I often wish'd that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a-year, A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden's end, A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land, set out to plant a wood....
Resolve me this, ye happy dead, Who've lain some hundred years in bed, From every persecution free That in this wretched life we see; Would ye resume a second birth, And choose once more to live on earth?
Ah! Strephon, how can you despise Her, who without thy pity dies! To Strephon I have still been true, And of as noble blood as you; Fair issue of the genial bed, A virgin in thy bosom bred:...
From a town that consists of a church and a steeple, With three or four houses, and as many people, There went an Address in great form and good order, Composed, as 'tis said, by Will Crowe, their Recorder.[1]...
Sure never did man see A wretch like poor Nancy, So teazed day and night By a Dean and a Knight. To punish my sins, Sir Arthur begins, And gives me a wipe,...
To purchase kingdoms and to buy renown, Are arts peculiar to dissembling France; You, mighty monarch, nobler actions crown, And solid virtue does your name advance....
As when the deluge first began to fall, That mighty ebb never to flow again, When this huge body's moisture was so great, It quite o'ercame the vital heat;...
Better we all were in our graves, Than live in slavery to slaves; Worse than the anarchy at sea, Where fishes on each other prey; Where every trout can make as high rants...
Sir Robert,[2] wearied by Will Pulteney's teasings, Who interrupted him in all his leasings, Resolved that Will and he should meet no more, Full in his face Bob shuts the council door;...
When Cupid did his grandsire Jove entreat To form some Beauty by a new receipt, Jove sent, and found, far in a country scene, Truth, innocence, good nature, look serene:...
If Noisy Tom[1] should in the senate prate, "That he would answer both for church and state; And, farther, to demonstrate his affection, Would take the kingdom into his protection;"...
A bard, grown desirous of saving his pelf, Built a house he was sure would hold none but himself. This enraged god Apollo, who Mercury sent, And bid him go ask what his votary meant?...