"Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear,
"Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Demons, hear!
"Ye know the spheres, and various tasks affign'd
"By laws eternal to th' aërial kind:

"Some in the fields of pureft æther play,

"And bask, and whiten, in the blaze of day;

"Some guide the courfe of wand'ring orbs on high,
"Or roll the planets thro' the boundless fky:
"Our humbler province is to tend the Fair,
"Not a lefs pleasing, nor less glorious care."

POPE's Rape of the Lock.

PRINTED FOR T. LOWNDES, N°. 77, FLEET-STREET.

M.DCC.LXXIX,

828 D5146 1777

T is a certain fign of a man's caufe

being bad, when he is obliged to quote precedents in the follies of others, to excufe his own. You fee I give up my cause at once. I am convinced I have done a filly thing, and yet I can produce thousands who daily do the fame with, perhaps, not fo good a motive as myself. In fhort, not to puzzle you too much, which I know is extremely irksome to a man who loves to have every thing as VOL. I. B clear

clear as a propofition in Euclid; your
friend (now don't laugh) is married. "Mar-
"ried!" Aye, why not? don't every body
marry? thofe who have eftates, to have
heirs of their own; and those who have
nothing, to get fomething; fo, according to
my fyftem, every body marries. Then
why that ftare of astonishment? that look
of unbelief? Yes, thou infidel, I am mar-
ried, and to fuch a woman! though, not-
withstanding her beauty and other accom-
plishments, I fhall be half afraid to pre-
fent her in the world, fhe's fuch a rustic!
one of your fylvan deities. But I was mad
for her. "So you have been for half the
66 women in town." Very true, my
Lord, fo I have, till I either gained them,
or faw others whofe image obliterated
theirs. You well know, love with me has
ever been a laughing God,
"Rofy lips
"and cherub fmiles," none of its black
defpairing looks have I experienced.

What will the world fay? How will
fome exult that I am at laft taken in !
What, the gay feducive Stanley fhackled!
But, I apprehend, your Lord ship

will wish to be informed how the "fini

"ling mifchief" feized me. Well, you fhall have the full and true particulars of the matter how, the time when, and place where. I muft, however, look back. Perhaps I have been too precipi

tate I might poffibly have gained the charming maid at a lefs expence than "adamantine everlasting chains."- But the bare idea of lofing her made every former refolution of never being enslaved appear as nothing. Her looks "would

warm the cool bofom of age, and tempt an Anchorite to fin.

I could have informed you in a much better method, and have led you on through a flowery path; but as all my elaborate sketches must have ended in this difaftrous truth, I am married, I thought it quite as well to let you into that important fecret at once. As I have divided my difcourfe under three heads, I will, according to fome able preachers, begin with the first.

I left you as you may remember (though perhaps the burgundy might B 2 have