and verses, always agreeable, sometimes refined; he handles dexterously the pretty jargon of mythology; he insinuates into his airy, flowing verses all the dainty and somewhat affected prettiness of the drawing-room. He sings thus to Chloris: "My passion with your beauty grew, While Cupid at my heart, Still as his mother favour'd you, Threw a new flaming dart." And then sums up: "Each gloried in their wanton part: To make a lover, he Employ'd the utmost of his art; To make a beauty, she."[301] There is no love whatever in these pretty things; they are received as they are presented, with a smile; thy form part of the conventional language, the polite attentions due from gentlemen to ladies. I suppose they would send them in the morning with a nosegay, or a box of preserved fruits. Roscommon indites some verses on a dead lapdog, on a young lady's cold; this naughty cold prevents her singing--cursed be the winter! And hereupon he takes the winter to task, abuses it at length. Here you have the literary amusements of the worldling. They first treat love, then danger, most airily and gayly. On the eve of a naval contest, Dorset, at sea, amidst the pitching of his vessel, addresses a celebrated song to the ladies. There is nothing weighty in it, either sentiment or wit; people hum the couplets as they pass; they emit a gleam of gayety; the next moment they are forgotten. Dorset at sea writes to the ladies, on the night before an engagement: "Let's hear of no inconstancy, We have too much of that at sea." And again: "Should foggy Opdam chance to know Our sad and dismal story, The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe, And quit their fort at Goree. For what resistance can they find From men who've left their hearts behind?" Then come jests too much in the English style: "Then if we write not by each post, Think not we are unkind;... Our tears we'll send a speedier way; The tide shall bring them twice a day." Such tears can hardly flow from sorrow; the lady regards them as the lover sheds them, good-naturedly. She is "at a play" (he thinks so, and tells her so): "Whilst you, regardless of our woe, Sit careless at a play, Perhaps permit some happier man To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan."[302]