Thy manly voice, and Albion's, then, were heard ; Felt by her sons, and by her sons revered: Eunuchs, not men, now bear aloft the palm, And o'er our senses pour lethargic balm. The Stage the truest mirror is of life: Our passions there revolve in active strife ; Each character is there displayed to view; Each hates his own, tho' well assured 'tis true. No marvel, then, that all the world should Own In Peachum's treachery Justice Fielding known; Since thieves so common are, and Justice! you Thieves to the gallows for reward pursue. You'd been less active to suppress your bread : 'Twas woman first that snatched the luring bait: The tempter taught her to transgress and eat. Tho' wrong the deed, her quick compunction told; She banished Adam from an age of gold. When women now transgress fair Virtue's rules, Men are their pupils, and the stews their schools. From simple whoredom greater sins began To shoot, to bloom, to centre all in man: Footpads on Hounslow flourish here to-day; The next, old Tyburn sweeps them all away. For woman's faults, the cause of every wrong, Men robbed and murdered, thieves at Tyburn strung. In panting breasts to raise the fond alarm; Make females in the cause of virtue warm ; Gay has compared them to the Summer flower, The boast and glory of an idle hour: When cropped, it falls, shrinks, withers, and decays, And to oblivion dark consigns its days. Hath this a power to win the female heart Back from its vice, from virtue ne'er to part? If so, the wayward virgin 'twill restore ; And murders, robberies, rapes, will be no more. These were the lays of him who Virtue knew ; Her dictates who revered, and practised too; No idle theorist in her guiltless ways, gave the spotless goddess all his days. He Сс O Queensberry! his best and earliest friend; All that his wit or learning could commend ; Thou best of patrons! of his Muse the pride! Still in her pageant shalt thou first preside;No idle pomp that riches can procure, Sprung in a moment, faded in an hour, But pageant, lasting as the uncropped bay, That verdant triumphs with the Muse of Gay. CHARACTER OF A FRIEND, In an Epitaph which he desired the Author to write. UNDER this turf, to mouldering earth con signed, Lies he, who once was fickle as the wind. Alike the scenes of good and ill he knew, From the chaste temple to the lewdest stew. Virtue and Vice in him alternate reigned ;That filled his mind, and this his pocket drained; Till in the contest they so stubborn grew, Death gave the parting blow, and both withdrew. TO DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. Food for a New Edition of his Dictionary. Let Wilkes and Churchill rage no more, GREAT Pedagogue! whose literarian lore, Far from the knowledge of mortalic shapes ; The Muse, silential long, with mouth apert, Of Thames's banks to Scoticanian shores, To meminate thy name in after times, The mighty Mayor of each regalian town Shall consignate thy work to parchment fair, In roll burgharian, and their tables all Shall fumigate with fumigation strong: Scotland, from perpendicularian hills, Shall emigrate her fair muttonian store, Which late had there in pedestration walked, And o'er her airy heights perambulized. Oh, blackest execrations on thy head, Nor drank one amicitial swelling cup * Catenations, vide Chains. JOHNSON. |