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LOVET.

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 faid to Pope, "I think the Pastoral Ridicule is not exhausted; what think you of a Newgate Paftoral, among the whores and thieves there?" When Lady M. W. Montagu 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 your's, and the rest for mine." WARTON

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

UN JOUR DIT UN AUTEUR, etc.

ONCE (fays an Author, where I need not fay)
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 fight.
The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well,
There take (fays 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 unufeful or unpleasing amusement to compare this tranflation 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 caufe.
La justice pefant ce droit litigieux,

Demande l'huître, l'ouvre, & l'avale à leur yeux,
Et par ce bel arrest terminant la bataille :
Tenez voilà, dit elle, à chacun une écaille.
Des fottises d'autrui, nous vivons au palais;

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

In the fifth, fixth, seventh, ninth, and twelfth verses, Pope is

inferior to the original.

WARTON.

ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF

MRS. HOW.

WHAT IS PRUDERY?

'Tis a Beldam,

Seen with Wit and Beauty feldom.
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis, (no, 'tis'n't) like Miss Meadows.

'Tis a Virgin hard of Feature,

5

Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful, would feem wife;
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly envious Shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell and You.

10

VER. II. That rails at dear Lepell] Miss Lepell was one of the maids of honour to Queen Caroline, and she afterwards was married to Lord Hervey. She and Miss Mary Bellenden, mentioned in Gay's ballad, and in Pope's letters, were the ornaments of the court, for beauty, engaging manners, and amiable character. I have a MS. letter from her, written at Paris to Lord Melcomb, which sufficiently evinces her superior understanding, and might be classed with the letters of Lady M. W. Montagu.

In Gay's ballad she is designated as,

"Youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell."

He also celebrates her with Miss Bellenden, in his ballad, intitled, Damon and Cupid :

" So well I'm known at Court,

None asks where beauty dwells,

But readily refort,

To Belienden's or Lepell's."

Of

Of Miss Meadows, mentioned in this little jeu d'esprit, I find the following notice in a MS. poem of Lord Melcomb, the celebrated Bubb Dodington:

As chaste as "Hervey or Miss Meadows !"

AMONG these smaller poems of our Author, the following couplet was exposed, on a dog's collar, which he gave to the Prince of Wales:

" I am his Highness's 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.

WARTON.

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 Crouds 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, confenting Phœbus 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. WARTON.

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

WARTON.

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