The epilogue behind did frame
A place not decent here to name.
Now poets from all quarters ran,
To fee the houfe of brother Van:
Look'd high and low, walk'd often round;
But no fuch houfe was to be found,
One afks the watermen hard-by,
"Where may the poet's palace lie?"
Another of the Thames inquires,
If he has seen its gilded spires?
At length they in the rubbish spy
A thing resembling a goofe-pye.
Thither in hafte the poets throng,
And gaze in filent wonder long,
Till one in raptures thus began
To praise the pile and builder Van.
Thrice happy poet! who may'ft trail
Thy house about thee like a fnail :
Or, harness'd to a nag, at ease
Takes journeys in it like a chaife;
Or in a boat, whene'er thou wilt,
Canft make it ferve thee for a tilt!
Capacious house! 'tis own'd by all
Thou'rt well contriv'd, though thou art small:
For
every wit in Britain's ifle
May lodge within thy fpacious pile.
Like Bacchus thou, as poets feign,
Thy mother burnt, art born again,
Forn like a phoenix from the flame;
But neither bulk nor fhape the same;
As animals of largest fize
Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies;
A type of modern wit and style,
The rubbish of an ancient pile.
So chymifts boaft they have a power,
From the dead afhes of a flower,
Some faint refemblance to produce,
But not the virtue, tafte, or juice.
So modern rhymers wifely blast
The poetry of ages paft;
Which, after they have overthrown,
They from its ruins build their own.
WHEN mother Clud had rose from play,
And call'd to take the cards away,
Van faw, but feem'd not to regard,
How Miss pick'd every painted card,
And bufy both with hand and eye,
Soon rear'd a house two stories high.
Van's genius, without thought or lecture,
Is hugely turn'd to architecture:
He view'd the edifice, and fmil'd,
Vow'd it was pretty for a child:
It was fo perfect in its kind,
He kept the model in his mind.
But, when he found the boys at play,
And faw them dabbling in their clay,
He ftood behind a ftall to lurk,
And mark the progrefs of their work;
With true delight obferv'd them all
Raking up mud to build a wall.
The plan he much admir'd, and took
The model in his table-book:
Thought himself now exactly fkill'd,
And fo refolv'd a house to build;
A real houfe, with rooms, and stairs,
Five times at leaft as big as theirs;
Taller than Mifs's by two yards;
Not a fham thing of clay or cards:
And fo he did; for, in a while,
He built up fuch a monftrous pile,
That no two chairmen could be found
Able to lift it from the ground.
Still at Whitehall it ftands in view,
Juft in the place where firft it grew
There all the little fchoolboys run,
Envying to fee themfelves out-done.
From fuch deep rudiments as thefe;
Van is become, by due degrees,
For building fam'd, and juftly reckon'd,
At court, Vitruvius the fecond:
No wonder, fince wife authors fhow,
That beft foundations must be low:
And now the duke has wifely ta'en him
To be his architect at Blenheim.
But, raillery at once apart,
If this rule holds in every art;
Or if his grace were no more fkill'd in
The art of battering walls than building,
We might expect to fee next year,
A moufe-trap-man chief engineer!
On the ever-lamented Lofs of the Two YEW-TREES in the Parish of Chilthorne, Somerfet. 1708.
Imitated from the Eighth Book of OVID.
IN ancient times, as ftory tells,
The faints would often leave their cells,
And stroll about, but hide their quality,
To try good people's hofpitality.
It happen'd on a winter-night,
As authors of the legend write,
Two brother-hermits, faints by trade,
Taking their tour in masquerade,
Difguis'd in tatter'd habits, went
To a finall village down in Kent;
Where, in the ftroller's canting ftrain,
They begg'd from door to door in vain,
Tried every tone might pity win;
But not a foul would let them in.
Our wandering faints, in woful state,
Treated at this ungodly rate,
Having through all the village past,
To a small cottage came at last!
Where dwelt a good old honeft yeʼman,
Call'd in the neighbourhood Philemon;
Who kindly did these faints invite
In his poor hut to pass the night;
And then the hospitable fire
Bid goody Baucis mend the fire;
VOL. VII.
While he from out the chimney took
A flitch of bacon off the hook,
And freely from the fatteft fide
Cut out large flices to be fry'd;
Then step'd aside to fetch them drink,
Fill'd a large jug up to the brink,
And faw it fairly twice go round;
Yet (what is wonderful!) they found,
'Twas ftill replenish'd to the top,
As if they ne'er had touch'd a drop.
The good old couple were amaz'd,
And often on each other gaz'd;
For both were frighten'd to the heart,
And just began to cry,-What ar't!
Then foftly turn'd afide, to view
Whether the lights were burning blue.
The gentle pilgrims, foon aware on't,
Told them their calling, and their errand:
Good folks, you need not be afraid,
We are but faints, the hermits faid ;
No hurt fhall come to you or yours:
But for that pack of churlish boors,
Not fit to live on Chriftian ground,
They and their houfes fhall be drown'd;
And grow a church before your eyes.
They fcarce had fpoke, when fair and foft,
The roof began to mount aloft;
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