Sir, will your questions never end? I trust to neither spy nor friend.
In short, I keep her from the sight every human face.'- -She'll write.'• From pen and she's debarr'd.'
'Has she a bodkin and a card?
She'll prick her mind.
But how shall she that mind convey?
I keep her in one room; I lock it;
The key (look here) is in this pocket.'
'The key-hole, is that left?'-'Most certain.'-
'She'll thrust her letter through, Sir Martin.'
'Dear angry friend, what must be done?
Is there no way? There is but one.
Send her abroad, and let her see
That all this mingled mass which she,
Being forbidden, longs to know,
Is a dull farce, an empty show,
Powder, and pocket-glass, and beau;
A staple of romance and lies,
False tears, and real perjuries;
Where sighs and looks are bought and sold, And love is made but to be told;
Where the fat bawd and lavish heir
The spoils of ruin'd beauty share;
And youth, seduced from friends and fame,
Must give up age to want and shame.
Let her behold the frantic scene,
The women wretched, false the men;
And when, these certain ills to shun,
She would to thy embraces run,
Receive her with extended arms;
Seem more delighted with her charms;
Wait on her to the park and play;
Put on good humour; make her gay;
Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to ber faults a little blind:
Let all her ways be unconfined,
And clap your Padlock-on her mind.’
A REASONABLE AFFLICTION.
On his death-bed poor Lubin lies,
His spouse is in despair:
With frequent sobs and mutual cries,
They both express their care.
'A different cause, (says Parson Sly)
The same effect may give;
Poor Lubin fears that he shall die,
His wife that he may live.’
FROM her own native France as old Alison pass'd, She reproach'd English Nell with neglect or with
That the slattern had left, in the hurry and haste, Her lady's complexion and eyebrows at Calais.
HER eyebrow box one morning lost,
(The best of folks are oft'nest cross'd)
Sad Helen thus to Jenny said,
Her careless but afflicted maid:
'Put me to bed, then, wretched Jane;
Alas! when shall I rise again?
I can behold no mortal now,
For what's an eye without a brow?'
IN a dark corner of the house
Poor Helen sits, and sobs, and cries; She will not see her loving spouse, Nor her more dear piquet-allies: Unless she finds her eyebrows, She'll e'en weep out her eyes.
ON THE SAME.
HELEN was just slipp'd into bed,
Her eyebrows on the toilet lay,
Away the kitten with them fled,
As fees belonging to her prey.
For this misfortune careless Jane,
Assure yourself, was loudly rated;
And madam, getting up again,
With her own hand the mouse-trap baited.
On little things, as sages write,
Depends our human joy or sorrow;
If we don't catch a mouse to-night,
Alas! no eyebrows for to-morrow.
No, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that, (says Rose) I'll die.'
Behind the elms, last night, (cried Dick)
Rose, were you not extremely sick?'
TEN months after Florimel happen'd to wed,
And was brought in a laudable manner to bed,
She warbled her groans with so charming a voice,
That one half of the parish was stunned with the
noise ;
But when Florimel deign'd to lie privately in,
Ten months before she and her spouse were a-kin,
She chose with such prudence her pangs to conceal,
That her nurse, nay her midwife, scarce heard her
once squeal.
Learn, husbands, from hence, for the peace of your lives,
That maids make not half such a tumult as wives.
A DUTCH PROVERB.
FIRE, water, woman, are man's ruin,'
Says wise Professor Vander Bruin.
By flames a house I hired was lost
Last year, and I must pay the cost.
This spring the rains o'erflow'd my ground,
And my best Flanders mare was drown'd.
A slave I am to Clara's eyes;
The gipsy knows her power, and flies.
Fire, water, woman, are my ruin ;
And great thy wisdom, Vander Bruin.
DEAR Thomas, didst thou never pop
Thy head into a tinman's shop?
There, Thomas, didst thou never see
(Tis but by way of simile)
A squirrel spend his little rage
In jumping round a rolling cage;
The cage, as either side turn'd up,
Striking a ring of bells a-top?-
Moved in the orb, pleased with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks he climbs ;
But here or there, turn wood or wire,
He never gets two inches higher.
So fares it with those merry blades
That frisk it under Pindus' shades.
In noble songs and lofty odes
They tread on stars, and talk with gods;
Still dancing in an airy round,
Still pleased with their own verses' sound;
Brought back, how fast soe'er they go,
Always aspiring, always low.
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