A Satire Anthology. Wells Carolyn

to catch me – just at dinner-time.

      Is there a parson much bemus’d in beer,

      A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

      A clerk foredoom’d his father’s soul to cross,

      Who pens a stanza when he should engross?

      Is there, who, lock’d from ink and paper, scrawls

      With desperate charcoal round his darken’d walls?

      All fly to Twit’nam, and in humble strain

      Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.

      Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,

      Imputes to me and my damn’d works the cause;

      Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,

      And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

      Friend to my life (which did you not prolong,

      The world had wanted many an idle song),

      What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?

      Or which must end me, a fool’s wrath or love?

      A dire dilemma – either way I’m sped;

      If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.

      Seiz’d and ty’d down to judge, how wretched I,

      Who can’t be silent, and who will not lie.

      To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace;

      And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.

      I sit with sad civility; I read

      With honest anguish, and an aching head,

      And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

      This saving counsel, “Keep your piece nine years.”

      “Nine years!” cries he, who high in Drury Lane,

      Lull’d by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,

      Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,

      Oblig’d by hunger, and request of friends:

      “The piece, you think, is incorrect? Why take it;

      I’m all submission; what you’d have it, make it.”

      Three things another’s modest wishes bound,

      My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.

      Pitholeon sends to me: “You know his grace.

      I want a patron: ask him for a place.”

      Pitholeon libell’d me. “But here’s a letter

      Informs you, sir, ’twas when he knew no better.

      Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine;

      He’ll write a journal, or he’ll turn divine.”

      Bless me! a packet. “’Tis a stranger sues,

      A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.”

      If I dislike it, “Juries, death, and rage!”

      If I approve, “Commend it to the stage.”

      There (thank my stars!), my whole commission ends;

      The players and I are luckily no friends.

      Fir’d that the house reject him, “’Sdeath! I’ll print it,

      And shame the fools. Your interest, sir, with Lintot.”

      “Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much.”

      “Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.”

      All my demurs but double his attacks;

      At last he whispers, “Do, and we go snacks.”

      Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door:

      “Sir, let me see your works and you no more!”

Alexander Pope.

      THE THREE BLACK CROWS

      Two honest tradesmen meeting in the Strand,

      One took the other briskly by the hand;

      “Hark-ye,” said he, “’tis an odd story, this,

      About the crows!” “I don’t know what it is,”

      Replied his friend. “No! I’m surprised at that;

      Where I came from it is the common chat;

      But you shall hear – an odd affair indeed!

      And that it happened, they are all agreed.

      Not to detain you from a thing so strange,

      A gentleman, that lives not far from ’Change,

      This week, in short, as all the alley knows,

      Taking a puke, has thrown up three black crows.”

      “Impossible!” “Nay, but it’s really true;

      I have it from good hands, and so may you.”

      “From whose, I pray?” So, having named the man,

      Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran.

      “Sir, did you tell” – relating the affair.

      “Yes, sir, I did; and, if it’s worth your care,

      Ask Mr. Such-a-one, he told it me.

      But, by the bye, ’twas two black crows – not three.”

      Resolved to trace so wondrous an event,

      Whip, to the third, the virtuoso went;

      “Sir” – and so forth. “Why, yes; the thing is fact,

      Though, in regard to number, not exact;

      It was not two black crows – ’twas only one;

      The truth of that you may depend upon;

      The gentleman himself told me the case.”

      “Where may I find him?” “Why, in such a place.”

      Away goes he, and, having found him out,

      “Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt.”

      Then to his last informant he referred,

      And begged to know if true what he had heard.

      “Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?” “Not I.”

      “Bless me! how people propagate a lie!

      Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one;

      And here, I find, all comes, at last, to none.

      Did you say nothing of a crow at all?”

      “Crow – crow – perhaps I might, now I recall

      The matter over.” “And pray, sir, what was’t?”

      “Why, I was horrid sick, and, at the last,

      I did throw up, and told my neighbor so,

      Something that was – as black, sir, as a crow.”

John Byrom.

      AN EPITAPH

      A  lovely young lady I mourn in my rhymes;

      She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil (sometimes);

      Her figure was good; she had very fine eyes,

      And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise.

      Her adorers were many, and one of them said

      “She waltzed rather well – it’s a pity she’s dead.”

George John Cayley.

      AN EPISTLE TO SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

      WHILE at the helm of State you ride,

      Our nation’s