GILES AND JOAN.

BY BEN JONSON.

WHO fays that Giles and Joan at difcord be?
Th' obferving neighbours no fuch mood can see.
Indeed, poor Giles repents he married ever;

But that his Joan doth too. And Giles would never
By his free will be in Joan's company :

No more would Joan he should. Giles rifeth early, And having got him out of doors is glad :

The like is Joan. But turning home is fad :

And fo is Joan. Oftimes, when Giles doth find
Harsh fights at home, Giles wifheth he were blind :
All this doth Joan. Or that his long-yearn'd life
Were quite outfpun: the like wish hath his wife.
The children that he keeps Giles swears are none
Of his begetting; and fo fwears his Joan.
In all affections fhe concurreth ftill.

If now, with man and wife, to will and nill
The felf-fame things, a note of concord be,
I know no couple better can agree.

A DISTICH,

BY CLEIVELAND.

HAD Cain been Scot, God would have chang'd his

doom,

Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home *.

PROMETHEUS ILL-PAINTED.

BY COWLEY.

HOW wretched does Prometheus' state appear,
While he his fecond mis'ry fuffers here!

Draw him no more, left, as he tortur'd stands,

He blame great Jove's lefs than the Painter's hands. It would the Vulture's cruelty outgo,

If once again his liver thus should grow.

Pity him, Jove, and his bold theft allow;

The flames he once ftole from thee grant him now.

* Without these lines from the "Rebel Scot" of John Cleiveland a book of Epigrams would be incomplete. He that is offended at them must be irritable indeed.

WRITTEN UNDER A PRINT OF MILTON,

BEFORE HIS "PARADISE LOST."

BY DRYDEN.

THREE Poets, in three diftant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpast,
The next in majesty, in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, the join'd the former two.

EPIGRAM ON A PIGMY'S DEATH.

BY BISHOP SPRAT.

BESTRIDE an Ant, a Pigmy great and tall
Was thrown, alas! and got a dreadful fall.
Under th' unruly beaft's proud feet he lies,

All torn; but yet with generous ardour cries,
"Behold, bafe envious world, now, now laugh on,
"For thus I fall, and thus fell Phaeton."

EPIGRAM,

BY BISHOP ATTERBURY,

WRITTEN ON A WHITE FAN BORROWED FROM MISS

OSBORNE, AFTERWARDS HIS WIFE.

FLAVIA the leaft and flightest toy
Can with refiftlefs art employ.

This Fan, in meaner hands, would prove
An engine of small force in love:

Yet the, with graceful air and mien
Not to be told, or fafely feen,

Directs its wanton motions fo,

That it wounds more than Cupid's bow;
Gives Coolness to the matchlefs dame,

EPIGRAM,

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S TABLE-BOOK.

BY WALSH.

WITH what ftrange raptures would my foul be bleft,
Were but her book an emblem of her breast!

As I from that all former marks efface,
And, uncontrol'd, put new ones in their place,
So might I chase all others from her heart,
And my own image in the ftead impart.
But, ah! how fhort the blifs would prove, if he
Who feiz'd it next might do the same by me!

LYCE.

BY THE SAME.

"GO, (faid old Lyce) senseless lover, go,

"And with foft verses court the fair: but know,

"With all thy verses, thou canst get no more "Than fools, without one verfe, have had before." Enrag'd at this, upon the bawd I flew;

And that which most enrag'd me was 'twas true.