Sprout! quoth the man; what's this you
I hope you don't believe me jealous ;
But yet, methinks, I feel it true;
And really yours is budding too---
Nay,-now I cannot ftir my foot;
It feels as if 'twere taking root.
Description would but tire my mufe;
In short, they both were turn'd to `yews.
Old goodman Dobson of the green
Remembers, he the trees has feen ;
He'll talk of them from noon till night,
And goes with folks to fhew the fight;
On Sundays, after ev'ning pray'r,
He gathers all the parish there;
Points out the place of either yew;
Here Baucis, there Philemon grew:
Till once a parfon of our town
To mend his barn cut Baucis down;
At which 'tis hard to be believ❜d
How much the other tree was griev'd,
Grew fcrubby, dy'd a-top, was stunted;
So the next parfon stubb'd and burnt it.
In Imitation of Virgil's Georgicks,
AREFUL obfervers may foretel the hour
(By fure
prognosticks) when to dread
While rain depends, the penfive cat gives o'er Her frolicks, and purfues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the fink Strike your offended fenfe with double stink. If you be wife, then go not far to dine; You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming fhow'r your fhootingcorns prefage, Old aches throb, your hollow tooth will rage: Saunt'ring in coffee-house is Dulman seen ; Hedamns the climate, and complains of spleen. Mean while the South, rifing with dabbled wings,
A fable cloud athwart the welkin Alings, That fwill'd more liquor than it could contain, And, like a drunkard, gives it up again.
Brifk Susan whips her linnen from the rope,
While the first drizzling fhow'r is borne aflope:
Such is that sprinkling, which fome careless
quean
Flirts on you from her mop, but not fo clean:
You fly, invoke the Gods; then turning, ftop
To rail; the finging, ftill whirls on her mop.
Not yet the duft had fhunn'd th' unequal ftrife,
But, aided by the wind, fought ftill for life,
And wafted with its foe by vi'lent gust,
''Twas doubtful which was rain, and which
was duft.
Ah! where muft needy poet feek for aid,
When duft and rain at once his coat invade?
Sole coat, where duft cemented by the rain
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain.
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threat'ning with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The templar spruce, while ev'ry spout's a-
broach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet feems to call a coach. The tuck'd-up femstress walks with hasty ftrides,
While ftreams run down her oil'd umbrella's fides.
'Twas doubtful which was fea, and which was sky.
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant tories, and defponding whigsʻ,
Forget their feuds, and join to fave their wigs.
Box'd in a chair the beau impatient fits,
While spouts run clatt'ring o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather founds; he trembles from within..
So when Troy chairman bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed,
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Inftead of paying chairmen, run them thro',)
Laocoon ftruck the outfide with his fpear,
And each imprison'd hero quak'd for fear.
Now from all parts the fwelling kennels
flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filths of all hues and odours feem to tell
What street they fail'd from by their fight and
fmell.
b This was written in the firft year of the earl of Oxford's ministry.
As whig and wig only differ by an afpiration which is fcarce to be diftinguish'd, it may be thought an exception to the dean's remarkable exactnefs, that he has made them rhyme but the fame thing was afterwards
done by mr. Pope, either upon
the dean's authority, or because
he did not think it liable to ob-
jection:
A joke on Jekyll or fome odd old
whig,
Who never chang'd his princi-
ples or wig.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force, From Smithfield or St. 'Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluence join'd at Snowbillridge, Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn-bridge. Sweepings from butchers ftalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown'd puppies, ftinking sprats, all drench'd in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
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