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SMILINDA.

Soft SIMPLICETTA doats upon a Beau; PRUDINA likes a Man, and laughs at show. Their several graces in my SHARPER meet; Strong as the Footman, as the Master sweet.

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Cease your contention, which has been too long; I grow impatient, and the Tea's too strong. Attend, and yield to what I now decide; The Equipage shall grace SMILINDA's Side; The Snuff-Box to CARDELIA I decree, Now leave complaining, and begin your Tea.

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GAY wrote a Quaker's Eclogue, and Swift a Footman's Eclogue; and said to Pope, "I think the Pastoral Ridicule is not. exhausted; what think you of a Newgate Pastoral, among the whores and thieves there?" When Lady M. W. Montague would sometimes shew a copy of her verses to Pope, and he would make some little alterations, "No," said she, "Pope, no touching! for then, whatever is good for any thing will pass for yours, and the rest for mine."

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

UN JOUR DIT UN AUTEUR, etc.

ONCE (says an Author, where I need not say) Two Trav❜lers found an Oyster in their way; Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong, While Scale in hand Dame Justice past along. Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws, Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause. Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right, Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight. The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well, There take (says Justice) take ye each a Shell. We thrive at Westminster on Fools like

you:

'Twas a fat Oyster-Live in peace-Adieu.

It will be no unuseful or unpleasing amusement to compare this translation with the original :

"Un jour, dit un Auteur, n'importe en quel chapitre,
Deux voyageurs à jeun rencontrerent une huître,
Tous deux la contestoient, lorsque dans leur chemin
La justice passa, la balance à la main.

Devant elle à grand bruit ils expliquent la chose.
Tous deux avec depens veulent gagner leur cause.
La justice pesant ce droit litigieux,

Demande l'huître, l'ouvre, et l'avale à leurs yeux,
Et par ce bel arrest terminant la bataille :

Tenez voilà, dit elle, à chacun une écaille.

Des sottises d'autrui nous vivons au palais;

Messieurs, l'huître étoit bonne. Adieu, Vivez en paix."

In the fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, and twelfth, verses, Pope is inferior to the original.

ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF
MRS. HOW.

WHAT IS PRUDERY?

'Tis a Beldam,

Seen with Wit and beauty seldom.
"Tis a fear that starts at shadows?
Tis, (no, 'tis'n't) like Miss Meadows.
"Tis a Virgin hard of Feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise;
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly envious Shrew,

That rails at dear Lepell and You.

AMONG these smaller poems of our author, the following couplet used to be printed, on a dog's collar, which he gave to the Prince of Wales:

"I am his Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?"

Which was taken from Sir William Temple's Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 323. said to be the answer of Mr. Grantham's Fool to one who asked him whose fool he was.

OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

MusE, 'tis enough : at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends. Let Crowds of Critics now my Verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail : This more than pays whole years of thankless pain, Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,

And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

NOTES.

Ver. 2. Buckingham commends.] It would be difficult to add any thing to the finished portrait of this nobleman, given by Mr. Walpole in his Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 118.

Ver. 5 and 6. This more] A very groundless complaint! Few authors, during their lives, were more respected and revered than himself by persons of rank and judges of merit.

A PROLOGUE

BY MR. POPE,

To a Play for MR. DENNIS'S Benefit, in 1733, when he was old, blind, and in great Distress, a little before his Death.

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As when that Hero, who in each Campaign,

Had brav'd the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of Woe!
Wept by each Friend, forgiv'n by ev'ry Foe;
Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,
But pitied BELISARIUS old and blind?

5

Was there a Chief but melted at the Sight?
A common soldier, but who clubb'd his Mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
When press'd by want and weakness, DENNIS lies;

NOTES.

9

Ver. 6. But pitied Belisarius, &c.] Nothing could be more happily imagined than this allusion, nor more finely conducted. The continued pleasantry is so delicately touched, that it took nothing from the self-satisfaction which the critic who heard it, had in his own merit, or the audience in their charity. In a word, this benevolent irony is prosecuted with so masterly a hand, that the Poet supposed, had Dennis himself the wit to see it, he would have had the ingenuity to approve of it.

"This dreaded Sat'rist, Dennis will confess,

Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress."

W.

Ver. 7. Was there a Chief, &c.] The fine figure of the Commander in that capital picture of Belisarius at Chiswick, supplied the Poet with this beautiful idea. W.

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