EPIGRAM,

ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS.

BY THE SAME.

I AM His Highness' Dog at Kew:
Pray tell me, Sir, whose Dog are you * ?

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

ON HIS PAINTING FOR ME THE STATUES OF APOLLO,

VENUS, AND HERCULES.

BY THE SAME.

WHAT God, what Genius did the pencil move,

When Kneller painted these?

'Twas Friendship, warm as Phœbus, kind as Love, And strong as Hercules.

* When Pope wrote this epigram, I think he must have recollected a paffage from Sir William Temple's "Heads defigned for an Effay on Conversation :❞—

"Mr. Grantam's Fool's reply to a great man that asked him whofe fool he was→→→ I am Mr. Grantam's Fool: pray whofe Fool are you ?"

TO ONE WHO MADE LONG EPITAPHS.

BY THE SAME.

FREIND*, for your epitaphs I'm griev'd;
So very much is said,

One half will never be believ'd,

The other never read.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

BY THE SAME.

Un jour, dit un auteur, &c.

ONCE (fays an author, where I need not say)
Two trav❜lers found an Oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry the dispute grew strong,
While, fcale in hand, Dame Juftice pafs'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.

*Dr. Robert Freind, Master of Westminster School.

Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, fwallows it before their fight.
The caufe of ftrife remov'd fo rarely well,

There, take (fays Juftice), take ye each a Shell.

We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:

'Twas a fat oyfter - Live in

peace

Adieu!

EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS,

A HANDSOME WOMAN, WITH A FINE VOICE, BUT VERY

COVETOUS AND PROUD*.

BY THE SAME.

SO bright is thy beauty, fo charming thy fong,
As had drawn both the Beafts and their Orpheus

along;

But fuch is thy av'rice, and fuch is thy pride,

That the Beasts must have starv'd, and the Poet have died.

*If Mrs. Tofts was once covetous and proud, fhe lived to witness days when her money loft its value, and her pride its confidence. Sir John Hawkins, in his Hiftory of Mufic, gives an account of her great popularity as a finger, and unfortunate melancholy after quitting the stage.

IN A COMPANY AT LORD COBHAM'S, THAT AGREED, AFTER DINNER ONE DAY, TO WRITE EXTEMPORARY VERSES, MR. POPE, BEING PRESSED BY LORD CHESTERFIELD ΤΟ COMPOSE IN HIS TURN, BORROWED HIS LORDSHIP'S DIAMOND PENCIL, AND ENGRAVED ON A GLASS THIS COUPLET:

ACCEPT a miracle, instead of wit

See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ.

ON A FAN OF THE AUTHOR'S DESIGN,

IN WHICH WAS PAINTED THE STORY OF CEPHALUS

*

AND PROCRIS WITH THE MOTTO, AURA VENI.

BY THE SAME.

COME, gentle Air! th' Eolian Shepherd faid,
While Procris panted in the secret shade;

Ovid.

Every reader of this book may not be a reader of

"Procris, the fond wife of Cephalus, is faid to have made her husband, who delighted in the sports of the wood, a prefent of an unerring javelin. In procefs of time he

Come, gentle Air! the fairer Delia cries,
While at her feet her fwain expiring lies.
Lo! the glad gales o'er all her beauties ftray,
Breathe on her lips, and in her bofom play.
In Delia's hand this toy is fatal found,
Nor did that fabled dart more furely wound.
Both gifts deftructive to the givers prove
Alike both lovers fall by those they love.

Yet guiltless too this bright destroyer lives,

At random wounds, nor knows the wound the gives: She views the ftory with attentive eyes,

And pities Procris, while her lover dies.

was fo much in the foreft, that his lady fufpected he was pursuing fome nymph, under the pretence of following a chafe more innocent. Under this fufpicion fhe hid herself among the trees, to obferve his motions. While the lay concealed, her husband, tired with the labour of hunting, came within her hearing. As he was fainting with heat, he cried out, Aura veni-Oh, charming Air, approach. The unfortunate wife, taking the word air to be the name of a woman, began to move among the bufhes; and her hufband, believing it a deer, threw his javelin and killed her."