TO MR. JOHN MOORE,

AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER.

How much, egregious Moore, are we

Deceiv'd by shows and forms ! Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,

All Humankind are Worms,

Man is a very Worm by birth,

Vile, reptile, weak and vain !
A while he crawls upon the earth,

Then shrinks to earth again.

That Woman is a Worm, we find

E’er since our Grandame's evil;
She first convers’d with her own kind,

That ancient Worm the Devil.

The learn’d themselves we Book-worms name,

The Blockhead is a Slow-worm ; The Nymph whose tail is all on flame,

Is aptly term’d a Glow-worm.

The Fops are painted Butterflies,

That flutter for a day;
First from a Worm they take their rise,

And in a Worm decay.

The Flatterer an Earwig grows;

Thus Worms suit all conditions ; Mişers are Muck-worms, Silk-worms Beaus,

And Death-watches Physicians.

That Statesmen have the Worm, is seen,

By all their winding play ;
Their Conscience is a Worm within,

That gnaws them night and day.

Ah Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,

And greater gain would rise,
If thou couldst make the Courtier void

The worm that never dies !

O learned Friend of Abchurch-Lane,

Who sett'st our entrails free! Vain is thy Art, thy Powder vain,

Since Worms shall eat ev’n thee.

Our Fate thou only canst adjourn

Some few short years, no more ! Ev’n Button's Wits to Worms shall turn,

Who Maggots were before.

VOL. II.

SONG, .

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.

FLUTT'RING spread thy purple Pinions,.

Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart; I a Slave in thy Dominions ;

Nature must give Way to Art.

II.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,

Nightly nodding o’er your Flocks, See my weary Days consuming,

All beneath yon flow'ry Rocks.

III.
Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,

Mourn'd Adonis, darling Youth :
Him the Boar, in Silence creeping,

Gor’d with unrelenting Tooth.

IV.
Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers ;

Fair Discretion, string the Lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking Slumbers;

Bright Apollo, lend thy Choir.

Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow,

Gilding my Aurelia's Brows,
Morpheus hov'ring o'er my Pillow,

Hear me pay my dying Vows.

VII.
Melancholy smooth Mæander,

Swiftly purling in a Round,
On thy Margin Lovers wander,"

With thy flow'ry Chaplets crown’d.

VIII.
Thus when Philomela, drooping,

Softly seeks her silent Mate,
See the Bird of Juno stooping ;

Melody resigns to Fate.

The above is a pleasant burlesque on the gawdy, glittering, florid style and manner of certain descriptive poets. I think the reader will pardon me for laying before him part of a piece of ridicule on the same subject, and of equal merit, which made its first appearance many years ago in the Oxford Student, and is

thus entitled, “Ode to Horror, in the Allegoric, Descriptive,
Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical
Style of our Modern Ode-Writers and Monody-Mongers.”
“ Ferreus ingruit Horror.”

Virg.
“O Goddess of the gloomy scene,
Of shadowy shapes, thou black-brow'd Queen;
Thy tresses dark with ivy crown'd,
On yonder mould'ring abbey found;
Oft wont from charnels damp and dim,
To call the sheeted spectre grim,
While as his loose chains loudly clink,
Thou add'st a length to ev'ry link :
O thou, that lov'st at eve to seek
The pensive-pacing pilgrim meek,
And sett'st before his shudd'ring eyes
Strange forms, and fiends of giant-size,
As wildly works thy wizzard will,
Till fear-struck fancy has her fill :
Dark pow'r, whose magic-might prevails
O'er hermit-rocks and fairy-vales;
O Goddess, erst by Spenser view'd,
What time th’ Enchanter vile embru'd
His hands in Florimel's pure heart,
Till loos’d by steel-clad Britomart:
O thou that erst on fancy's wing
Didst terror-trembling Tasso bring,
To groves where kept damn'd Furies dire
Their blue-tipt battlements of fire;
Thou that thro' many a darksome pine,
O'er the rugged rock recline,
Didst wake the hollow-whisp'ring breeze
With care-consumed Eloise :
O thou, with whom in cheerless cell,
The midnight clock pale pris'ners tell ;
O haste thee, mild Miltonic maid,
From yonder yews sequester'd shade;
More bright than all the fabled nine,
Teach me to breathe the solemn line :
O bid my well-rang'd numbers rise,
Pervious to none but Attic eyes;
O give the strain that madness moves,
Till every startling sense approves.