Like a young swallow, when with weary wings Expected food her fafting mother brings.

His lofs of members is a heavy curfe, But all his faculties decay'd, a worse! His fervants names he has forgotten quite;

Knows not his friend who fupp'd with him last

night.

Not ev❜n the children he begot and bred;
Or his will knows 'em not: for, in their stead,
In form of law, a common hackney jade,
Sole heir, for secret services, is made:
So lewd and fuch a batter'd brothel whore,
That she defies all comers, at her door.
Well, yet suppose his fenfes are his own,
His lives to be chief mourner for his fon:
Before his face his wife and brother burns 3
He numbers all his kindred in their urns.
These are the fines he pays for living long;
And dragging tedious age in his own wrong:
Griefs always green, a houfhold still in tears,
Sad pomps: a threshold throng'd with daily biers;
And liveries of black for length of years.

Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king
Was longeft liv'd of any two-legg'd thing;

Bleft, to defraud the grave fo long, to mount
His number'd years, and on his right-hand count;
Three hundred feafons, guzzling muft of wine:
But, hold a while, and hear himself repine
At fate's unequal laws; and at the clue

Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister drew.

When his brave fon upon the fun'ral

pyre He faw extended, and his beard on fire;

He turn'd, and weeping, afk'd his friends, what

crime

Had curs'd his age to this unhappy time?

Thus mourn'd old Peleus for Achilles flain,
And thus Ulyffes' father did complain.

How fortunate an end had Priam made,
Among his ancestors a mighty fhade,

While Troy yet ftood: when Hector, with the

race

Of royal bastards, might his fun'ral grace:
Amidft the tears of Trojan dames inurn'd,
And by his loyal daughters truly mourn'd!
Had heav'n fo bleft him, he had dy'd before
The fatal fleet to Sparta Paris bore.

But mark what age produc'd; he liv'd to fee
His town in flames, his falling monarchy :

În fine, the feeble fire, reduced by fate,

To change his fcepter for a fword, too late,
His laft effort before Jove's altar tries
A foldier half, and half a facrifice:

Falls like an ox, that waits the coming blow;
Old and unprofitable to the plough.

At least, he dy'd a man; his queen furviv'd, To howl, and in a barking body liv'd.

I hasten to our own; nor will relate Great Mithridates, and rich Cræfus' fate; Whom Solon wifely counsell'd to attend The name of happy, till he knew his end. That Marius was an exile, that he fled, Was ta'en, in ruin'd Carthage begg'd his bread, All these were owing to a life too long: For whom had Rome beheld fo happy, young! High in his chariot, and with laurel crown'd, When he had led the Cimbrian captives round The Roman streets; defcending from his ftate, In that bleft hour he should have begg'd his fate; Then, then, he might have dy'd of all admir'd, And his triumphant foul with shouts expir'd. Campania, fortune's malice to prevent, To Pompey an indulgent favour fent:

But public pray'rs impos'd on heav'n, to give
Their much lov'd leader an unkind reprieve.
The city's fate and his confpir'd to fave
The head, referv'd for an Egyptian slave.
Cethegus, tho a traytor to the state,
And tortur'd, 'scap'd this ignominious fate :
And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely try'd,
All of a piece, and undiminish'd, dy'd.

To Venus, the fond mother makes a pray'r,
That all her fons and daughters may be fair :
True, for the boys a mumbling vow she fends;
But for the girls, the vaulted temple rends:
They must be finish'd pieces: 'tis allow'd
Diana's beauty made Latona proud:
And pleas'd, to fee the wond'ring people pray
To the new-rifing fifter of the day.

And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow:
And fair Virginia would her fate bestow
On Rutila; and change her faultless make
For the foul rumple of her camel-back.

But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what
frights

His parents have by day, what anxious nights! Form join'd with virtue is a fight too rare:

Chafte is no epithet to fuit with fair.

;

Suppose the fame traditionary strain
Of rigid manners, in the house remain
Inveterate truth an old plain Sabine's heart;
Suppofe that Nature, too, has done her part;
Infus'd into his foul a fober grace,

And blusht a modeft blood into his face,
(For Nature is a better guardian far,
Than faucy pedants, or dull tutors are :)
Yet ftill the youth must ne'er arrive at man ;
(So much almighty bribes, and presents, can ;)
Ev'n with a parent, where perfuafions fail,
Money is impudent, and will prevail.

We never read of fuch a tyrant king Who gelt a boy deform'd, to hear him fing. Nor Nero, in his more luxurious rage, E'er made a mistress of an ugly page: Sporus, his spouse, nor crooked was, nor lame, With mountain back, and belly, from the game Crofs-barr'd: but both his fexes well became. Go, boaft your Springal, by his beauty curft To ills; nor think I have declar'd the worst; His form procures him journey-work; a strife Betwixt town-madams, and the merchant's wife: Guess, when he undertakes this public war, What furious beafts offended cuckolds are.