Tho' he talk'd much of virtue, her head always run EPIGRAM FROM THE FRENCH. PRIOR. SIR, I admit your gen'ral rule, But you yourself may serve to show it, EPITAPH. WELL then, poor G lies under ground! So there's an end of honest Jack. So little justice here he found, 'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.* * It is strange that Goldsmith should have condescended to adopt this (not very excellent) epigram, in the lines printed in his works: Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, Who long was a bookseller's hack; He led such a damnable life in this world I don't think he'll wish to come back, EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, WHENCE deathless KIT-CAT took its name, Some say from PASTRYCOOK it came, TO A LADY, WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME. WHAT'S fame with men, by custom of the nation, About them both why keep we such a pother? * The Kit-cat Club, which was the point of convivial union among the friends of the Hanoverian succession, was sometimes said to have derived its name from Christopher Kat, a pastry-cook, remarkable for the excellence of his twopenny pies. Others supposed it was from a cat and fiddle, the sign of the tavern. But the epigrammatist, with no very pregnant humour, derives it from their toasts, upon each of whom they wrote verses, which were engraved upon the glasses consecrated to the health proposed. VERSES To be placed under the Picture of England's Arch-Poet, [Sir Richard Blackmore,] containing a complete Catalogue of his Works. SEE who ne'er was or will be half read! Till all true Englishmen cried Hang her! And of Redemption‡‡ made damn'd work. What wonders there the man grown old did! Made David §§ seem so mad and freakish, *Two heroic poems in folio, twenty books. + An heroic poem, in twelve books. An heroic poem in folio, ten books. § Instructions to Vanderbank, a tapestry weaver. Hymn to the Light. ¶ Satire against Wit. ** Of the Nature of Man. ++ Creation, a poem, in seven books. The Redeemer, another heroic poem, in six books. §§ Translation of all the Psalms. No mortal read his Solomon,* What punishment all this must follow? To treat him like her sister Scot? Or Marlb'rough serve him like a friend? BOUNCE TO FOP. AN EPISTLE FROM A DOG AT TWICKENHAM To thee, sweet Fop, these lines I send, *Canticles and Ecclesiastes, + Paraphrase of the Canticles of Moses and Deborah, &c. The Lamentations. The whole book of Job, a poem, in folio. Kick him on the breech, not knight him on the shoulder. Chanc'd with a touch of just the tip Yet thence to think I'd bite your head off! I've the humanity to hate A butcher, though he brings me meat; Your pilf'ring lord, with simple pride, Alii legunt Harvequinis. |