ON A LIVING PICTURE.

YE youthful fair, no longer boast your charms,
Tho' to their pow'r we yield our arms:

Your red and white to nature due,

Not to your skill, but her's, now please in you:
While Lydia's art can nature's stint out-last,
Paintress at once, and picture too:

See how she blooms, ev'n when her autumn's past!
And a complexion does command,

Due only to her skilful hand: Her hand, which in an hour repairs The injuries of sixty years.

NED'S RULE.

YES, ev'ry poet is a fool;

By demonstration Ned can show it,

Happy, if Ned's inverted rule

Prove ev'ry fool to be a poet.

ON HEARING A YOUNG LADY TOO FRE-
QUENTLY EXCLAIM-"THE DEVIL!"

YES, I have said that being would be blest,
By whom so sweet a maid should be possest.
But now I own myself a wretched guesser;-
I never dreamt the Devil would possess her.

ON THE SAME OCCASION.

SEE round her lips the ready Devils fly,
Mix with her words, and bask beneath her eye!
Pleas'd that so sweet a station should be giv'n,
They half forget they ever fell from Heav'n.

ANOTHER ON THE SAME OCCASION. THE charms of Ella who shall dare deny? Youth decks her cheek, and love informs her eye; Her mouth would mollify a heart of flint; So truly tempting, that-the Devil's in't!

GAINING A LOSS.

YES; I submit, my Lord; you've gain'd your end: I'm now your slave, that would have been your

friend.

I'll bow, I'll cringe, be supple as your glove;
Respect, adore you-ev'ry thing, but-love.

Occasioned by a Part of St. Mary's Church,
Oxford, being converted into a
LAW SCHOOL.

YES, yes, you may rail at the Pope as you please,
But trust me that miracles never will cease;
See here-an event that no mortal suspected,
See Law and Divinity closely connected!
Which proves the old proverb, long reckon'd so odd,
That "the nearest the Church the furthest from
God."

A JACK OF ALL TRADES.

YES, you're a pretty preacher, Sir, we know it,
Write pretty novels, are a pretty poet;
A pretty critic, and tell fortunes too,
Then who writes farce or epigrams like you ?
At every ball how prettily you nick it!
You fiddle, sing, play prettily at cricket.
Yet after all, in nothing you excel,
Do all things prettily, but nothing well.
What shall I call you?-Say the best I can,
You are, my friend, a very busy man.

THE MODEST REQUEST.

YOU ask me, dear Chloe, to write in your praise, Tho' fiction, you know, must preside o'er my lays; Then bless me, sweet girl, with one night in your

arms,

That your virtue poetic may equal your charms.

MARTIAL, B. i. Ep. 58.-IMITATED.

YOU ask, was I to change my life,
What kind of girl I'd take to wife?
Not one who coy or easy seems,
I hate alike the two extremes;
She satiates who at first complies,
She starves my love who long denies:
The maid must not, I'd call my own,
Say No too oft, or Yes too soon.

THE WIT'S IN THE FACE.

YOU ask why Roome diverts you with his jokes,
Yet, if he write, is dull as other folks?
You wonder at it.-This, Sir, is the case,
The jest is lost, unless he prints his face.

AN EMPTY HOUSE.

YOU beat your pate, and fancy wit will come,
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

UPON THE POET BORBONIUS.

FROM OWEN.

YOU call your verses trifles; be they so?
Ask yourself privately, and you'll hear, No.
I shall refrain my verdict; yet I may

Take leave to think, what you thought good to say.

THE

REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE. YOU crack my pate, then bid me take the law, A foe will still advise us for the worse: From want of care I felt your angry paw, But I've sufficient to protect my purse.

BOTH IN THE RIGHT.

YOU'D marry the Marquis, fair lady, you say;
You're right; we've suspected it long:
But his lordship decliues in a complaisant way,
And, faith, he's not much in the wrong.

MARRIAGE GOOD FOR ONCE.
YOU dare not marry, friend, you own,
For fear your family should frown;
Why, wedlock would your freedom gain,
Which others uses to enchain:
You'd better follow my advice,
And marry once than marry twice;
Betwixt your Sister, and your Brother,
Husband to one, and Wife to t'other.

TO AN ANCIENT COQUET.

FROM THE GREEK.

YOU dye your locks with wondrous art,
But still old age will play its part:
Your skill, my dear, will prove too weak
To smooth the wrinkles on that cheek:
Stucco no more-Oh, sad disgrace!
You wear a mask instead of face;
For all the paint, you look so well in,
Will ne'er make Hecuba an Helen.

AN ESCAPE FROM A DINNER. YOU dine with Lords, and, with insulting air, Repeat, in savory terms, your bill of fare. I, happy to escape a sumptuous treat; Enjoy the ven'son-which I did not eat.

FROM MARTIAL.

YOU give to Alba hoods, and scarves, and lace,
Give her a mask to hide her whorish face.

A DRY SOUL.

YOU often pity honest Ned,

Condemn'd, you say, to write for bread.
His lib'ral soul, till Dodsley pays,
Still doom'd to fast-or chew the bays.
Yet, by that jovial, ruddy look,
Not gain'd by poring o'er his book;
That clammy ale, his table spilt on;
That tankard, cover'd with a Milton;
By all these tokens, Ned, I fear,
Writes not so much for bread-as beer.

TO A PAINTER WHO EXHIBITS PORTRAITS OF HEROES.

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

YOU play, no doubt, a prudent game,
Who thus attract the public eye:

'Tis well, to speculate for fame,

And live on those who never die.

AGREEMENT IN OPINION.

"YOU'RE a fool," mutters Harry;-says Thomas, That's true,

So must ev'ry one be, that expects sense from you.'

IRREFRAGABLE PROOF.

YOU say in your will I've a handsome bequest:
I wish, Sir, 'twere prov'd at the Commons no jest.