How like the son of Jove I stand, This Hydra stretched beneath the hand! Lay bare the monster's entrails here, And see what dangers threat the year: Ye gods! what sonnets on a wench! What lean translations out of French! 'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound, S-- prints, before the months go round. But hold, before I close the scene The sacred altar should be clean. O had I Shadwell's second bays, Or, Tate, thy pert and humble lays! (Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow I never missed your works till now,) I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine, That only way you please the Nine: But since I chance to want these two, I'll make the songs of D'Urfey do. Rent from the corpse, on yonder pin, I hang the scales that braced it in; I hang my studious morning gown, And write my own inscription down. 'This trophy from the Python won, This robe, in which the deed was done, These, Parnell, glorying in the feat, Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat. Here Ignorance and Hunger found Large realms of wit to ravage round; Here Ignorance and Hunger fell, Two foes in one I sent to hell. Ye poets who my labours see Come share the triumph all with me! Ye critics, born to vex the Muse, Go mourn the grand ally you lose!' T. PARNELL. A MOTH Here he beholds in triumph sit The bane of beauty, sense, and wit; Demolished distichs round his head, Half lines and shattered stanzas spread, While the insulting conqueror climbs O'er mighty heaps of ruined rhymes, And, proudly mounted, views from high, Beneath, the harmonious fragments lie; Boasting himself from foes secured, In stanzas lodged, in verse immured. W. KING (?) _Bibliotheca._ THE CURE FOR BOOKWORMS There is a sort of busy worm That will the fairest books deform, By gnawing holes throughout them; Alike through every leaf they go, Yet of its merits naught they know, Nor care they aught about them. Their tasteless tooth will tear and taint The poet, patriot, sage, or saint, Nor sparing wit nor learning: Now, if you'd know the reason why, The best of reasons I'll supply-- 'Tis bread to the poor vermin. Of pepper, snuff, or 'bacca smoke, And russia-calf they make a joke. Yet why should sons of science These puny, rankling reptiles dread? 'Tis but to let their books be read, And bid the worms defiance. J. F. M. DOVASTON. ROYAL PATRONAGE OF BOOKS Queen Charlotte, when discussing books with Fanny Burney and Mrs. Delany, during the former's residence at Court at Windsor, praised the work of a writer who had translated a German book into English, saying 'I wish I knew the translator,' to which Miss Burney replied, 'I wish the translator knew that!'