When food and raiment now grew scarce, Fate put a period to the farce,

And with exact poetick justice;

For John was landlord, Phyllis hostess;
They keep, at Staines, the Old Blue Boar,
Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore.,

AD AMICUM

ERUDITUM

THOMAM SHERIDAN. 1717.

DELICIA Sheridan Musarum, dulcis amice,
Sic tibi propitius Permessi ad flumen Apollo
Occurrat, seu te mimum convivia rident,
Equivocosque sales spargis, seu ludere versu
Malles; dic, Sheridan, quisnam fuit ille deorum,
Quæ melior natura orto tibi tradidit artem
Rimandi genium puerorum, atque ima cerebri
Scrutandi? Tibi nascenti ad cunabula Pallas
Astitit; & dixit, mentis præsaga futuræ,
Heu, puer infelix! nostro sub sidere natus;
Nam tu pectus eris sine corpore, corporis umbra;
Sed levitate umbram superabis, voce cicadam:
Musca femur, palmas tibi mus dedit, ardea crura.
Corpore sed tenui tibi quod natura negavit,
Hoc animi dotes supplebunt; teque docente,
Nec longum tempus, surget tibi docta juventus,
Artibus egregiis animas instructa novellas.
Grex hinc Pæonius venit, ecce, salutifer orbi;
Ast, illi causas orant; his infula visa est
Divinam capiti nodo constringere mitram.

Natalis

Natalis te horæ non fallunt signa, sed usque
Conscius, expedias puero seu lætus Apollo
Nascenti arrisit; sive illum frigidus horror
Saturni premit, aut septem inflavere triones.

Quin tu altè penitusque latentia semina cernis,
Quæque diu obtundendo olim sub luminis auras
Erumpent, promis; quo ritu sæpè puella
Sub cinere hesterno sopitos suscitat ignes.

Te dominum agnoscit quocunque sub aëre natus: Quos indulgentis pimium custodia matris Pessundat nam sæpè vides in stipite matrem. Aureus at ramus, venerandæ dona Sibyllæ, Æneæ sedes tantùm patefecit Avernas ; Sæpè puer, tua quem tetigit semel aurea virga, Et cœlum, terrasque videt, noctemque profundam.

HORACE, BOOK IV. O DE IX.

ADDRESSED TO ABP. KING. 1718.

VIRTUE conceal'd within our breast

Is inactivity at best:

But never shall the Muse endure

To let your virtues lie obscure;

Or suffer Envy to conceal

Your labours for the publick weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;

Your steady soul preserves her frame,

In good and evil times the same.

Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,
Stand in your sacred presence aw'd;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains,
Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;
And happy he, who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the Powers Divine,
Can suffer want, and not repine.
The man, who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is ready to defend,

With life, his country or his friend,

To MR. DELANY, Nov. 10, 1718,

To

you, whose virtues, I must own
With shame, I have too lately known;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have sought,
Had not ill Fate, perverse and blind,
Plac'd you in life too far behind:
Or, what I should repine at more,
Plac'd me in life too far before:

Το

you the Muse this verse bestows, Which might as well have been in prose; No thought, no fancy, no sublime,

But simple topicks told in rhyme.

Talents for conversation fit

Are humour, breeding, sense, and wit:

The

The last, as boundless as the wind,
Is well conceiv'd, though not defin'd ;
For, sure, by wit is chiefly meant
Applying well what we invent.
What humour is, not all the tribe
Of logickmongers can describe;
Here nature only acts her part,
Unhelp'd by practice, books, or art:
For wit and humour differ quite;
That gives surprise, and this delight.
Humour is odd, grotesque, and wild,
Only by affectation spoil'd:
'Tis never by invention got,
Men have it when they know it not.
Our conversation to refine,

Humour and wit must both combine:
From both we learn to rally well,
Wherein sometimes the French excel;
Voiture, in various lights, displays
That irony which turns to praise :
His genius first found out the rule
For an obliging ridicule :
He flatters with peculiar air
The brave, the witty, and the fair:
And fools would fancy he intends
A satire, where he most commends.
But, as a poor pretending beau,
Because he fain would make a show,
Nor can arrive at silver lace,
Takes up with copper in the place:
So the pert dunces of mankind,
Whene'er they would be thought refin'd,
As if the difference lay abstruse
"Twixt raillery and gross abuse;

To show their parts, will scold and rail,
Like porters o'er a pot of ale.

Such is that clan of boisterous bears,
Always together by the ears;

Shrewd fellows and arch wags, a tribe,
That meet for nothing but a gibe;
Who first run one another down,
And then fall foul on all the town;
Skill'd in the horselaugh and dry rub,
And call'd by excellence The Club.
I mean your Butler, Dawson, Car,
All special friends, and always jar.

The mettled and the vicious steed
Differ as little in their breed;
Nay, Voiture is as like Tom Leigh,
As rudeness is to repartee.

If what you said I wish unspoke,
"Twill not suffice it was a joke :
Reproach not, though in jest, a friend
For those defects he cannot mend
His lineage, calling, shape, or sense,
If nam'd with scorn, gives just offence,

What use in life to make men fret,
Part in worse humour than they met ?
Thus all society is lost,

Men laugh at one another's cost;
And half the company is teaz'd,
That came together to be pleas'd:
For all buffoons have most in view
To please themselves, by vexing you.
You wonder now to see me write
So gravely on a subject light;
Some part of what I here design

*

Regards a friend of yours and mine;

Dr. Sheridan.

Who,