Often aiding to impart
All the fecrets of her heart.
Various is my bulk and hue;

Big like Befs, and finall like Sue
Now brown and burnih'd as a nut,
At other times a very flut;
Often fair, and foft, and tender,

Taper, tall, and fimooth, and fender;
Like Flora deck'd with various flowers;
Like Phœbus, guardian of the hours:
But, whatever be my drefs,
Greater be my fize or lefs,
Swelling be my shape or fmall,
Like thyfelf I fhine in all.
Clouded if my face is feen,
My complexion wan and green,
Languid like a love-fick maid,
Steel affords me prefent aid.
Soon or late, my date is done,
As my thread of life is fpun;
Yet to cut the fatal thread
Oft' revives my drooping head:
Yet I perish in my prime,
Seldom by the death of time;
Die like lovers as they gaze,
Die for those I live to please;
Pine unpitied to my urn,

Nor warm the fair for whom I burn;
Unpitied, unlamented too,
Die like all that look on you.

boot,

more.

All this I can do without witchcraft or charm; Though fometimes, they fay, I bewitch and do harm.

Though cold, I inflame; and though quiet, invade;

And nothing can fhield from my spell but a fhade.

A thief that has robb'd you, or done you difgrace,

In magical mirror I'll fhew you his face :
Nay, if you'll believe what the poets have faid,
They'll tell you I kill, and can call back the dead
Like conjurers fafe in my circle I dwell;
I love to look black too, it heightens my fpell.
Though my magick is mighty in every hue,
Who fee all my power must see it in Yov. –

ANSWERED BY DR. Swift. WITH balf an eye your riddle I fpy.

I obferve your wicket hemm'd in by a thicket,
And whatever pafles is ftrained through glasses.
You fay it is quiet: I flatly deny it.

It wanders about, without firring out;
No paffion fo weak but gives it a tweak;
Love, joy, and devotion, fet it always in motion.
And as for the tragic effects of its magick,
Which you fay it can kill or revive at its wiil,
The dead are all found, and revive above ground,
After all you have writ, it cannot be wit;
Which plainly does follow, fince it flies from
Apollo.

Its cowardice fuch, it cries at a touch:
'Tis a perfect milkfop, grows drunk with a drop.
Another great fault, it cannot bear falt:
And a hair can difarm it of every charm.

TO RESTORE STELLA'S YOUTH. 1724-5. HE Scottish hinds, too poor to house

THE

In frosty nights their starving cows,
While not a blade of grafs or hay
Appears from Michaelmas to May,
Muft let their cattle range in vain
For food along the barren plain.
Meagre and lank with fafting grown,
And nothing left but skin and bone;
Expos'd to want, and wind, and weather,
They just keep life and foul together,
Till fummer-fhowers and evening's dew
Again the verdant glebe renew;
And, as the vegetables rife,

The famifh'd cow her want fupplies:
Without an ounce of last year's flesh,
Grows plump and round, and full of mettle,
Whate'er the gains is young and fresh;
As rifing from Medea's kettle,
Europa's counterfeit gallant.
With youth and beauty to inchant

Why, Stella, fhould you knit your brow,
"Tis juft the cafe; for you have fafted
If I compare you to the cow?
So long, till all your flesh is wasted,
Be fent to Quilca down to graze;
And must against the warmer days
Will foon your appetite repair :
Where mirth, and exercise, and air,
The nutriment will from within,
Round all your body, plump your skin,
And fill your veins with fprightly blood;
Will agitate the lazy flood,
Nor Heth nor blood will be the fame,
Nor aught of Stella but the name;
For what was ever understood,
By human kind, but flesh and blood?
And if your flesh and blood be new,
You'll be no more the former you;
But for a blooming nymph will rafs,
Just fifteen, coming fummer's grafs,

Your jetty locks with garlands crown'd:
While all the 'fquires for nine miles round,
Attended by a brace of curs,

With jocky boots and filver fpurs,
No lefs than juftices o'quorum,

Their cow-boys bearing cloaks before 'em,
Shall leave deciding broken pates,
To kifs your fteps at Quilca gates.
But, left you should my skill difgrace,
Come back before you 're out of cafe:
For if to Michaelmas you stay,
The new-born flesh wil! melt away;
The 'fquire in fcorn will fly the house
For better game, and look for groufe;
But here, before the froft can mar it,
We'll make it firm with beef and claret,

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1724-5.

Alay, he's at her dancing-days;
S, when a beauteous nymph decays,
So poets lofe their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bärd had rather chofe
To celebrate your birth in profe:
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country-dance,

Call the old houfe-keeper, and get her
To fill a place, for want of better:
While Sheridan is off the hooks,
And friend Delany at his books,
That Stella may avoid difgrace,
Once more the Dean fupplies their place.
Beauty and wit, too fad a truth!
Have always been confin❜d to youth;
The god of wit, and beauty's queen,
e twenty-one, and the fifteen.
No poet ever fweetly fung,

Julefs he were, like Phoebus, young;
For ever nymph infpir'd to rhyme,
Jalefs, like Venus, in her prime.
At fifty-fix, if this be true,
Am la poet fit for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a fubject fit for me?
dieu! bright wit, and radiant eyes!
You must be grave, and I be wife.
Our fate in vain we would oppofe:
But I'll be fill your friend in profe:
teem and friendship to exprefs,
Vill not require poetic drefs;
nd, if the Mufe deny her aid

have them ung, they may be faid.
But, Stella, fay, what evil tonque
ports you are no longer young;
hat Time fits, with his feythe, to mow
here erft fat Cupid with his bow;
That half your locks are turn'd to grey?
il ne'er believe a word they fay.'
is true, but let it not be known,

y eyes are fomewhat dimmish grown:
or nature, always in the right,
your decays adapts my fight;

To drive unfeen her magic chair,
At midnight, through the darken'd air;
Wife people, who believ'd with reason
That this eclipfe was out of feafon,
Affirm'd the moon was fick, and fell
To cure her by a counter-fpell.
Ten thoufand cymbals now begin
To rend the fkies with brazen din;
The cymbals' rattling founds difpel
The cloud, and drive the hug to hell.
The moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Displays her filwer face again
(Note here, that in the chemic ftyle,
The moon is filver all this while).

So (if my fimile you minded,
Which I confefs is too long-winded) -
When late a feminine magician*,
Join'd with a brazen politician,
Expos'd, to blind the nation's eyes,
A parchment of prodigious fize;
Conceal'd behind that ample fcreen,
There was no filver lo be seen.
But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppofe his counter-charm of paper,
And ring Wood's copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears;
That found will make the parchment shrivel,
And drive the conjurers to the devil:

A great lady was faid to have been bribed by Wood. †The patent for coining half-pence,

BY long obfervation I have understood,
That two little vermin are kin to Will Wood.
The firft is an infect they call a wood-loufe,
That folds up itfelf in itfelf for a house,

As round as a ball, without head, without tail,
Inclos'd cat-a-pe in a strong coat of mail.
And thus William Wood to my fancy appears
In fillets of brafs roll'd up to his ears:
And over thefe fllets he wifely has thrown,
To keep out of danger, a doublet of stone*.
The loufe of the wood for a med'cine is us'd,
Or fwallow'd alive, or skilfully bruis'd,
And, let but our mother Hibernia contrive
To fwallow Will Wood either bruis'd or alive,
She need be no more with the jaundice poffeft,
Or fick of obructions, and pains in her chej.

The next is an infect we call a wood-worm, That lies in old wood like a hare in her form; With teeth or with claws it will bite or will fcratch;

And chambermaids chriften this worm a deadwatch,

Because like a watch it always cries click:

Then woe be to thofe in the house who are fick; For, as fure as a gun, they will give up the ghoft,

If the maggot cries click when it fcratches the poft.

But a kettle of fcalding hot water injected
Infallibly cures the timber affected:

The omen is broken, the danger is over;

The maggot will die, and the fck will recover. Such a worm was Will Wood, when he fcratch'd

at the door

Up at his forge by morning-peep,
Nor creature in the lane could feep;
Among a crew of royftering fellows
Would it whole evenings at the alehouse:
His wife and children wanted bread,
While he went always drunk to bed.
This vapouring feab muft needs devife
To ape the thunder of the fkies:
With brefs two fiery steeds he fhod,
Ta make a clattering as they trod.
Of polifh'd brafs his faming car
Like lightning dazzled from afar;
And up he mounts into the box,
And he must thunder, with a pox.
Then furious he begins his march,
Drives rattling o'er a brazen arch;
With fquibs and crackers arm'd, to throw
Among the trembling croud below.
All ran to prayers, both priests and laity,
To pacify this angry deity:

When Jove, in pity to the town,
With real thunder Inock'd him down.
Then what a huge delight were all in,
To fee the wicked varlet fprawling;
They fearch'd his pockets on the place,
And found his copper all was bafe;
They laugh'd at fuch an Irish blunder,
To take the noife of brafs for thunder.
The moral of this tale is proper,
Apply'd to Wood's adulter'd copper;
Which, as he fcatter'd, we like dolts,
Mitook at firft for thunder-bolts;
Before the Drapier fhot a letter,
(Nor Jove himself could do it better)
Whsch, lighting on th' impoftor's crown,
Like real thunder knock'd him down.

Come hither, and try;
I'll teach you to buy

pot of good ale for a farthing:

Come; three-pence a score,

I afk you no more,

And a fig for the Drapier and Hardinge*.
When tradesmen have gold,
The thief will be bold,

By night and by day for to rob him:
My copper is fuch,

No robber will touch,

And fo you may daintily bob him.

The little blackguard,
Who gets very hard

His half-pence for cleaning your shoes;
When his pockets are cramm'd
With mine and be d-'d,

He may wear he has nothing to lose.

Here's half-pence in plenty,
For one you'll have twenty,

Though thoufands are not worth a pudden :

Your neighbours will think,
When your pocket cries chink,

You are grown plaguy rich on a sudden.
You will be my thankers,
I'll make you my bankers,

As good as Ben Burton or Fadet;
For nothing fhall pafs

But my pretty brass,

And then you'll be all of a trade.

I'm a fon of a whore
If I have a word more

To fay in this wretched condition.
If my coin will not pass,

I muft die like an afs;

And so I conclude my petition.

347

The Soldier is ruin'd, poor man! by his pay; His five-pence will prove but a farthing a day, For meat, or for drink; or he must run away. Which, &c.

When he pulls out his two-pence, the Tapfter fays not,

That ten times as much he must pay for his frot;
And thus the poor Soldier muft foon go to pot.
Which, &c.
If he goes to the Baker, the Baker will huff,
And twenty-pence have for a two-penny loaf,
Then, dog, rogue, and rafcal, and fo kick and
cuff,

Which, &c...
Again, to the market whenever he goes,
The Butcher and Soldier must be mortal foes;
One cuts off an ear, and the other a nofe.

Which, &c. The Butcher is ftout, and he values no fwagger; A cleaver's a match any time for a dagger, And a blue fleeve may give fuch a curt as may, stagger.

Which, &c.

The Beggars themselves will be broke in a trice, When thus their poor farthings are funk in their

price;

When nothing is left, they muft live on their lice.
Which, &c.

The Squire poffefs'd of twelve thousand a year,
O Lord! what a mountain his rents would appear!
Should he take them, he would not have house-
room, I fear.

Which, &c.

Though at prefent he lives in a very large houfe, There would then not be room in it left for a moufe;

But the Squire's too wife, he will not take a foufe. Which, &c.

The Farmes, who comes with his rent in this caf,

For taking thefe counters, and being fo rafh, Will he kick'd out of doors, both himself and his

trafh.

And I think, after all, it would be very strange To give current money for bafe in exchange, a fine lady fwapping her moles for the mange.

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