Although I have left her, the truth I'll declare; I believe she was good, and I'm sure she was fair : My Chloe had dimples and smiles, I must own; But, though she could smile, yet in truth she could frown : But tell me, ye lovers of liquor divine, Did you e'er see a frown in a bumper of wine? Her lilies and roses were just in their prime; They tell me, my love would in time have been cloy'd, Let murders, and battles, and history prove The mischiefs that wait upon rivals in love; She too might have poison'd the joy of my life, We shorten our days when with love we engage, And keep out t' other leg, when there's one in the grave. Perhaps, like her sex, ever false to their word, Then let my dear Chloe no longer complain; For in wine, mighty wine, many comforts I spy ; SONG V.* SHE tells me with claret she cannot agree, And she thinks of a hogshead whene'er she sees me; Resolve to forsake her, or claret deny. Must I leave my dear bottle, that was always my friend, Must I leave it for her? 'tis a very hard task : Had she tax'd me with gaming, and bid me forbear, 'Tis a thousand to one I had lent her an ear: * Honest Tom's title to this song is rather questionable. In one of his plays he has a song beginning, 'When I visit proud Celia just come from the glass,' which is so near the present, as to make one thing certain while it leaves it doubtful, i. e. either that the present copy was borrowed from Tom, or that Tom borrowed from it. [Ritson seems by this note to have pre-supposed that he had ascribed this song to D'Urfey.] Had she found out my Sally, up three pair of stairs, SONG VI. BY MR. HENRY CAREY. * WITH an honest old friend, and a merry old song, I envy no mortal, though ever so great, Then dare to be generous, dauntless, and gay, * [At p. 13, Ritson desires the reader to prefer the appellative Harry Carey to that of Mr. Henry: for what important reason he has not declared. The character given of him by Sir John Hawkins, and cited in vol. i. p. 84, certainly raises him above the moral elevation of Tom D'Urfey.] SONG VII. THE HAPPY LIFE. BY THE REV. WILLIAM THOMPSON. A BOOK, a friend, a song, a glass, Thrice happy they who, careless, laid In Meanwhile the Muses wake the lyre, Let sacred Venus with her heir, With beauty and refining love. There Peace shall spread her dove-like wing, And bid her olives round us spring, There Truth shall reign, a sacred guest! And Innocence, to crown the rest. Begone-ambition, riches, toys, SONG VIII. PLATO'S ADVICE.* SAYS Plato, why should man be vain, Since bounteous heav'n has made him great? On those undeck'd with wealth or state? Give health, or ease the brow of care? The scepter'd king, the burden'd slave, Go, search the tombs where monarch's rest, The wealth and glory they possest, So glides the meteor through the sky, * An alteration of a poem, written by the Rev. Mr. Matthew (husband of the celebrated Letitia) Pilkington, beginning, "Why, Lycidas, should man be vain?' |