NO master sage, nor orator I know, Who can success, like gentle Cupid show; His ways and arguments are pleasing smiles, Engaging looks, soft tears, and winning wiles. Wars in his empire will at times arise,...
Were I a pet of fair Calliope, I would devote the gifts conferr'd on me To dress in verse old Aesop's lies divine; For verse, and they, and truth, do well combine;...
SICK, Alice grown, and fearing dire event, Some friend advised a servant should be sent Her confessor to bring and ease her mind; - Yes, she replied, to see him I'm inclined;...
IF these gay tales give pleasure to the FAIR, The honour's great conferred, I'm well aware; Yet, why suppose the sex my pages shun? Enough, if they condemn where follies run;...
HANS CARVEL took, when weak and late in life; A girl, with youth and beauteous charms to wife; And with her, num'rous troubles, cares and fears; For, scarcely one without the rest appears....
A CERTAIN pious rector (John his name), But little preached, except when vintage came; And then no preparation he required On this he triumphed and was much admired. Another point he handled very well,...
Among the beasts a feud arose. The lion, as the story goes, Once on a time laid down His sceptre and his crown; And in his stead the beasts elected, As often as it suited them,...
Three sorts there are, as Malherbe[2] says, Which one can never overpraise - The gods, the ladies, and the king; And I, for one, endorse the thing. The heart, praise tickles and entices;...
WHEN Sister Jane, who had produced a child, In prayer and penance all her hours beguiled Her sister-nuns around the lattice pressed; On which the abbess thus her flock addressed:...
TO charms and philters, secret spells and prayers, How many round attribute all their cares! In these howe'er I never can believe, And laugh at follies that so much deceive....
A fable flourished with antiquity Whose meaning I could never clearly see. Kind reader, draw the moral if you're able: I give you here the naked fable....
The sorest ill that Heaven hath Sent on this lower world in wrath, - The plague (to call it by its name,) One single day of which Would Pluto's ferryman enrich, -...
One of those dread evils which spread terror far and wide, and which Heaven, in its anger, ordains for the punishment of wickedness upon earth - a plague in fact; and so dire a one as to make rich in one day that grim ferryman ...
Clad in a lion's shaggy hide, An ass spread terror far and wide, And, though himself a coward brute, Put all the world to scampering rout: But, by a piece of evil luck,...
An Ass in The Lion's skin arrayed Made everybody fear. And this was queer, Because he was himself afraid. Yet everywhere he strayed The people ran like deer.
A man, whom I shall call an ass-eteer, His sceptre like some Roman emperor bearing, Drove on two coursers of protracted ear, The one, with sponges laden, briskly faring; The other lifting legs...
Wise counsel is not always wise, As this my tale exemplifies. A boy, that frolick'd on the banks of Seine, Fell in, and would have found a watery grave,...
The first who saw the humpback'd camel Fled off for life; the next approach'd with care; The third with tyrant rope did boldly dare The desert wanderer to trammel. Such is the power of use to change...