She cursed the Cat for want of duty,
Who left her foes a constant booty.
An engineer of noted skill
Engaged to stop the growing ill,
From room to room he now surveys

Their haunts, their works, their secret ways;
Finds where they scape an ambuscade,
And whence the nightly sally's made.
An envious Cat from place to place,
Unseen, attends his silent pace.
She saw that, if his trade went on,
The purring race must be undone ;
So, secretly removes his baits,
And every stratagem defeats.

Again he sets the poisoned toils,

And Puss again the labour foils.

66

"What foe (to frustrate my designs)
My schemes thus nightly countermines?"
Incensed he cries; this very hour
The wretch shall bleed beneath my power."
So said-a ponderous trap he brought,
And in the fact poor Puss was caught.
"Smuggler," says he, "thou shalt be made
A victim to our loss of trade."

The captive Cat, with piteous mews,
For pardon, life, and freedom, sues.
"A sister of the science spare ;
One interest is our common care."
"What insolence !" the man replied;
"Shall Cats with us the game divide?
Were all your interloping band
Extinguished, or expelled the land,
We Rat-catchers might raise our fees,
Sole guardians of a nation's cheese!"

A Cat, who saw the lifted knife,
Thus spoke, and saved her sister's life;
"In every age and clime, we see,
Two of a trade can ne'er agree.
Each hates his neighbour for encroaching.
Squire stigmatizes squire for poaching;
Beauties with beauties are in arms,
And scandal pelts each other's charms;
Kings, too, their neighbour kings dethrone,
In hope to make the world their own.
But let us limit our desires,
Nor war like beauties, kings, and squires;
For, though we both one prey pursue,
There's game enough for us and you."

THE OLD WOMAN AND HER CATS.

WHO friendship with a knave hath made
Is judged a partner in the trade.

The matron who conducts abroad
A willing nymph is thought a bawd;
And, if a modest girl be seen
With one who cures a lover's spleen,
We guess her not extremely nice,
And only wish to know her price.
'Tis thus that on the choice of friends
Our good or evil name depends.

A wrinkled Hag, of wicked fame,
Beside a little smoky flame

Sat hovering, pinched with age and frost :
Her shrivelled hand, with veins embossed,
Upon her knees her weight sustains,
While palsy shook her crazy brains.
She mumbles forth her backward prayers,
An untamed scold of fourscore years.
About her swarmed a numerous brood
Of Cats, who, lank with hunger, mewed.

Teased with their cries, her choler grew,
And thus she sputtered: "Hence, ye crew!
Fool that I was to entertain

Such imps, such fiends, a hellish train!
Had ye been never housed and nursed,
I for a witch had ne'er been cursed.
To you I owe that crowds of boys
Worry me with eternal noise;
Straws laid across my pace retard,

The horse-shoe's nailed, each threshold's guard.
The stunted broom the wenches hide,

For fear that I should up and ride;
They stick with pins my bleeding seat,
And bid me show my secret teat."

"To hear you prate would vex a saint;
Who hath most reason of complaint?"
Replies a Cat. "Let's come to proof;
Had we ne'er starved beneath your roof,
We had, like others of our race,
In credit lived as beasts of chase.
'Tis infamy to serve a hag;

Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag!
And boys against cur lives combine,
Because, 'tis said, your cats have nine."

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE SNAIL.

ALL upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.

As, in the sunshine of the morn,
A Butterfly, but newly born,
Sat proudly perking on a rose,
With pert conceit his bosom glows.
His wings, all glorious to behold,
Bedropped with azure, jet, and gold,
Wide he displays; the spangled dew
Reflects his eyes and various hue.

His now-forgotten friend, a Snail,
Beneath his house, with slimy trail
Crawls o'er the grass; whom when he spies,
In wrath he to the gardener cries:

"What means yon peasant's daily toil,
From choking weeds to rid the soil?
Why wake you to the morning's care?
Why with new arts correct the year?
Why grows the peach with crimson hue,
And why the plum's inviting blue?
Were they to feast his taste designed,
That vermin of voracious kind?
Crush then the slow, the pilfering race;
So purge thy garden from disgrace."

"What arrogance !" the Snail replied;
"How insolent is upstart pride!
Hadst thou not thus, with insult vain,
Provoked my patience to complain,
I had concealed thy meaner birth,
Nor traced thee to the scum of earth.

For scarce nine suns have waked the hours,
To swell the fruit, and paint the flowers,
Since I thy humbler life surveyed,
In base and sordid guise arrayed;
A hideous insect, vile, unclean,

You dragged a slow and noisome train;
And from your spider bowels drew
Foul film, and spun the dirty clue.
I own my humble life, good friend;
Snail was I born, and Snail shall end.
And what's a Butterfly? At best,
He's but a caterpillar, dressed;
And all thy race (a numerous seed)
Shall prove of caterpillar breed.”

THE FOX AT THE POINT OF DEATH.

A Fox, in life's extreme decay,
Weak, sick, and faint, expiring lay:
All appetite had left his maw,
And age disarmed his mumbling jaw.
His numerous race around him stand
To learn their dying sire's command.
He raised his head with whining moan,
And thus was heard the feeble tone:

"Ah sons! from evil ways depart :
My crimes lie heavy on my heart.
See! see! the murdered geese appear!
Why are those bleeding turkeys there?
Why all around this cackling train,
Who haunt my ears for chicken slain?"
The hungry foxes round them stared,
And for the promised feast prepared.

"Where, Sir, is all this dainty cheer? Nor turkey, goose, nor hen, is here. These are the phantoms of your brain, And your sons lick their lips in vain."

O gluttons!" says the drooping sire,
"Restrain inordinate desire;
Your licorish taste you shall deplore
When peace of conscience is no more.
Does not the hound betray our pace,
And gins and guns destroy our race?
Thieves dread the searching eye of power,
And never feel the quiet hour.

Old age (which few of us shall know)
Now puts a period to my woe.
Would you true happiness attain,
Let honesty your passions rein;
So live in credit and esteem,
And the good name you lost redeem."

"The counsel's good," a Fox replies, "Could we perform what you advise. Think what our ancestors have done; A line of thieves from son to son: To us descends the long disgrace, And infamy hath marked our race. Though we, like harmless sheep, should feed,

Honest in thought, in word, in deed,
Whatever hen-roost is decreased,

We shall be thought to share the feast.
The change shall never be believed:
A lost good name is ne'er retrieved."

"Nay, then," replies the feeble Fox, "(But hark! I hear a hen that clocks) Go, but be moderate in your food;A chicken too might do me good."

THE MASTIFF.

THOSE Who in quarrels interpose
Must often wipe a bloody nose.

A Mastiff of true English blood
Loved fighting better than his food.
When dogs were snarling for a bone,
He longed to make the war his own;
And often found, when two contend,
To interpose obtained his end.
He gloried in his limping pace;
The scars of honour seamed his face;
In every limb a gash appears,

And frequent fights retrenched his ears.
As on a time he heard from far
Two dogs engaged in noisy war,
Away he scours and lays about him,
Resolved no fray should be without him.
Forth from his yard a tanner flies,

And to the bold intruder cries;

"A cudgel shall correct your manners:
Whence sprung this cursed hate to tanners?
While on my dog you vent your spite,
Sirrah! 'tis me you dare not bite."
To see the battle thus perplexed,
With equal rage a butcher vexed,
Hoarse-screaming from the circled crowd,
To the curs'd Mastiff cries aloud :
"Both Hockley-Hole and Marybone
The combats of my dog have known.
He ne'er, like bullies coward-hearted,
Attacks, in public to be parted.

Think not, rash fool, to share his fame;
Be his the honour or the shame."

Thus said, they swore, and raved like thunder, Then dragged their fastened dogs asunder;

While clubs and kicks from every side

Rebounded from the Mastiff's hide.

All reeking now with sweat and blood,
Awhile the parted warriors stood,
Then poured upon the meddling foe;
Who, worried, howled and sprawled below.
He rose; and, limping from the fray,
By both sides mangled, sneaked away.