Works

O Wretched B----,[90] jealous now of all,
What god, what mortal shall prevent thy fall?
Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,
And see what succour from the patriot race....

I
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THE DESIGN.
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ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HIMSELF AS AN INDIVIDUAL.
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ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY.
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ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.
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What is prudery?

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

As when that hero, who, in each campaign,
Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!
Wept by each friend, forgiven by every foe:...

Beneath the shade a spreading Beech displays,
Hylas and Aegon sung their rural lays,
This mourn'd a faithless, that an absent Love,
And Delia's name and Doris' fill'd the Grove....

Again? new tumults in my breast?
Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
I am not now, alas! the man
As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne.
Ah, sound no more thy soft alarms,...

Strophe I

Ye shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal Sages taught;
Where heav'nly visions of Plato fir'd,
And Epicurus lay inspir'd!
In vain your guiltless laurels stood...

Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,...

I

But our Great Turks in wit must reign alone
And ill can bear a Brother on the Throne.


II

Wit is like faith by such warm Fools profest...

What beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis she!'but why that bleeding bosom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?...

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you

I am His Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Friend, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,
Where still so much is said;
One half will never be believed,
The other never read.

Strange! all this difference should be
'Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!

Whence deathless 'Kit-cat' took its name,
Few critics can unriddle:
Some say from 'pastrycook' it came,
And some, from 'cat' and 'fiddle.'

From no trim beaux its name it boasts,...

Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
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