STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY,

MARCH 13, 1718-19.

STELLA this day is thirty-four
(We sha' n't dispute a year or more):
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green:
So little is thy form declin'd;
Made up so largely in thy mind.

Oh, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit!
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
With half the lustre of your eyes,
With half your wit, your years, and size.
And then, before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate
(That either nymph might have her swain)
To split my worship too in twain !

DR. SHERIDAN TO DR. SWIFT.

1719.

DEAR Dean, since in cruxes and puns you and I deal,
Pray why is a woman a sieve and a riddle?
'Tis a thought that came into my noddle this morning,
In bed as I lay, sir, a-tossing and turning.
You'll find, if you read but a few of your histories,
All women as Eve, all women are mysteries.
To tind out this riddle I know you'll be eager,
And make every one of the sex a Belphegor.
But that will not do, for I mean to commend them:
I swear without jest, 1 an honour intend them.
In a sieve, sir, their antient extraction I quite tell,
In a riddle I give you their power and their title.
This I told you before: do you know what I mean, sir?
"Not I, by my troth, sir."-Then read it again, sir.
The reason I send you these lines of rhymes double,
Is purely through pity, to save you the trouble
Of thinking two hours for a rhyme as you did last ;
When your Pegasus canter'd it triple, and rid fast.
As for my little nag, which I keep at Parnassus,
With Phoebus's leave, to run with his asses,
He goes slow and sure, and he never is jaded,
While your fiery, steed is whipp'd, spurr'd, bas-
tinaded.

THE DEAN'S ANSWER.

IN reading your letter alone in my hackney,
Your de muable riddle my poor brains did rack nigh.

And when with much labour the matter I crackt,
I found you mistaken in matter of fact.

A woman 's no sieve (for with that you begin), Pecause she lets out more than e'er she takes in. And that she's a riddle, can never be right, For a riddle is dark, but a woman is light. But, grant her a sieve, I can say something archer: Pray what is a man? he's a fine linen searcher.

Now tell me a thing that wants interpretation, What name for a inaid, was the first man's damnation ?

If your worship will please to explain me this rebus
I swearfrom hence forward you shall be my Phoebus ''
From my hackney-coach, Sept. 11,
1719, past 12 at noon.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1720.

ALL travellers at first incline
Where-e'er they see the fairest sign;
And, if they find the chambers neat,
And like the liquor and the meat,
Will call again, and recommend
The Angel-inn to every friend.
What though the painting grows decay'd,
The house will never lose its trade:
Nay, though the treacherous tapster Thomas
Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,
As fine as daubers' hands can make it,
In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
We think it both a shame and sin
To quit the true old Angel-inn.

Now this is Stella's case in fact,
An angel's face a little crack'd
(Could poets or could painters fix
This drew us in at first to find
How angels look at thirty six):
In such a form an angel's mind;
And every virtue now supplies
See at her levee crowding swains,
The fainting rays of Stella's eyes.
Whom Stella freely entertains
With breeding, humour, wit, and sense;
And puts them but to small expense;
Their mind so plentifully fills,
And makes such reasonable bills,
So little gets for what she gives,
We really wonder how she lives!
And, had her stock been less, no doubt
She must have long ago run out.

Then who can think we 'll quit the place,
When Doll hangs out a newer face?
Or stop and light at Cloe's head,
With scraps and leavings to be fed ?

Then, Cloe, still go on to prate
Of thirty-six and thirty-eight;
Pursue your trade of scandal-picking,
Your hints that Stella is no chicken;
Your innuendos, when you tell us,
That Stella loves to talk with fellows:
And let me warn you to believe

A truth, for which your soul should grieve;
That, should you live to see the day
When Stella's locks must all be grey,
On every feature of her face;
When age must print a furrow'd trace

Though you, and all your senseless tribe,
Could art, or time, or nature bribe,
To make you look like beauty's queen,
And hold for ever at fifteen;

No bloom of youth can ever blind
The cracks and wrinkles of your mind:
All men of sense will pass your door,
And crowd to Stella's at fourscore.

! Vir Gin, Man-trap.

As, when a lofty pile is rais'd,

We never hear the workmen prais'd, Who bring the lime, or place the stones;

But all admire Inigo Jones:

So, if this pile of scatter'd rhymes
Should be approv'd in after-times;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.

Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of Cupid's darts,
Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts:
With frendship and esteem possest,
I ne'er adınitted love a guest.

In all the habitudes of life,

The friend, the mistress, and the wife,
Variety we still pursue,

In pleasure seek for something new;
Or else, comparing with the rest,
Take comfort, that our own is best;
The best we value by the worst,

:

(As tradesmen show their trash at first):
But his pursuits were at an end,
Whom Stella chooses for a friend.
A poet starving in a garret,
Conning all topics like a parrot,
Invokes his mistress and his Muse,
And stays at home for want of shoes.
Should but his Muse descending drop
A slice of bread and mutton-chop;
Or kindly, when his credit 's out,
Surprise him with a pint of stout;
Or patch his broken stocking-soals,
Or send him in a peck of coals;
Exalted in his mighty mind,

He flies, and leaves the stars behind;
Counts all his labours amply paid,
Adores her for the timely aid.

Or, should a porter make inquiries
For Chloe, Sylvia, Phyllis, Iris;
Be told the lodging, lane, and sign,

The bowers that hold those nymphs divine;
Fair Chloe would perhaps be found
With footmen tippling under ground;
The charming Sylvia beating flax,

Her shoulders mark d with bloody tracks;
Bright Phyllis mending ragged smocks;
And radiant Iris in the pox.
These are the goddesses enroll'd
In Curll's collection, new and old,

Whose scoundrel fathers would not know 'em,

If they should meet them in a poem.

True poets can depress and raise,

Are lords of infamy and praise;
They are not scurrilous in satire,
Nor will in panegyric flatter.
Unjustly poets we asperse;

Truth shines the brighter clad in verse;
And all the fictions they pursue,
Do but insinuate what is true.

Now, should my praises owe their truth
To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth,
What Stoics call without our power,
They could not be insur'd an hour;

'Twere grafting on an annual stock,
That must our expectation mock,
And, making one luxuriant shoot,
Die the next year for want of root:
Before I could my verses bring,
Perhaps you 're quite another thing.

So Mævius, when he drain'd his skull
To celebrate some suburb trull,
His similies in order set,

And every crambo he could get,

Had gone through all the common-places
Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces:
Before he could his poem close,
The lovely nymph had lost her nose.
Your virtues safely I commend ;
They on no accidents depend:
Let malice look with all her eyes,
She dares not say the poet lyes.

Stella, when you these lines transcribe,
Lest you should take them for a bribe,
Resolv'd to mortify your pride,
I'll here expose your weaker side.

Your spirits kindle to a flame,
Mov'd with the lightest touch of blame;
And, when a friend in kindness tries
To show you where your errour lies,
Conviction does but more incense;
Perverseness is your whole defence;
Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spight,
Regardless both of wrong and right;
Your virtues all suspended wait

Till time hath open'd reason's gate;
And, what is worse, your passion bends
Its force against your nearest friends,
Which manners, decency, and pride,
Have taught you from the world to hide :
In vain; for, see, your friend hath brought
To public light your only fault;
And yet a fault we often find
Mix'd in a noble generous mind;
And may compare to Etna's fire,

Which, though with trembling, all admire;
The heat, that makes the summit glow,
Enriching all the vales below.
Those who in warmer climes complain
From Phoebus' rays they suffer pain,
Must own that pain is largely paid
By generous wines beneath a shade.

Yet, when I find your passions rise,
And anger sparkling in your eyes,
I grieve those spirits should be spent,
For nobler ends by nature meant,
One passion with a different turn
Makes wit inflame, or anger burn:
So the Sun's heat with different powers
Ripens the grape, the liquors sours:
Thus Ajax, when with rage possest
By Pallas breath'd into his breast,
His valour would no more employ,
Which might alone have conquer'd Troy;
But, blinded by resentment, seeks
For vengeance on his friends the Greeks.
You think this turbulence of blood
From stagnating preserves the flood,
Which thus fermenting by degrees
Exalts the sp rits, sinks the lees.

Stella, for once you reason wrong; For, should this ferment last too long,

By time subsiding, you may find
Nothing but acid left behind;
From passion you may then be freed,
When peevishness and spleen succeed.
Say, Stella when you copy next,
Will you keep strictly to the text?
Dare you let these reproaches stand,
And to your failing set your hand?
Or, if these lines your anger fire,
Shall they in baser flames expire?
Whene'er they burn, if burn they must,
They'll prove my accusation just.

TO STELLA,

VISITING ME IN MY SICKNESS, 1720.

PALLAS, observing Stella's wit
Was more than for her sex was fit,
And that her beauty, soon or late,
Might breed confusion in the state,
In high concern for human-kind,
Fix'd honour in her infant mind.

But (not in wranglings to engage
With such a stupid vicious age)
If honour I would here define,
It answers faith in things divine.
As natural life the body warins,
And, scholars teach, the soul informs;
So honour animates the whole,
And is the spirit of the soul.

Those numerous virtues which the tribe
Of tedious moralists describe,
And by such various titles call,
True honour comprehends them all.
Let melancholy rule supreme,
Choley preside, or blood, or phlegm,
It makes no difference in the case,
Nor is complexion honour's place.

But, lest we should for honour take
The drunken quarrels of a rake;
Or think it seated in a scar,
Or on a proud triumphal car,
Or in the payment of a debt
We lose with sharpers at picquet;

Or when a whore in her vocation
keeps punctual to an assignation;
Or that on which his lordship swears,

When vulgar knaves would lose their ears;
Let Stela's fair example preach

A lesson she alone can teach.

In points of honour to be try'd,
All passions must be laid aside;
Ask no advice, but think alone;
Suppose the question not your own.
How shall I act? is not the case;
But how would Brutus in my place?
In such a case would Cato bleed ?
And how would Socrates proceed?
Drive all objections from your mind,
Else you relapse to human-kind :
Ambition, avarice, and lust,

And factious rage, and breach of trust,
And flattery tipt with nauseous fleer,
And guilty shame, and servile fear,

1 See the verses on her Birth-day, 1723-4.

Envy, and cruelty, and pride,
Will in your tainted heart preside.
Heroes and heroines of old
By honour only were enroll'd
Among their brethren in the skies,
To which (though late) shall Stella rise,
Ten thousand oaths upon record
Are not so sacred as her word:
The world shall in its atoms end,
Ere Stella can deceive a friend.
By honour seated in her breast
She still determines what is best:
What indignation in her mind
Against inslavers of mankind!
Base kings, and ministers of state
Eternal objects of her hate!

She thinks that Nature ne'er design'd
Courage to man alone confin'd.
Can cowardice her sex adorn,
Which most exposes ours to scorn?
She wonders where the charm appears
In Florimel's affected fears;

For Stella never learn'd the art
At proper times to scream and start;
Nor calls up all the house at night,
And swears she saw a thing in white.
Doll never flics to cut her lace,
Or throw cold water in her face,
Because she heard a sudden drum,
Or found an earwig in a plum.

Her hearers are amaz'd from whence
Proceeds that fund of wit and sense;
Which, though her modesty would shroud,
Breaks like the Sun behind a cloud;
While gracefulness its art conceals,
And yet through every motion steals.

Say, Stella, was Prometheus blind,
And, forming you, mistook your kind?
No; 'twas for you alone he stole
The fire that forms a manly soul;
Then, to complete it every way,
He moulded it with female clay :
To that you owe the nobler flame,
To this the beauty of your frame.
How would ingratitude delight,
And how would censure glut her spight,
If I should Stella's kindness hide
In silence, or forget with pride!
When on my sickly couch I lay,
Impatient both of night and day,
Lamenting in unmanly strains,

Cali'd every power to ease my pains;
Then Stella ran to my relief
With cheerful face and inward grief;
And, though by Heaven's severe decree
She suffers hourly more than me,

No cruel master could require,
From slaves employ'd for daily hire,
What Stella, by her friendship warm'd,
With vigour and delight perform'd:
My sinking spirits now supplies
With cordials in her hands and eyes;
Now with a soft and silent tread
Unheard she moves about my bed.

I see her taste each nauseous draught;
And so obligingly am caught,

I bless the hand from whence they came,
Nor dare distort my face for shame.