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ODE FOR MUSIC.

ON THE LONGITUDE.

[The celebrated Mr Whiston, in conjunction with Ditton, read lectures on Experimental Philosophy, and they conceived a visionary plan for discovering the longitude at sea, which is here ridiculed.]

RECITATIVO.

THE longitude miss'd on
By wicked Will Whiston;
And not better hit on
By good master Ditton.

RITORNELLO.

So Ditton and Whiston
May both be bep-st on;
And Whiston and Ditton
May both be besh-t on.

Sing Ditton,

Besh-t on;
And Whiston,

Bep-st on.

Sing Ditton and Whiston.
And Whiston and Ditton,
Besh-t and bep-st on,

Bep-st and besh-t on.

EPIGRAM.

ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL AND
BONONCINI.

STRANGE! all this difference should be
'Twixt Tweedle-DUM and Tweedle-DEE!

DA CAPO.

ON MRS TOFTS,

A CELEBRATED OPERA-SINGER.

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song,
As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus

along:

But such is thy av'rice, and such is thy pride,
That the beasts must have starv'd, and the poet have

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TWO OR THREE:

OR, A RECEIPT TO MAKE A CUCKOLD.

Two or three visits, and two or three bows,
Two or three civil things, two or three vows,
Two or three kisses, with two or three sighs,
Two or three JESUSES and LET-ME-DIES,
Two or three squeezes, or two or three towzes,
(With two or three thousand pound lost at their
houses)

Can never fail cuckolding two or three spouses.

EPIGRAM,

IN A MAID OF HONOUR'S PRAYER-BOOK.

WHEN Israel's daughters mourn'd their past offences, They dealt in sackcloth, and turn'd cinder wenches: But Richmond's fair ones never spoil their locks; They use white powder, and wear Holland smocks. O comely church! where females find clean linen As decent to repent in, as to sin in.

THE BALANCE OF EUROPE.

Now Europe balanc'd, neither side prevails;
For nothing's left in either of the scales.

A PANEGYRICAL EPISTLE

TO MR THOMAS SNOW,

GOLDSMITH, NEAR TEMPLE-BAR;

Occasioned by his buying and selling the third South Sea Subscrip tions, taken in by the Directors at One Thousand per

cent.*

DISDAIN not, SNow, my humble verse to hear,
Stick thy black pen awhile behind thy ear.
Whether thy counter shine with sums untold,
And thy wide-grasping hand grows black with gold;
Whether thy mien erect, and sable locks,
In crowds of brokers overawe the stocks;

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* In the year 1720, the South Sea Company, under pretence of paying the public debt, obtained an act of parliament for enlarging their capital, by taking into it all the debts of the nation, incurred before the year 1716, amounting to L. 31,664,551. Part of this sum was subscribed into their capital at three subscriptions: the first at L. 300 per cent., the second at L. 400, and a third at L. 1000. Such was the infatuation of the time, that these subscriptions were bought and sold at exorbitant premiums; so that L.100 South Sea stock, subscribed at L.1000, was sold for L.1200 in Exchange-alley.-H.

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Suspend the worldly business of the day,
And, to enrich thy mind, attend my lay.

O thou, whose penetrative wisdom found The South Sea rocks and shelves, where thousands drown'd!

When credit, sunk, and commerce gasping lay, Thou stood'st: no bill was sent unpaid away. When not a guinea chink'd on Martin's boards, And Atwill's self was drain'd of all his hoards, Thou stood'st; an Indian king in size and hue! Thy unexhausted shop was our Peru.

Why did 'Change-alley waste thy precious hours
Among the fools who gap'd for golden show'rs?
No wonder, if we find some poets there,
Who live on fancy, and can feed on air;

No wonder, they were caught by South Sea schemes,
Who ne'er enjoy'd a guinea, but in dreams;
No wonder, they their third subscriptions sold
For millions of imaginary gold;

No wonder that their fancies wild can frame
Strange reasons, that a thing is still the same,
Tho' chang'd throughout in substance and in name.)
But you (whose judgment scorns poetic flights)
With contracts furnish boys for paper kites.

Let vulture Hopkins stretch his rusty throat,
Who ruins thousands for a single groat:

I know thou scorn'st his mean, his sordid mind;
Nor with ideal debts wouldst plague mankind.
Madmen alone their empty dreams pursue,
And still believe the fleeting vision true;
They sell the treasures which their slumbers get,
Then wake, and fancy all the world in debt.
If to instruct thee all my reasons fail,

Yet be diverted by this moral tale.

* Names of eminent goldsmiths.-H.

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