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TO THE EARL OF PETERBOROW,

WHO COMMANDED THE BRITISH FORCES IN SPAIN.

MORDANTO fills the trump of fame,

The Christian worlds his deeds proclaim,
And prints are crowded with his name.

In journies he outrides the post,
Sits up till midnight with his host,
Talks politics, and gives the toast;

Knows every prince in Europe's face,
Flies like a squib from place to place,
And travels not, but runs a race.

From Paris gazette à-la-main,
This day arriv'd, without his train,
Mordanto in a week from Spain.

A messenger comes all a-reek,
Mordanto at Madrid to seek ;
He left the town above a week.

Next day the post-boy winds his horn,
And rides through Dover in the morn:
Mordanto 's landed from Leghorn.

Mordanto gallops on alone;

The roads are with his followers strown;
This breaks a girth and that a bone.

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His body active as his mind, Returning sound in limb and wind, Except some leather lost behind.

A skeleton in outward figure,

His meagre corpse, though full of vigour, Would halt behind him, were it bigger.

So wonderful his expedition,
When you have not the least suspicion,
He's with you like an apparition:

Shines in all climates like a star; In senates bold, and fierce in war; A land commander, and a tar:

Heroic actions early bred in,

Ne'er to be match'd in modern reading, But by his name-sake, Charles of Sweden.

THE PROGRESS OF POETRY.

THE farmer's goose, who in the stubble
Has fed without restraint or trouble,
Grown fat with corn, and sitting still,
Can scarce get o'er the barn-door sill;
And hardly waddles forth to cool
Her belly in the neighbouring pool;
Nor loudly cackles at the door;
For cackling shows the goose is poor.

But, when she must be turn'd to graze, And round the barren common strays, Hard exercise and harder fare

Soon make my dame grow lank and spare:

Her body light, she tries her wings,

And scorns the ground, and upward springs; While all the parish, as she flies,

Hear sounds harmonious from the skies.

Such is the poet fresh in pay

(The third night's profits of his play);
His morning-draughts till noon can swill
Among his brethren of the quill:
With good roast beef his belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull,
Deep sunk in plenty and delight,
What poet e'er could take his flight?
Or, stuff'd with phlegm up to the throat,
What poet e'er could sing a note ?
Nor Pegasus could bear the load
Along the high celestial road;

The steed, oppress'd, would break his girth,
To raise the lumber from the Earth.

But view him in another scene,
When all his drink is Hippocrene,
His money spent, his patrons fail,
His credit out for cheese and ale;
His two-years' coat so smooth and bare,
Through every thread it lets in air;
With hungry meals his body pin'd,
His guts and belly full of wind;
And, like a jockey for a race,

His flesh brought down to flying case:

Now his exalted spirit loaths
Encumbrances of food and clothes;
And up he rises, like a vapour,
Supported high on wings of paper;
He singing flies, and flying sings,
While from below all Grub-street rings.

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