E rofes, bow your lovely heads, Nor boaft your damask hue ; For, fee, yon fpotlefs lily spreads Her charms to rival you. So, in each beauteous female breast, Each lovely nymph, of charms poffefs'd, Ah! foolish maids, behold your doom For, what is beauty's fofteft bloom? The triumph of an hour! N SECT. Miss H. FALCONER. CXIX. ON FASHION FASHION, more fickle than the breeze, As this is up, and that is down, In various forms attempts to please In fable veft fhe now appears, And now in fnowy robes is feen; So So different is the hue fhe wears, Courted by every breaft, fhe flies From gay to grave, from grave to gay; She roves at large, and freely cries, Let Fashion gild each varying day. MISS H. FALCONAR. SE C T. CXX. POEM: NIGHT; A SATIRICAL ADDRESSED TO MR. LLOYD. WHEN foes infult, and prudent friends dispense, In pity's ftrains, the worst of infolence, Oft with thee, Lloyd, I fteal an hour from grief, THOMSON. * A friend, a book, the focial hours secure, And mark them down for wisdom. + The term fan&tified here, taken in connection with the word juftified in the former line, means no more than countenanced or emboldened. L 3 But But thread-bare * Merit dares not fhew the head, Misfortunes, like the owl, avoid the light; The wretch, bred up in Method's drowsy school, Whose merit only is to err by rule; Who ne'er thro' heat of blood was tripping caught, Unless to move the body's dull machine; Turns up his eyes, to think that there should be, Good hours!-Fine words-but was it ever feet That all men could agree in what they mean? Florio, who many years a course hath run In downright oppofition to the Sun, Expatiates on good hours, their cause defends With as much vigour as our prudent friends. Th' uncertain term no fettled notion brings, But still in diff'rent mouths means diff'rent things. Each takes the phrase in his own private view, With Prudence it is ten, with Florio two. Go on, ye fools, who talk for talking fake, Without diftinguishing diftinctions make; → True merit may be neglected, while worthlefs fools profper and become rich: but let it ever be remembered, Greatness alone in virtue's understood; None's truly great, but he who's truly good. + A body and foul. Shine forth in native folly, native pride, The flavish yoke of arbitrary chains; The fatal confequence of midnight air, * The laws of Reason, however difregarded and fet at nought by the gay and thoughtless part of mankind, are properly attended to and esteemed by the fober and difcerning few, as truly falutary, rational and important. This is the judgment of Reason; but, alas! what have the candidates for pleasure and diffipation in high life, to do with either Reafon or its dictates? Nothing, unless it be to abuse the one, and laugh at the other.So much for rational irrationals. L4 I'll make them live as brother should with brother, Most of thofe evils we poor mortals know, Hence to old women with your boafted rules, The fool next morning can't hold up his head. He hates the Moon, I ficken at the Sun. And scarce fees rags an inch beyond his nofe; *This is the language, and too much influences the practice of the giddy multitude in the prefent day, however derogatory and repugnant to right reason and discretion. + However fpecious this method of reafoning may appear, it can be no just defence or encouragement for keeping (what are generally ftiled) bad hours. But |