealous eye
Began to look a little shy;

And oft, to wound each other's breast,

Let off a keen sarcastic jest.

Learning, with many a stroke, would hit
The pert vivacity of Wit;

And Wit threw all his keenest satire
On Learning's slow, pedantic nature.
It happen'd once when Jove had made
A feast in Ida's holy shade,

And all the gods, whose heads could bear it,
Had emptied each a flask of claret;
Wit, who from his celestial liquor
Wagg'd his free tongue a little quicker,
Began, with many a bitter scoff,
To play his brother Learning off;
Ask'd him if yet his pains and care
Had learnt to make the circle square?

If all his visionary ravings

Cou'd weave brocade from walnut shavings?
If his mechanic skill cou'd catch
Perpetual motion in a watch?
Or forge a pendulum endued
With power to tell the longitude?
Learning had much ado to sit,
And hear the petulance of Wit:
A ghastly paleness spread his look,

His nerves with quick convulsions shook:
At length, in accents loud and high,
Vesuvius flaming in his eye,

He burst" And dar'st thou, wayward chit!
Thou ideot god of ideot Wit!

Untaught as yet to know thy letters,
Affront, thou insolent! thy betters?
Here, puppy! with this penny get
A horn-book, or an alphabet; .
And see if that licentious eye
Can tell a great A from an I?
Throw but another jest on me,
I'll lay thee, miscreant! on my knee,
And print such welks thy naked seat on,
As never truant felt at Eton."

Wit, with resentment raving wild,
Thus call'd an ideot and a child,
Without preambles or excuses,
Seiz'd upon Mercury's caduceus,
And with such force the weapon throws,
It flatted half his rival's nose:
While he, Minerva's boast and care,
Pluck'd a large bodkin from her hair,
And aim'd the steely pointed dart
With such dexterity of art,
That, had not beauty's lovely queen,
Fair Venus, spread her fan between,
And taught the flying death to fix
Guiltless among the iv'ry sticks,
Wit's future triumphs had been o'er,
And Europe heard his name no more.
Jove, who had no supreme delight in
Domestic brawls, or civil fighting,
Since first he heard the nuptial tune flow
So sweetly from the tongue of Juno,
Vex'd that these two illiberal guests
Should dare to violate his feasts,
In a tremendous fit of choler,
Seiz'd both their worships by the collar,
And, minding not their meek submitting,
Kick'd them from Ida down to Britain.
Poor Learning had the luck to fall
Plump in the area of Clare-hall,
Just as old Wilcox, from a slope,
Was gazing through his telescope,
To find a comet whose bright tail is
Eccentric from the time of Thales.
VOL. XIV.

Pleas'd with his scientific look,
He sent him first to Sam the cook;
And having fill'd his empty belly
With mutton broth and meagre jelly,
Gave him a robe of sleek prunella,
And very wisely made him fellow.

Wit, as his destiny decrees,
Dropp'd in the court of Common-Pleas,
Upon a truss of briefs and bills,
And took the shape of justice Willes:
But soon observing round the columns
Reports in half a thousand volumes;
And, finding all those earth-worm souls
Who hold th' Exchequer, or the Rolls,
He left the law, and all its drudges,
With curses, to my lords the judges,
Call'd for a coach, and went to dwell
At Robin Dodsley's in Pall-Mall.

"Twas right for now where'er he came
He busied all the tongues of Fame;
Was welcome to the festal board,
And had his footman, and his lord;
Would often visit in a chair
The noble Stanhope in May-fair;
Or dine, when business would permit,
With that great statesman William Pitt,
'Tis said too he was sometimes seen
On Garrick's visionary scene;
But Garrick, who prefers a guinea
To all the eloquence of Pliny,
Observing this unlucky railer
Was neither mechanist nor tailor;
That half the audience of the day
Came not to hear, but see, a play;
That many a 'squire, and many a cit,
Were pleas'd with any thing but Wit;
Shut out, with much indecent rage,
The genius of the comic stage,
And open'd his theatric inn

To Scaramouch and Harlequin.

Learning would sometimes drop his gown, And take a winter-jaunt to town; Often call'd in at Hitch's shop, And din'd at Dolly's on a chop; On Thursday met the grave resort Of spider merchants in Crane-court, To rack a cockle, or to see The nice dissection of a flea: But having never chanc'd to wear

A bag-wig or a solitaire,

And dressing in a kersey, thicker
Than that which clothes a Cornish vicar,
He seldom had the luck to eat

In Berkeley Square, or Grosvenor Street.
'Twas written in the book of Fate,
These rivals should each other hate;
No wonder then that each proud imp was
As wayward here as on Olympus.
Wit look'd on Learning, as he grew great,
Just as a felon looks on Newgate:
While Learning, who could never hide
His haughty academic pride,
Had such a keen contempt for Wit,
He call'd him nothing but the chit;
And, if he met him at noon-day,
Would turn his face another way.

However, on some festal nights

By chance they both dropp'd in at White's
With learned lords, and noble bards,
Who had no appetite for cards,