See, thy mother is near':

Hark! fhe calls thee to hear

What age and experience advise.

Haft thou feen the blithe dove
Stretch her neck to her love,

All gloffy with purple and gold?
If a kifs he obtain,

She returns it again :

What follows, you need not be told.

Look ye, mother, fhe cry'd,
You inftruct me in pride,

And men by good-manners are won.

She who trifles with all

Is lefs likely to fall

Than fhe who but trifles with one.

Pr'ythee, Molly, be wise,

Left by fudden furprize

Love should tingle in

Take a fhepherd for life,

every

vein :

And when once you 're a wife,
You fafely may trifle again.

Molly fmiling reply'd,

Then I'll foon be a bride;

Old Roger has gold in his cheft.
But I thought all you wives
Chofe a man for your lives,

And trifled no more with the rest.

MOLLY

MOLLY

OR, THE

M OG:

FAIR MAID OF THE INN.

A BALLA D*.

SAYS my Uncle, I pray you

discover

What hath been the cause of your woes;

Why you pine and you whine like a lover?

I have feen Molly Mog of the Rose.

O Nephew! your grief is but folly,

In town you may find better prog;
Half a crown there will get you a Molly,
A Molly much better than Mog.
I know that by wits 'tis recited
That women are beft at a clog;
But I am not fo eafily frighted
From loving of fweet Molly Mog.
The fchool-boy's defire is a play-day;
The school-mafter's joy is to flog;
The milk-maid's delight is on May-day;
But mine is on fweet Molly Mog.

* This ballad was written on an inn-keeper's daughter at Oakingham in Berkshire, who in her youth was a celebrated beauty and toaft: fhe lived to a very advanced age, dying fo lately as the month of March, 1766. See the New Foundling Hofpital for Wit, Vol. V. p. 45.

Will-a-wifp leads the traveller gadding

Through ditch, and through quagmire, and bog; But no light can fet me a-madding

Like the eyes of

my fweet Molly Mog.

For guineas in other men's breeches
Your gamefters will palm and will cog;
But I envy them none of their riches,
So I may win fweet Molly Mog.

The heart when half wounded is changing,
It here and there leaps like a frog;
But my heart can never be ranging,
'Tis fo fix'd upon fweet Molly Mog.
Who follows all ladies of pleafure,
In pleasure is thought but a hog;
All the fex cannot give fo good measure
Of joys, as my fweet Molly Mog.

I feel I 'm in love to diftraction,
My fenfes all loft in a fog;

And nothing can give fatisfaction
But thinking of fweet Molly Mog.
A letter when I am inditing,

Comes Cupid and gives me a jog,
And I fill all the paper with writing
Of nothing but fweet Molly Mog.
If I would not give-up the three Graces,
I wish I were hang'd like a dog,
And at court all the drawing-room faces,
For a glance of my fweet Molly Mog.

Thofe

Those faces want nature and spirit,

And feem as cut out of a log;
Juno, Venus, and Pallas's merit,
Unite in my sweet Molly Mog.

Those who toast all the Family Royal,
In bumpers of Hogan and Nog,
Have hearts not more true or more loyal
Than mine to my fweet Molly Mog.

Were Virgil alive with his Phyllis,
And writing another Eclogue;
Both his Phyllis and fair Amaryllis

He 'd give-up for fweet Molly Mog.

When the smiles on each gueft, like her liquor,
Then jealoufy fets me agog;

To be fure fhe 's a bit for the Vicar,
And fo I fhall lofe Molly Mog.

BALL A D.

F all the girls that e'er were seen,
There's none fo fine as Nelly,

For charming face, and shape, and mien,
And what 's not fit to tell ye :

Oh! the turn'd neck, and fmooth white skin,

Of lovely deareft Nelly!

For many a fwain it well had been

Had fhe ne'er been at Calai-.

For

For when as Nelly came to France
(Invited by her coufins),

Across the Tuilleries each glance
Kill'd Frenchmen by whole dozens.
The king, as he at dinner fat,
Did beckon to his huffar,

And bid him bring his tabby cat,
For charming Nell to bufs her.

The ladies were with rage provok'd,
To fee her fo refpected;

The men look'd arch, as Nelly ftrok'd,
And pufs her tail erected.

But not a man did look employ,
Except on pretty Nelly;

Then faid the Duke de Villeroy,
"Ah! qu'elle est bien jolie !”

But who's that great philofopher,
That carefully looks at her?
By his concern it should appear,
The fair-one is his daughter.
Ma foy! (quoth then a courtier fly,)
He on his child does leer too :
I wish he has no mind to try
What fome papa's will here do.

The courtiers all, with one accord,
Broke out in Nelly's praifes,
Admir'd her rofe, and lys fans farde,
(Which are your termes Françoises).

Then