Poetry.

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XCIX.

SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY.

A MECHANIC his labour will often discard

If the rate of his pay he dislikes ;

But a clock—and its case is uncommonly hard-
Will continue to work though it strikes!

C.

POETRY.

T. HOOD.

Two objects always should the poet move,
Or one or both-to please or to improve.
Whate'er you teach, be brief, if you design
For our remembrance your didactic line;
Redundance places memory on the rack,
For brains may be o'erloaded, like the back.
Fiction does best when taught to look like truth,
And fairy fables bubble none but youth:
Expect no credit for too wondrous tales,

Since Jonas only springs alive from whales.

CI.

BYRON.

EPITAPH FOR JOSEPH BLACKETT,

POET AND SHOEMAKER.

STRANGER! behold interr'd together,

The souls of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone, but left his all:

You'll find his relics in a stall.

His works were neat, and often found
Well stitch'd, and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly-where the bard is laid
He cannot mend the shoe he made;
Yet is he happy in his hole,
With verse immortal as his sole.
But still to business he held fast,
And stuck to Phoebus to the last.
Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only "leather and prunella"?
For character he did not lack it;

And if he did-'twere shame to "black it."

CII.

SONG.

THRYSIS, unjustly you complain,

And tax my tender heart
With want of pity for your pain,
Or sense of your desert.

By secret and mysterious springs,
Alas! our passions move;
We women are fantastic things,
That like before we love.

You may be handsome and have wit,

Be secret and well bred;

The person love must to us fit,

He only can succeed.

BYRON.

Remedy Worse than Disease.

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Some die, yet never are believed;

Others we trust too soon,
Helping ourselves to be deceived,
And proud to be undone !

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. (1639-1701.)

CIII.

REMEDY WORSE THAN DISEASE.

I SENT for Ratcliffe; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescrib'd his pill,
And I was likely to recover.

But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cur'd yesterday of my disease,

I died last night of my physician.

MATTHEW PRIOR. (1664-1721.)

CIV.

ON SEEING THE WORDS "DOMUS ULTIMA"

INSCRIBED ON THE VAULT BELONGING TO THE DUKES OF
RICHMOND IN CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL.

DID he, who thus inscribed the wall,
Not read, or not believe Saint Paul,
Who says there is, where'er it stands,
Another house, not made with hands?
Or may we gather from these words,
That house is not a House of Lords?

CLARKE.

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The Universities.

CV.

MORAL BOOK-KEEPING.

BOB, to my face, is oft too kind,

He overrates both worth and talents;
But then, he never fails, I find,

When we're apart, to strike the balance.

CVI.

THE UNIVERSITIES.

No wonder that Oxford and Cambridge profound
In learning and science so greatly abound;

Since some carry thither a little each day,
And we meet with so few who bring any away.

CVII.

TO A FRIEND IN DISTRESS.

FROM THE LATIN,

I WISH thy lot, now bad, were worse, my friend;
For when at worst, they say, things always mend.

CVIII.

COWPER.

SIR SIMON, as snoring he lay in his bed,

Was awaked by the cry, “Sir, your lady is dead!"

He heard, and returning to slumber, quoth he,

"When I wake in the morning, O how grieved I shall be!”

A Jealous Wife.

CIX.

ON A JEALOUS WIFE.

IN this little vault she lyes
Here, with all her jealousies.
Quiet yet, but if ye make

Any noise, they both will wake,

And such spirits raise, 'twill then

Trouble death to lay agen.

HERRICK.

CX.

FOR grant the bad what happiness you wou'd, One they must want, which is to pass for good! POPE.

CXI.

"YET Chloe sure was form'd without a spot?"
-Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot.
"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part,
Say what can Chloe want?"—She wants a heart.
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought;
But never, never, reach'd one generous thought.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever.

POPE.

CXII.

WHO builds a church to God, and not to Fame,

Will never mark the marble with his name.

POPE.

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