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VERSES,

WRITTEN FOR THE TOASTING-GLASSES OF THE
KIT-CAT CLUB, 1703.

Dutchess of St. ALBANS.

THE line of Vere, so long renown'd in arms,
Concludes with lustre in St. Albans charms.
Her conquering eyes have made their race com-
[plete;
They rose in valour, and in beauty set.

Dutchess of BEAUFORT.

Offspring of a tuneful sire,

Blest with more than mortal fire;
Likeness of a mother's face,

Blest with more than mortal grace;
You with double charms surprise,
With his wit, and with her eyes.

Lady MARY CHURCHILL.

[face;

Fairest and latest of the beauteous race,
Blest with your parents wit, and her first blooming
Born with our liberties in William's reign,
Your eyes alone that liberty restrain.

Dutchess of RICHMOND.

Of two fair Richmonds different ages boast,
Theirs was the first, and ours the brightest toast;
Th' adorers' offerings prove who's most divine,
They sacrific'd in water, we in wine.

Lady SUNDERLAND.

All Nature's charms in Sunderland appear,
Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear:
Yet still their force, to men not safely known,
Seems undiscover'd to herself alone.

Mademoiselle SPANHEIME.

Admir'd in Germany, ador'd in France,
Your charms to brighter glory here advance;
The stubborn Britons own your beauty's claim,
And with their native toasts enrol your name.

Which she, accepting with a nice disdain,
Owns them her subjects, and begins to reign:
Fair queen of Fopland is her royal style;
Fopland! the greatest part of this great isle!
Nature did ne'er so equally divide
A female heart, 'twixt piety and pride:
Her waiting-maids prevent the peep of day,
[paint;
And, all in order, on her toilet lay
Prayer-books, patch-boxes, sermon notes, and
At once t' improve the sinner and the saint.
Farewel, friend Moll: expect no more from me;
But if you would a full description see,
You'll find her somewhere in the Litany,
With Pride, Vain-glory, and Hypocrisy.

VERSES BY LORD HALIFAX.
FROM DR. Z. GREY'S MSS.
ALL the materials are the same

Of beauty and desire,

In a fair woman's goodly frame

No brightness is without a flame,

No flame without a fire.

Then tell me what those creatures are,

That would be thought both chaste and fair?

Go ask but thy philosophy

What gives her lips the balm,

What makes her breasts to heave so high,
What spirit gives motion to her eye,
Or moisture to her paim?
Then tell me, &c.

Ah Cælia, then, be not so nice,

For that betrays thy thoughts and thee;
There's not a feature or a grace
Bedecks thy body or thy face,
But pimps within for me,
Then tell me, &c.

ON THE

COUNTESS DOWAGER OF

COURAGE, dear Moll, and drive away despair.
Mopsa, who in her youth was scarce thought fair,
In spite of age, experience, and decays,
Sets up for charming, in her fading days;
Snuffs her dim eyes to give one parting blow,
Have at the heart of every ogling beau!
This goodly goose, all feather'd like a jay,
So gravely vain, and so demurely gay,
Last night, t' adorn the court, did overload
Her bald buff forehead with a high commode:
Her steps were manag'd with such tender art,
As if each board had been a lover's heart.
In all her air, in every glance, was seen
A mixture strange, 'twixt fifty and fifteen.
Admiring fops about her crowding press;
Hambden himself delivers their address,

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THE

LIFE OF PARNELL.

BY DR. JOHNSON.

THE life of doctor Parnell is a task which I should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing; a man who had the art of being minute without tediousness, and general without confusion; whose language was copious without exuberance, exact without constraint, and easy without weakness.

What such an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abstract from his larger narrative; and have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith.

Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἔσι θανόντων

THOMAS PARNELL was the son of a commonwealthsman of the same name, who, at the Restoration, left Congleton in Cheshire, where the family had been established for several centuries, and, settling in Ireland, purchased an estate, which, with his lands in Cheshire, descended to the poet, who was born at Dublin in 1679; and, after the usual education at a grammar-school, was, at the age of thirteen, admitted into the college, where, in 1700, he became master of arts; and was the same year ordained a deacon, though under the canonical age, by a dispensation from the bishop of Derry.

About three years afterwards he was made a priest; and in 1705 Dr. Ashe, the bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Cloglier. About the same year he married Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and a daughter who long survived him.

At the ejection of the Whigs, in the end of queen Anne's reign, Parnell was persuaded to change his party, not without much censure from those whom he forsook, and was received by the new ministry as a valuable reinforcement. When the earl of Oxford was told that Dr. Parnell waited among the crowd in the outer room, he went, by the

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