Good Lord! what can my Lady mean, Converfing with that rufty Dean! She's grown fo nice, and fo penurioust,
With Socrates and Epicurius.
How could fhe fit the live-long day,
Yet never afk us once to play?
BUT I admire your patience most,
That when I'm duller than a post,
Nor can the plaineft word pronounce,
You neither fume, nor fret, nor flounce;
No work is grievous or offenfive; Whether your fruitful fancy lies To make for pigs convenient ftyes; Or ponder long with anxious thought, To banish rats that haunt our vault : Nor have you grumbled, Rev'rend Dean, To keep our poultry sweet and clean;
To sweep the manfion-house they dwell in, And cure the rank unfav'ry fmelling.
Now enter as the dairy handmaid: Such charming butter ‡ never man made. Let others, with fanatic face, Talk of their milk for babes of grace;
From tubs their fnuffling nonfenfe utter: Thy milk fhall make us tubs of butter.
+ Ignorant ladies often mistake the word penurious for nice and dainty.
A way of making butter for breakfast, by filling a bottle with cream, and shaking it till the butter comes.
The Bishop with his foot may burn it*,
But with his band the Dean can churn it. How are the fervants overjoy'd
Will tofs and turn your brain till noon; Which in its jumblings round the fcull Dilates, and makes the vessel full : While nothing comes but froth at first, You think your giddy head will burst : But fqueezing out four lines in rhyme, Are largely paid for all your time..
BUT you have rais'd your gen'rous mind To works of more exalted kind. Palladio was not half so skill'd in The grandeur or the art of building. Two temples of magnific fize Attract the curious trav'ler's eyes, That might be envy'd by the Greeks, Rais'd up by you in twenty weeks:
*. It is à common saying, when the milk burns, That the devil or the bishop has fet his foot in it, the devil having been called bishop of hell. See a fatire on the Irish bishops, in vol. vii. faid to have been first printed in Pog's journal. Hawkes.
Here gentle goddess Cloacine Receives all off 'rings at her shrine. In fep'rate cells the he's and she's Here pay their vows with bended knees : For 'tis profane when fexes mingle; And ev'ry nymph muft enter fingle And when the feels an inward motion, Come fill'd with rev'rence and devotion. The bashful maid, to hide her blush, Shall creep no more behind a bush; Here unobferv'd she boldly goes, As who should fay, to pluck a rofe. - YE who frequent this hallow'd scene, Be not ungrateful to the Dean; But duly, ere you leave your station, Offer to him a pure libation, Or of his own, or Smedley's lay, Or billetdoux, or lock of hay: And, O! may all who hither come, Return with unpolluted thumb.
YET when your lofty domes I praise, I figh to think of ancient days. Permit me then to raise my ftyle, And sweetly moralize a while.
THEE, bounteous goddess Cloacine, To temples why do we confine? Forbid in open air to breathe, Why are thine altars fix'd beneath
WHEN Saturn rul'd the skies alone,
(That golden age to gold unknown), This earthly globe to thee affign'd Receiv'd the gifts of all mankind. Ten thoufand altars (moaking round
Were built to thee,, with off 'rings crown'd:
See his character below, p. 381.
And here the daily vot❜ries plac'd
Their facrifice with zeal and hafte :
The margin of a purling ftream.
Sent up to thee a grateful steam:
(Tho' fometimes thou wert pleas'd to wink,
If Naiads swept them from the brink):
Or where appointing lovers rove, The shelter of a fhady grove; Or offer'd in fome flow'ry vale,
Were wafted by a gentle gale.
There many a flow'r obfterfive grew, Thy fav'rite flow'rs of yellow hue! The crocus and the daffodil, The cowflip foft, and fweet jonquil. BUT when at laft uforping Jove Old Saturn from his empire drove z Then Gluttony with greafy paws Her napkin pinn'd up to her jaws, With watʼry chaps, and wagging chin, Brac'd like a drum her oily skin, Wedg'd in a spacious elbow-chair, And on her plate a treble fhare, As if the ne'er could have enough, Taught harmlefs man to cram and stuff. She fent her priest in wooden shoes From haughty Gaul to make ragoos; Inftead of wholefome bread and cheefe, To dress their foops and fricaffees; And for our home-bred British cheer, Botargo, catfup, and caveer.
THIS bloated harpy, fprung from hell, Confin'd thee, goddefs, to a cell; Sprung from her womb that impious line, Contemners of thy rites divine.
First, lofling Sloth in woollen cap
Taking her after-dinner nap :
Pale Dropy with a fallow face, Her belly burft, and flow her pace : And lordly Gout wrapt up in fur: And wheezing Afthma, loath to ftir. Voluptuous Eafe, the child of Wealth, Infecting thus our hearts by stealth; None feek thee now in open air, To thee no verdant altars rear ; But in their cells and vaults obfcene Prefent a facrifice unclean; From whence unfav'ry vapours rofe, Offenfive to thy nicer nose.
Ah! who in our degen'rate days, As nature prompts, his off 'ring pays? Here nature never diff'rence made Between the fceptre and the fpade.
YE great ones, why will ye difdain
To pay your tribute on the plain? Why will ye place in lazy pride
Your altars near your couches fide ?
*When from the homelieft earthen ware
Are fent up off 'rings more fincere,
Than where the haughty Duchefs locks Her filver vafe in cedar-box.
YET fome devotion fill remains.
Among our harmless northern fwainst, Whofe off'rings plac'd in golden ranks,
Adorn our crystal rivers banks;
Nor feldom grace the flow'ry downs,
With fpiral tops and copple-crowns; Or gilding in a funny morn
The humble branches of a thorn. So, poets fing, with golden bough The Trojan hero paid his vow,
*Vide Virgil and Lucretius.. + The north of Ireland.
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