Can afford his tube to feed

With the fragrant INDIAN weed:
Pleasure for a nose divine,

Incense of the god of wine.

Happy thrice, and thrice agen,

Happieft he of happy men.

IMITATION III.

Thou, matur'd by glad Hefperian funs,

TOBACCO, fountain pure of limpid truth,

That looks the very foul; whence pouring thought Swarms all the mind; abforpt is yellow care,

And at each puff imagination burns:

Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires

Touch the mysterious lip that chaunts thy praise,
In ftrains to mortal fons of earth unknown.

Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines
Of ductile clay, with plastic virtue form'd,
And glaz'd magnific o'er, I grasp, I fill.
From PÆTOTHEKE with pungent pow'rs perfum'd
Itself one tortoife, all, where fhines imbib'd
Each parent ray; then rudely ram'd illume,
With the red touch of zeal-enkindling fheet,
Mark'd with Gibsonian lore; forth iffue clouds,
Thought-thrilling, thirft-inciting clouds around,

And many-mining fires: I all the while,
Lolling at ease, inhale the breezy balm.

But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join,
In genial ftrife and orthodoxal ale,

Stream life and joy into the Mufe's bowl.
Oh be thou still my great infpirer, thou
My Mufe; oh fan me with thy zephyrs boon,
While I, in clouded tabernacle shrin'd,

Burst forth all oracle and mystic song.

IMITATION

IV.

CRITICS avaunt! TOBACCO is my

theme

Tremble like hornets at the blasting steam. And you, court-infects, flutter not too near Its light, nor buzz within the scorching sphere. POLLIO, with flame like thine, my verfe inspire, So fhall the Mufe from fmoke elicit fire. Coxcombs prefer the tickling fting of fnuff; Yet all their claim to wisdom is a puff:

Lord FOPLIN fmokes not for his teeth afraid:

3

Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon; They love no smoke, except the smoke of town;· But courtiers hate the puffing tribe,

no matter,

Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter!

Its foes but fhew their ignorance; can he
Who fcorns the leaf of knowledge, love the tree?
The tainted templar (more prodigious yet)

Rails at TOBACCO, though it makes him- fpit.
CITRONIA VOWs it has an odious stink;

She will not smoke (ye gods !) but she will drink:
And chaste PRUDELIA (blame her if

you can) Says, pipes are us'd by that vile creature Man: Yet crowds remain, who ftill its worth proclaim, While fome for pleasure smoke, and some for fame : Fame, of our actions univerfal spring,

For which we drink, eat, fleep, smoke every thing.

B

IMITATION V.

LEST leaf! whose aromatic gales difpenfe

To templars modefty, to parfons fenfe :

So raptur'd priests, at fam'd DODONA's shrine
Drank inspiration from the fteam divine.
Poison that cures, a vapour that affords
Content, more folid than the smile of lords :
Reft to the weary, to the hungry food,
The last kind refuge of the WISE and GOOD.
Infpir'd by thee, dull cits adjust the scale
Of Europe's peace, when other ftatesmen fail.

By thee protected, and thy fifter, beer,
Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.
Nor less the critic owns thy genial aid,
While fupperlefs he plies the piddling trade.
What though to love and foft delights a foe,
By ladies hated, hated by the beau,

Yet focial freedom, long to courts unknown,
Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own.
Come to thy poet, come with healing wings,
And let me taste thee unexcis'd by kings.

ΙΜΙΤΑΤΙΟΝ VI.

OY! bring an ounce of FREEMAN's best

BOY

And bid the vicar be my guest:

Let all be plac'd in manner due,

A pot wherein to spit or spue,

And London Journal, or Free Briton,
Of use to light a pipe, or

This village, unmolested yet
By troopers, fhall be my retreat:
Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray;

Who cannot write or vote for *.

Far

1

As ignorant as ** Brass is :
And scorning rafcals to caress,
Extol the days of good Queen BESS,
When firft TOBACCO bleft our isle,

Then think of other Queens and fmile.

Come jovial pipe, and bring along

Midnight revelry and fong;

The merry catch, the madrigal,
That echoes fweet in City Hall;

The parfon's pun, the smutty tale
Of country juftice o'er his ale.

I ask not what the French are doing,
Or Spain, to compass Britain's ruin:
Britons, if undone, can go,

Where TOBACco loves to grow.

ODE