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And while the dull miser esteems himself wiser,

His bags to increase, while his health does decay; Our souls we enlighten, our fancies we brighten, And pass the long evenings in pleasure away.

All cheerful and hearty, we set aside party,

With some tender fair the bright bumper is crown'd; Thus Bacchus invites us, and Venus delights us,

While care in an ocean of claret is drown'd: See, here's our physician, we know no ambition, But where there's good wine and good company found; Thus happy together, in spite of all weather, "Tis sunshine and summer with us the year round.

SONG XV.

FROM ANACREON.

IF gold could lengthen life, I swear,
It then should be my chiefest care
To get a heap; that I might say,
When death came to demand his pay,
Thou slave, take this, and go thy way.

But since life is not to be bought,
Why should I plague myself for nought;
Or foolishly disturb the skies

With vain complaints, or fruitless cries?
For if the fatal destinies

Have all decreed it shall be so,

What good will gold or crying do?

Give me, to ease my thirsty soul,
The joys and comforts of the bowl;
Freedom and health, and whilst I live,
Let me not want what love can give :
Then shall I die in peace, and have
This consolation in the grave,

That once I had the world my slave.

SONG XVI.

AN HUNDRED YEARS HENCE.

LET us drink and be merry,

Dance, joke, and rejoice,

With claret and sherry,

Theorbo and voice :

The changeable world

To our joy is unjust;

All treasure's uncertain,

Then down with your dust.

In frolics dispose

Your pounds, shillings, and pence;

For we shall be nothing

An hundred years hence.

We'll kiss and be free

With Moll, Betty, and Nelly,

Have oysters and lobsters
And maids by the belly.
Fish-dinners will make

A lass spring like a flea;
Dame Venus, love's goddess,
Was born of the sea:

With Bacchus and her
We'll tickle the sense,
For we shall be past it

An hundred years hence.

Your most beautiful bit,

That hath all eyes upon her, That her honesty sells

For a haut-goût of honour,
Whose lightness and brightness
Doth shine in such splendour,
That none but the stars

Are thought fit to attend her;
Though now she be pleasant,
And sweet to the sense,
Will be damnable mouldy
An hundred years hence.

The usurer, that

In the hundred takes twenty, Who wants in his wealth,

And pines in his plenty ;

Lays up for a season

Which he shall ne'er see,

The year one thousand

Eight hundred and three : His wit and his wealth,

His learning and sense, Shall be turned to nothing An hundred years hence.

Your Chancery-lawyers,
Whose subtilty thrives,

"

In spinning out suits

To the length of three lives
Such suits which the clients

Do wear out in slavery,
Whilst pleader makes conscience
A cloak for his knavery,
May boast of his subtilty

In the present tense,
But non est inventus

An hundred years hence.

Then why should we turmoil
In cares and in fears,
Turn all our tranquillity

To sighs and to tears?

Let's eat, drink, and play,

Till the worms do corrupt us,

'Tis certain, post mortem

Nulla voluptas.

Let's deal with our damsels,

That we may from thence,

Have broods to succeed us

An hundred years hence.

SONG XVII.

JOLLY mortals, fill your glasses,
Noble deeds are done by wine;

Scorn the nymph and all her graces,
Who'd for love or beauty pine.
C

VOL. II.

0.

Look within the bowl that's flowing,
And a thousand charms you'll find,
More than in Phyllis, though just going
In the moment to be kind.

Alexander hated thinking,

Drank about at council-board;
He subdued the world by drinking,
More than by his conquering sword.

SONG XVIII.

As swift as time put round the glass,
And husband well life's little space ;
Perhaps your sun, which shines so bright,
May set in everlasting night.*

Or, if the sun again should rise,

Death, ere the morn, may close your eyes;
Then drink, before it be too late,
And snatch the present hour from fate.

Come, fill a bumper, fill it round;

Let mirth, and wit, and wine abound;
In these alone true wisdom lies,

For, to be merry's to be wise.

[This passage, like too many others amid the present festal assemblage, betrays a near alliance with the modern philosophy of the Gallic school; which Miss More has forcibly and felicitously termed 'the college of infidelity.']

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