Inftead of poring on a book,
Providing butter for the cook !
Three morning-hours you tofs and shake
The bottle till your fingers ake:
Hard is the toil, nor fmall the art,
The butter from the whey to part;
Behold a frothy fubstance rise;
Be cautious, or your bottle flies.
The butter comes, our fears are ceas'd;
And out you squeeze an ounce at least.
Your rev'rence thus, with like fuccefs
(Nor is your fkill or labour lefs),
When bent upon fome fmart lampoon,
Will tofs and turn your brain till noon;
Which, in its jumblings round the skull,
Dilates and makes the veffel full:
While nothing comes but froth at first,
You think your giddy head will burft :
But fqueezing out four lines in rhime,
Are largely paid for all your time.
But you have rais'd your generous mind To works of more exalted kind. Palladio was not half fo fkill'd in The grandeur or the art of building. Two temples of magnific fize Attract the curious trav'ler's eyes,
That might be envy'd by the Greeks ;
Rais'd up by you in twenty weeks:
Here gentle goddefs Cloacine
Receives all off'rings at her fhrine.
In fep'rate cells the he's and fhe's
Here pay their vows with bended knees:
For 'tis profane when sexes mingle,
And ev'ry nymph must enter single,
And when the feels an inward motion,
Come fill'd with rev'rence and devotion.
The bashful maid, to hide our blush,
Shall creep no more behind a bush ;
Here unobferv'd fhe boldly goes,
As who should say, to pluck a rose.
Ye, who frequent this hallow'd fcene,
Be not ungrateful to the dean;
But duly, ere you leave your station,
Offer to him a pure libation
Or of his own, or* Smedley's lay,
Or billet-doux, or lock of hay:
And, O! may all who hither come,
Return with unpolluted thumb.
Yet, when your lofty domes I praise, I figh to think of ancient days.
* See the character hereafter.
O 2
Permit me then to raise my style,
And sweetly moralize a while.
Thee, bounteous goddefs Cloacine,
To temples why do we confine?
Forbid in open air to breath;
Why are thine altars fixt beneath?
When Saturn rul'd the skies alone
(That golden age to gold unknown),
This earthly globe to thee affign'd
Receiv'd the gifts of all mankind.
Ten thousand altars Smoaking round
Were built to thee with off'rings crown'd:
And here thy daily vot'ries plac'd
Their facrifice with zeal and hafte :
The margin of a purling stream
Sent up to thee a grateful steam
(Though fometimes thou wert pleas'd to
wink,
If Naiads fwept them from the brink).
Or where appointing lovers rove,
The fhelter of a fhady grove;
Or offer'd in fome flow'ry vale,
Were wafted by a gentle gale.
There many a flow'r abfterfive grew,
Thy fav'rite flowers of yellow hue;
The crocus and the daffodil,
The cowflip foft, and fweet jonquil.
But when at laft ufurping Jove Old Saturn from his empire drove ; Then gluttony with greafy paws Her napkin pinn'd up to her jaws, With watry chaps, and wagging chin, Brac'd like a drum her oily fkin; Wedg'd in a spacious elbow-chair, And on her plate a treble share, As if the ne'er could have enough, Taught harmless man to cram and stuff. She fent her prieft in wooden fhoes From haughty Gaul to make ragoos; Inftead of wholfome bread and cheese, To drefs their foops and fricaffees; And, for our home-bred British cheer, Botargo, catfup, and caveer.
This bloated harpy fprung from hell Confin'd thee, goddess, to a cell: Sprung from her womb that impious line, Contemners of thy rites divine. Firft, lolling floth in woollen cap Taking her after-dinner nap: Pale dropfy with a fallow face, Her belly burft, and flow her pace: O 3
And lordly gout, wrapt up in furr:
And wheezing afthma, loth to ftir.
Voluptuous cafe, the child of wealth,
Infecting thus our hearts by ftealth;
None feek thee now in open air,
To thee no verdant altars rear;
But in their cells and vaults obfcene
Prefent a facrifice unclean;
From whence unfav'ry vapours rofe,
Offenfive to thy nicer nose.
Ah! who, in our degenerate days,
As nature prompts his offering pays?
Here nature never difference made
Between the fceptre and the spade.
Ye great ones, why will
ye difdain To pay your tribute on the plain ? Why will you place in lazy pride Your altars near your couches fide? *When from the homelieft earthen ware Are fent up offerings more fincere, Than where the haughty dutchefs locks Her filver vafe in cedar-box.
Yet fome devotion ftill remains Among our harmless northern fwains †,
* Vide Virgil and Lucretius. + The north of Ireland.
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