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"No, never, from this hour to part, We'll live and love so true,

The sigh that rends thy constant heart Shall break thy Edwin's too."

K

THE

DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION.

A TALE.

SECLUDED from domestic strife,

Jack Book-worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five

Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass, and crack'd his joke,
And freshmen wonder'd as he spoke.

Such pleasures, unalloy'd with care,
Could any accident impair ?

Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arriv'd at thirty-six?

O had the archer ne'er come down
To ravage in a country town!

Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet-street shop.
O had her eyes forgot to blaze!

Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.

O!

-But let exclamation cease;

Her presence banish'd all his peace:

So with decorum all things carried,

Miss frown'd, and blush'd, and then was-married.
Need we expose to vulgar sight

The raptures of the bridal night?
Need we intrude on hallow'd ground,
Or draw the curtains clos'd around?
Let it suffice, that each had charms:
He clasp'd a goddess in his arms;
And, though she felt his usage rough,
Yet in a man 'twas well enough.

The honey-moon like lightning flew ;
The second brought its transports too:
A third, a fourth, were not amiss;
The fifth was friendship mix'd with bliss:
But when a twelvemonth pass'd away,
Jack found his goddess made of clay;

Found half the charms that deck'd her face

Arose from powder, shreds, or lace;

But still the worst remain'd behind, face had robb'd her mind.

That very

Skill'd in no other arts was she But dressing, patching, repartee; And, just as humour rose or fell, By turns a slattern or a belle ;

'Tis true she dress'd with modern grace,
Half naked at a ball or race;

But when at home, at board or bed,
Five greasy night-caps wrapt her head.
Could so much beauty condescend

To be a dull domestic friend?

Could

any curtain lectures bring

To decency so fine a thing?

In short, by night, 'twas fits or fretting;
By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting.
Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy
Of powder'd coxcombs at her levee :

The 'squire and captain took their stations,
And twenty other near relations,

Jack suck'd his pipe, and often broke
A sigh in suffocating smoke;

While all their hours were past between
Insulting repartee or spleen.

Thus as her faults each day were known,
He thinks her features coarser grown;
-He fancies ev'ry vice she shews,

Or thins her lip, or points her nose;
Whenever rage or envy rise,

How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes;

He knows not how, but so it is,

Her face is grown a knowing phyz;

And though her fops are wond'rous civil,

He thinks her ugly as the devil.
Now, to perplex the ravell'd noose,
As each a diff'rent way pursues,
While sullen or loquacious strife
Promis'd to hold them on for life,
That dire disease, whose ruthless pow'r
Withers the beauty's transient flow'r,
Lo! the small-pox, whose horrid glare
Levell❜d its terrors at the fair;

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