THE FATHER AND JUPITER.
HE Man to Jove his fuit preferr'd;
He begg'd a wife: his prayer was heard.
Jove wonder'd at his bold addreffing;
For how precarious is the bleffing!
A wife he takes: and now for heirs
Again he worries Heaven with prayers.
Jove nods affent: two hopeful boys
And a fine girl reward his joys.
Now more folicitous he
grew, And set their future lives in view
He saw that all refpect and duty
Were paid to wealth, to power, and beauty.
"Once more, he cries, accept my prayer;*
Make my lov'd progeny thy care :
Let my first hope, my favourite boy,
All Fortune's richest gifts enjoy.
My next with strong ambition fire
May favour teach him to aspire,
Till he the step of power afcend,
And courtiers to their idol bend!
With every grace, with every charm,
My daughter's perfect features arm.
If Heaven approve, a Father 's blefs'd."
Jove fmiles, and grants his full request.
The first, a miser at the heart,
Studious of every griping art,
hoards on hoards with anxious pain, And all his life devotes to gain.
He feels no joy, his cares increafe,
He neither wakes nor fleeps in peace ;
In fancy'd want (a wretch complete)
He farves, and yet he dares not eat.
The next to fudden honours grew;
The thriving art of courts he knew;
He reach'd the height of power and place,
Then fell the victim of disgrace.
Beauty with early bloom fupplies
His daughter's checks, and points her eyes.
The vain coquette each fuit difdains,
And glories in her lovers' pains.
With age fhe fades each lover flies;
Contemn'd, forlorn, the pines and dies.
When Jove the Father's grief furvey'd,
And heard him Heaven and Fate upbraid,
Thus fpoke the God": " By outward fhow
Men judge of happiness and wo:.
Shall ignorance of good and ill
Dare to direct th' eternal will?
Seck virtue; and, of that poffeft,
To Providence refign the reft."
THE TWO MONKEYS.
HE learned, full of inward pride,
The fops of outward fhow deride;
VOL. II.
The fop, with learning at defiance,
'Scoffs at the pedant and the fcience:
The Don, a formal folemn ftrutter,
Defpifes Monfieur's airs and flutter;
While Monfieur mocks the formal fool,
Who looks, and fpeaks, and walks, by rule
Britain, a medley of the twain
As pert as France, as grave as Spain,
In fancy wiser than the rest,
Laughs at them both, of both the jeft..
Is not the Poet's chiming clofe
Cenfur'd by all the fons of Profe?
While bards of quick imagination
Defpife the fleepy profe narration.
Men laugh at apes: they men contemn;
For what are we but apes to them? *
Two Monkeys went to Southwark fair
No critics had a fourer air:
They forc'd their way through draggled folks,
Who gap'd to catch Jack Fudding's jokes;
Then took their tickets for the show,
And got by chance the foremost row.
To fee their grave obferving face,
Provok'd a laugh through all the place.
"Brother, fays Pug, and turn'd his head,
The rabble 's monftroufly ill-bred.”
Now through the booth loud hiffes ran,
Nor ended till the show began.
The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round,
With fomersets he shakes the ground;
The cord beneath the dancer fprings ;
Aloft in air the vaulter wings;
Distorted now, now prone depends,
Now through his twifted arms afcends;
The crowd, in wonder and delight,
With clapping hands applaud the fight.
With fmiles, quoth-Pug," If pranks like thefe
The giant-apes of reafon pleafe,
How would they wonder at our arts!*
They must adore us for our parts.
High on the twig I've seen you cling,
Play, twift, and turn in airy ring:
How can thofe clumfy things, like me,
Fly with a bound from tree to tree?
But yet, by this applause, we find
Thefe emulators of our kind
Difcern our worth, our parts regard,
Who our mean mimics thus reward."
"Brother, the grinning mate replies,
In this I grant that man is wife;
While good example they purfue,
We must allow fome praife is due
But, when they strain beyond their guide,
I laugh to fcorn the mimic pride;
For how fantastic is the fight,
To meet men always bolt upright,
Because we fometimes walk on two!
I hate the imitating crew."
THE OWL AND THE FARMER.
AN Owl of grave deport and mien,
Who (like the Turk) was feldom feen,
Within a barn had chote his ftation,
As fit for, prey and contemplation:
Upon a beam aloft he fits
And nods, and feems to think by fits
So have I feen a man of news
Or Poft-boy or Gazette perufe,
Smoke, nod, and talk with voice profound,
And fix the fate of Europe round. -
Sheaves pil'd on fheaves hid all the floor:
At dawn of morn to view his store
The Farmer came. The hooting guest
Ilis felf-importance thus expreft:
"Reafon in man is mere pretence
How weak, hoty fhallow, is his fenfe!
To treat with fcorn the Bird of Night,
Declares his folly or his fpite,,
Then, too, how partial is his praife!
The lark's, the linnet's, chirping lays
To his ill-judging ears are fine;
And nightingales are all divine:
But the more knowing feather'd race
See wifdom flamp'd upon my face.
Whene'er to vifit light I deign,
What flocks of fowl compofe my train!
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