---- ---- Spreto Ciconum quo munere matres Inter sacra deûm, nocturnique orgia Bacchi, Discerptum latos juvenem sparsêre per agros. Tum quoque marmoreâ caput à cervice revulsum, Gurgite cum medio portans Oeagrius Hebrus Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua Ah miseram Eurydicen anima fugiente, vocabat: Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ! NOTES. [5] The celebrated villa of ROSCIUS. On Hebrus' banks so tuneful Orpheus died; His limbs the fields receiv'd, his head the tide. Nor more its stream renown'd than Thames in fame[6]: Here Catherine Hayes serv'd Goodman Hayes the same. Here on this spot, where now th' Adelphi stands, Was thrown her husband's noddle from her hands; His scatter'd limbs left quiv'ring on the shore; As Thracian wives had play'd their part before. Oh, horrour, horrour! NYKY back return; Nor more for grenadiers imprudent burn. And yet, ah why should NYKY thus be blam'd? Of manly love ah! why are men asham'd? A new red coat, fierce cock and killing air Will captivate the most obdurate fair; What wonder then if NYKY's tender heart At such a sight should feel a lover's smart: No wonder love, that in itself is blind, Should no distinction in the difference find; No wonder love should NYKY thus enthrall; Almighty love, at times, subdues us all; While, vulgar prejudices soar'd above, NYK gave up all the world,--well lost for love. IMITATIONS. Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori. NOTES. [6] See the Tyburn Chronicle and Newgate lamentations _pro tempore_; particularly that famous ballad, entitled A merry song about murder, beginning with, "In Tyburn-road there liv'd a man," &c. Yet slight the cause of NYKY's late mishap; NYK but mistook the colour of the cap: A common errour, frequent in the Park, Where love is apt to stumble in the dark. Why rais'd the haughty female head so high, With the tall caps of grenadiers to vie? Why does it like tremendous figure make, To subject purblind lovers to mistake?[7] Or rather why, in these enlighten'd times, Should rigid Nature call such errours crimes? "Thou Nature art my goddess," saith the play; But even Shakespeare's text hath had its day. More gentle custom no such rigour knows; And custom into second nature grows. Let vulgar passions move the vulgar mind, Superior souls feel motives more refin'd: Among the low-bred English slow advance Th' Italian _gusto_ and _bon ton_ of France. Strange to the classic lore of Greece and Rome, And rudely nurs'd in ignorance at home, The tasteless herd e'en construe into sin, That poets should in metaphor lie in, While I, their best man-midwife, must be sham'd, Whene'er the Fashionable Lover's nam'd. NOTES. [7] NYKY is near sighted.