THE CHALLENGE. A COURT BALLA D. To the Tune of "To all you Ladies now at Land, &c." I. o one fair lady out of court, T° And two fair ladies in, Who think the Turk* and Popet a sport, And wit and love no fin; Come, these soft lines, with nothing stiff in, With a fa, la, la. NOTES. II. What * Warton has a note upon these words, Urick, the little Turk." One is tempted to fay, in the language of the Author of the Critic, "The interpreter is the hardest to be underflood of the two." The expreffion of the "Turk and the Pope," is very common; it is here applied equivocally, to the author, and perhaps to one of the Turks, who came to England with George the Firft. †The Author. Miss Lepell has been fpoken of before. Mary Bellenden, the most beautiful and lovely woman of her time, maid of honour to Caroline when Princefs of Wales, was daughter of Lord Bellenden. She is thus defcribed, fays Mr. Coxe, in an old ballad, made upon the quarrel between George the First and the Prince of Wales at the chriftening, when the Prince and all his household were ordered to quit St. James's: "But Bellenden we needs must praise, This lovely and elegant woman rejected the addreffes of the Prince, and efpoufed in 1720 John Campbell then groom of the bed chamber to the Prince of Wales, and afterwards Duke of Argyle. See Coxe's Memoirs. II. What paffes in the dark third row, And garrets hung with green; I know the swing of finful hack, Where damfels cry many alack. With a fa, la, la. III. Then why to courts fhould I repair, IV. Alas! like Schutz I cannot pun, grown, Like Meadows† run to fermons ; To court ambitious men may roam, But I and Marlbro' stay at home. With a fa, la, la. NOTES. *Ireland. + Mentioned before in the Verfes to Mrs. Howe. V. In V. In truth, by what I can discern, VI. At Leicester-Fields, a house full high, There may you meet us three to three, VII. But fhou'd you catch the prudifh itch, And fometimes miftrefs Howard † ; For virgins to keep chafte muft go Abroad with fuch as are not so, With a fa, la, la. VIII. And NOTES. • Lady Rich was a correfpondent of Lady M. W. Montagu. + Mrs. Howard, miftrefs to George II. afterwards Countess of Suffolk. See "Verfes to a Lady at Court," in this Volume. VIII. And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends; With a fa, la, la. NOTES. This Ballad was written anno 1717. NOTWITHSTANDING Pope's affected contempt of the Court, he was proud of the acquaintance of some of the beautiful young women belonging to it. In 1776 were published, two small volumes, intitled, Additions to Pope's Work. Warton has filently adopted all the notes, and the information that the Turk, alluded to in the first stanza, was little Ulrick." Are we to infer that Warton was the editor of the two volumes I have mentioned? The Ladies mentioned in this Ballad, Pope [peaks of in a letter: “I met the Prince, with all his Ladies on horseback, coming from hunting. "Mrs. B-(Bellenden) and Mrs. L-(Lepell) took me into protection (contrary to the law against harbouring Papists), and gave me a dinner.” Letters to feveral Ladies. THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS. OF gentle Philips will I ever fing, With gentle Philips fhall the vallies ring. My numbers too for ever will I vary, 5 And from all wits that have a knack, God fave ye. 10 R. 4. Carey,] NOTES. Ambrofe Philips. Euftace Budgell. Henry Carey. VER. 10. And from al wits that have a knack,] Curl faid, that in profe he was equal to Pope, but that in verfe Pope had merely a particular knack. |