"The _emblem of the nation_, so grave and precise, On the _emblem of wisdom_ has laid an excise; Pray tell me, grave sparks, and your answer don't smother, Why one representative taxes another? The _Commons_ on _salt_ a new impost have laid To tax _wisdom_ too, they most humbly are pray'd; For tell me ye patrons of woollen and crape, Why the _type_ should be fined and the substance escape?" A song in ridicule of a famous musician, who was caught serenading his mistress with his bass-viol on a very frosty night:-- Look down, fair garreteer bestow One glance upon your swain, Who stands below in frost and snow. And shaking sings in pain. Thaw with your eyes the frozen street, Or cool my hot desire, I burn within, altho' my feet Are numbed for want of fire. _Chorus_. Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum, Come, come, come, come, My dearest be not coy, For if you are (zit, zan, zounds) I Must without your favour die. The sentiment in the following is easily appreciated, but is there not also some slight essence of humour? ON FLOWERS IN A LADY'S BOSOM. Behold the promised land, where pleasures flow! See how the milk-white hills do gently rise, And beat the silken skies! Behold the valley spread with flowers below! The happy flowers, how they allure my sense! The fairer soil gives them the nobler hue Her breath perfumes them too: Rooted i' th' heart they seem to spring from thence, Tell, tell me why, thou fruitful virgin breast, Why should so good a soil lie unpossest? Brown's humour partook of the coarseness of most of the writers of his times, and scandalized the more religious and decent muse of Sir Richard Blackmore, who endeavoured to correct this general failing in his "Satire upon Wit." This called forth many sarcastic replies, and critiques on Blackmore's works; such as Brown's "Epigram occasioned by the news that Sir R----d B----e's paraphrase upon Job was in the Press--" "When Job contending with the devil I saw It did my wonder, not my pity draw; For I concluded that without some trick, A saint at any time could match old Nick. Next came a fiercer fiend upon his back, I mean his spouse, stunning him with her clack, But still I could not pity him, as knowing A crab tree cudgel soon would send her going. But when the quack engaged with Job I spy'd, The Lord have mercy on poor Job I cry'd. What spouse and Satan did attempt in vain The quack will compass with his murdering pen, And on a dunghill leave poor Job again, With impious doggrel he'll pollute his theme, And make the saint against his will blaspheme." Upon the knighting of Sir R----d B----e.