XVII.

To medals there and books of tafte
Those moments you consign,
Which barren minds ignobly waste
On dogs, or cards, or wine.
XVIII.

Whilft I 'mid rocks and favage woods
Enjoy these golden dreams;

a Where Avon winds to mix her floods
With Bladud's healing ftreams.

PANACEA:

Or, The Grand RESTORATIVE.

By the Same.

7ELCOME to Baia's ftreams, ye fons of spleen,

WELCO

Who rove from spa to spato shift the scene. While round the fteaming fount you idly throng, Come, learn a wholfome fecret from my fong.

Ye fair, whose roses feel th' approaching froft,
And drops fupply the place of fpirits loft:

Ye 'fquires, who rack'd with gouts, at heav'n repine;
Condemn'd to water for excess in wine:

Ye portly cits, fo corpulent and full,

Who eat and drink till appetite grows dull:

a Claverton near Bath, 1750.

For

For whets and bitters then unftring the purse,
Whilft nature more opprest grows worse and worse;
Dupes to the craft of pill-prefcribing leaches :
You nod or laugh at what the parfon preaches:
Hear then a rhyming quack,-who spurns your wealth,
And gratis gives a fure receipt for health.

No more thus vainly roam o'er fea and land,
When lo! a fovereign remedy at hand:

'Tis Temperance-stale cant!-'Tis Fafting then;
Heav'n's antidote against the fins of men.
Foul luxury's the caufe of all your pain:
To scour th' obftructed glands, abstain! abstain!
Fast and take rest, ye candidates for sleep,
Who from high food tormenting vigils keep :
Faft and be fat-thou starveling in a gown :
Ye bloated, faft
-'twill farely bring you down.

Ye nymphs that pine o'er chocolate and rolls,

Hence take fresh bloom, fresh vigour to your fouls.
Faft and fear not-you'll need no drop nor pill;
Hunger may ftarve, excefs is fure to kill.

The HEROINES, or Modern Memoirs.

By the Same.

'N ancient times, fome hundred winters past,

IN

When British dames, for confcience fake, were chaste,
If some frail nymph, by youthful paffion fway'd,
From virtue's paths unhappily had stray'd;
When banish'd reason re-affum'd her place,

The confcious wretch bewail'd her foul difgrace;
Fled from the world, and pafs'd her joyless years.
In decent folitude and pious tears;

Veil'd in fome convent made her peace with heaven,
And almoft hop'd-by Prudes to be forgiven.

Not fo of modern wh-res th' illustrious train,
Renown'd Conftantia, P-ton and V-ne:
Grown old in fin, and dead to amorous joy,
No acts of
penance their great fouls employ.
Without a blush behold each nymph advance,
The luscious Heroine of her own romance.
Each harlot triumphs in her lofs of fame,
And boldly prints and publishes her shame,

175.

The

But oh! the fatal hour was come
That forc'd me from my dear:
My Lucy then thro' grief was dumb,
Or spoke but by a tear.

III.

Now far from her and bliss I roam,

All nature wears a change:

The azure sky seems wrapt in gloom,

And every place looks ftrange.

IV.

Those flow'ry fields, this verdant scene,

Yon larks that towering fing,

With fad contraft increase my spleen

And make me loath the spring.

V.

My books that wont to footh my mind
No longer now can please :

There only those amusement find

That have a mind at ease.

VI.

Nay life itself is tasteless grown
From Lucy whilst I stray :

Sick of the world I mufe alone

And figh the live-long day.

1748.

***

ODE to MEMORY. 1748.

By WILLIAM SHENSTONE, Efq;

I.

Memory! celeftial maid!

Who glean'ft the flow'rets cropt by time;

And, fuffering not a leaf to fade,

Preferv'ft the bloffoms of our prime ; Bring, bring those moments to my mind When life was new, and Lesbia kind.

II. And