Whene'er I hear a rival named,
I feel my body all inflamed;
Which, breaking out in boils and blains,
With yellow filth my linen stains;
Or, parch'd with unextinguish'd thirst,
Small-beer I guzzle till I burst;
And then I drag a bloated _corpus_,
Swell'd with a dropsy, like a porpus;
When, if I cannot purge or stale,
I must be tapp'd to fill a pail.
[Footnote 1: The Dean of St. Paul's, father to the Bishop.--_H._]
BOUTS RIMEZ[1]
ON SIGNORA DOMITILLA
Our schoolmaster may roar i' th' fit,
Of classic beauty, _haec et illa_;
Not all his birch inspires such wit
As th'ogling beams of Domitilla.
Let nobles toast, in bright champaign,
Nymphs higher born than Domitilla;
I'll drink her health, again, again,
In Berkeley's tar,[2] or sars'parilla.
At Goodman's Fields I've much admired
The postures strange of Monsieur Brilla;
But what are they to the soft step,
The gliding air of Domitilla?
Virgil has eternized in song
The flying footsteps of Camilla;[3]
Sure, as a prophet, he was wrong;
He might have dream'd of Domitilla.
Great Theodose condemn'd a town
For thinking ill of his Placilla:[4]
And deuce take London! if some knight
O' th' city wed not Domitilla.
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