Sometimes I climb my mare and kick her
To bottled ale and neighbouring vicar;
Sometimes at Stamford take a quart;
Squire Shephard's health,-with all my heart.
Thus, without much delight or grief,
I fool away an idle life;
Till Shadwell from the Town retires,
(Choked up with fume and sea-coal fires)
To bless the wood with peaceful lyric;
Then hey for praise and panegyric;
Justice restored, and nations freed,
And wreaths round William's glorious head.
WHEN crowding folk, with strange ill faces,
Were making legs and begging places,
And some with patents, some with merit,
Tired out my good Lord Dorset's spirit;
Sneaking I stood amongst the crew,
Desiring much to speak with you.
I waited while the clock struck thrice,
And footman brought out fifty lies,
Till, patience vex'd, and legs grown weary,
I thought it was in vain to tarry;
But did opine it might be better
By penny-post to send a letter:
Now if you miss of this epistle,
I'm balk'd again, and may go whistle.
My business, sir, you'll quickly guess,
Is to desire some little place;
And fair pretensions I have for 't,
Much need, and very small desert.
Whene'er I writ to you I wanted;
I always begg'd, you always granted.
Now, as you took me up when little,
Gave me my learning and my victual,
Ask'd for me, from my Lord, things fitting,
Kind as I'd been your own begetting;
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at six and sevens,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephens'.
No family that takes a whelp,
When first he laps and scarce can yelp,
Neglects or turns him out of gate
When he's grown up to dog's estate;
Nor parish, if they once adopt
The spurious brats by strollers dropp'd,
Leave them, when grown up lusty fellows,
To the wide world, that is, the gallows:
No, thank them for their love, that's worse
Than if they'd throttled them at nurse.
My uncle, rest his soul, when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cider to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish.
So when for Hock I drew prick'd white wine,
Swear't had the flavour and was right wine;
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni-
Val's-inn, to some good rogue-attorney,
Under Secretary to Lord Sunderland, when he held the st of Secretary of State in the time of James the Second.
Where now, by forging deeds, and cheating,
I'd found some handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit, to follow
That sneaking whey-faced god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I'd never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who.
To add no more invectives to it,
You spoil'd a youth, to make a poet.
In common justice, sir, there's no man
That makes the whore, but keeps the woman.
Amongst all honest Christian people,
Whoe'er breaks limbs maintains the cripple,
The sum of all I have to say
Is, that you'd put me in some way,
And your petitioner shall pray-
There's one thing more I had almost slipp'd,
But that may do as well in postscript;
My friend Charles Montague's preferred,
Nor would I have it long observed
That one Mouse eats, while t'other's starved.
2 Afterwards Earl of Halifax. He joined with Prior in ridiculing Dryden's Hind and Panther, under the story of the City Mouse and Country Mouse,
AD VIRUM DOCTISSIMUM, ET AMICUM, DOMINUM
SAMUELEM SCHAW,
DUM THESES DE ICTERO PRO GRADU DOCTORIS
DEFENDERET. 1692.
PHOEBE potens sævis morbis vel lædere gentes
Læsas solerti vel relevare manu,
Aspice tu decus hoc nostrum, placidusque fatere
Indomitus quantum prosit in arte labor:
Non icterum posthac pestemve minaberis orbi,
Fortius hic juvenis dum medicamen habet:
Mitte dehinc iras, et nato carmina dona;
Neglectum telum dejice, sume lyram.
AT TAKING HIS DOCTOR'S DEGREE AT LEYDEN; AND DEFENDING A THESIS ON THE JAUNDICE.
O PHOEBUS, deity whose powerful hand
Can spread diseases through the joyful land;
Alike all powerful to relieve the pain,
And bid the groaning nations smile again;
When Schaw, our pride, you see, confess you
In him what art can do with labour join'd;
No more the world the jaundice' threats shall fear,
While he, the youth, our remedy, is near:
Suppress thy rage, with verse thy son inspire,
The dart neglected, to assume the lyre.
AT HIS ARRIVAL IN HOLLAND, AFTER the discovERY OF THE CONSPIRACY 1, 1696.
Serus in cœlum redeas; diuque
Lætus intersis populo Quirini :
Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum
Ocyor aura
YE careful angels, whom eternal Fate
Ordains on earth and human acts to wait,
Who turn, with secret power, this restless ball,
And bid predestined empires rise and fall,
Your sacred aid religious monarchs own,
When first they merit, then ascend the throne;
But tyrants dread ye, lest your just decree
Transfer the power and set the people free:
See rescued Britain at your altars bow,
And hear her hymns your happy care avow;
That still her axes and her rods support
The judge's frown, and grace the awful court;
That Law with all her pompous terror stands,
To wrest the dagger from the traitor's hands,
And rigid Justice reads the fatal word,
Poises the balance first, then draws the sword.
This conspiracy is commonly called The Assassinationplot.'
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