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STEL

TELLA this day is thirty-four, (We fha'n't difpute a year or more :) However, Stella, be not troubled; Although thy fize and years are doubled, Since firft I saw thee at fixteen, The brightest virgin on the green, So little is thy form declin'd; Made up fo largely in thy mind.

Oh, wou'd it please the Gods to split Thy beauty, fize, and years, and wit! No age could furnish out a pair Of nymphs fo graceful, wife, and fair; With half the luftre of your eyes, With half your wit, your years, and fize. And then, before it grew too late, How shou'd I beg of gentle fate (That either nymph might have her swain) To split my worship too in twain.

STELLA'S Birth-Day. 1720.

ALL travellers at firft incline

Where-e'er they fee the faireft fign; And, if they find the chambers neat, And like the liquor and the meat, Will call again, and recommend The Angel-inn to ev'ry friend.

What

What though the painting grows decay'd?
The house will never lofe its trade:
Nay, though the treach'rous tapfter Thomas
Hangs a new angel two doors from us,
As fine as dawber's hands can make it,
In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
We think it both a fhame and fin
To quit the true old Angel-inn.
Now this is Stella's cafe in fact :
An angel's face, a little crack'd;
(Could poets, or could painters fix
How angels look at thirty-fix :)
This drew us in at firft to find
In fuch a form an angel's mind;
And ev'ry virtue now fupplies
The fainting rays of Stella's eyes.
See at her levee crowding fwains,
Whom Stella freely entertains

With breeding, humour, wit, and sense;
And puts them but to fmall expence ;
Their mind fo plentifully fills,
And makes fuch reasonable bills,
So little gets for what the gives,
We really wonder how the lives!
And, had her ftock been lefs, no doubt
She must have long ago run out.

Then who can think we'll quit the place, When Doll hangs out a newer face;

Or ftop and light at Cloe's head,
With fcraps and leavings to be fed ?
Then, Cloe, ftill go on to prate
Of thirty-fix, and thirty-eight;
Purfue your trade of fcandal-picking,
Your hints, that Stella is no chicken;
Your innuendos, when you
tell us

That Stella loves to talk with fellows :
And let me warn you to believe

A truth, for which your foul fhould grieve;
That, fhould you live to fee the day
When Stella's locks muft all be grey,
When age must print a furrow'd trace
On ev'ry feature of her face;

Though you, and all your fenfelefs tribe,
Could art or time or nature bribe
To make you look like beauty's queen,
And hold for ever at fifteen;

No bloom of youth can ever blind
The cracks and wrinkles of your mind;
All men of fenfe will pafs your door,
And crowd to Stella's at fourfcore.

STELLA'S

A great bottle of wine, long buried, being that day dug up.

1722.

RESOLV'D my annual verfe to pay,
By duty bound, on Stella's day,.

Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink,
I gravely fat me down to think:

I

Į bit my nails, and scratch'd my head,
But found my wit and fancy fled :
Or, if with more than ufual pain,
A thought came flowly from my brain,
It coft me lord knows how much time
To shape it into sense and rhyme:
And, what was yet a greater curse,
Long-thinking made my fancy worse.
Forfaken by th' inspiring nine,
I waited at Apollo's fhrine:

told him what the world would fay, If Stella were unfung to day;

How I fhou'd hide my head for shame,
When both the Jacks and Robin came;
How Ford would frown, how Jim would
leer,

How Sh---r the rogue would fneer,
And fwear it does not always follow,
That femel'n anno ridet Apollo.
I have affur'd them twenty times,
That Phœbus help'd me in my rhymes,

Phoebus

Phoebus infpir'd me from above;
And he and I were hand and glove.
But, finding me fo dull and dry fince,
They'll call it all poetick licence;
And, when I brag of aid divine,
Think Eufden's right as good as mine.
Nor do I ask for Stella's fake;
"Tis my own credit lies at ftake:
And Stella will be fung, while I
Can only be a ftander-by.

Apollo, having thought a little,
Return'd this anfwer to a tittle:
Tho' you fhould live like old Methufalem,
I furnish hints, and you should use all 'em,
You yearly fing as the grows old,
You'd leave her virtues half untold.
But, to say truth, fuch dulnefs reigns
Through the whole fet of Irish deans,
I'm daily ftunn'd with fuch a medley,
Dean W---, dean D---, and dean Smedley,
That, let what dean foever come,
My orders are, I'm not at home;
And, if your voice had not been loud,
You must have pafs'd among the crowd.
But now, your danger to prevent,

You must apply to

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Houfe-keeper.

For

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