ouchsafe'd the growing work to view; Finding the painter's science at a stand, The goddess snatch'd the pencil from his hand, And, finishing the piece, she smiling said, Behold one work of mine which ne'er shall fade.
Another compliment of this delicate kind he has made Mr Howard in the following epigram.
VENUS MISTAKEN.
When Chloe's picture was to Venus shown; Surpris'd, the goddess took it for her own. And what, said she, does this bold painter mean? When was I bathing thus, and naked seen? Pleas'd Cupid heard, and check'd his mother's pride: And who's blind now, mamma? the urchin cry'd.
'Tis Chloe's eye, and cheek, and lip, and breast: Friend Howard's genius fancy'd all the rest.
Most of Mr Prior's epigrams are of this delicate cast, and have the thought, like those of Catullus, diffused through the whole. Of this kind is his address
To CHLOE Weeping.
See, whilst thou weep'st, fair Chloe, see The world in sympathy with thee. The cheerful birds no longer sing, Each drops his head, and hangs his wing. The clouds have bent their bosom lower, And shed their sorrow in a shower. The brooks beyond their limits flow, And louder murmurs speak their wo: The nymphs and swains adopt thy cares; They leave thy sighs, and weep thy tears. Fantastick nymph! that grief should move Thy heart obdurate against love. Strange tears! whose pow'r can soften all But that dear breast on which they fall.
The epigram written on the leaves of a fan by Dr Atterbury, late bishop of Rochester, contains a pretty thought, expressed with ease and conciseness, and closed in a beautiful manner.
On a Fan.
Flavia the least and slightest toy Can with restless art employ. This fan in meaner hands would prove An engine of small force in love: Yet she, with graceful air and mien, Not to be told or falsely seen, Directs its wanton motion so, That it wounds more than Cupid's bow, Gives coolness to the matchless dame, To ev'ry other breast a flame.
We shall now select some epigrams of the biting and satirical kind, and such as turn upon the pun or equivocal vogue, as the French call it: in which sort the point is more conspicuous than in those of the former character.
The following distich is an admirable epigram, having all the necessary qualities of one, especially point and brevity.
On a Company of bad Dancers to good Music.
How ill the motion with the music suits! So Orpheus fiddled, and so danc'd the brutes.
This brings to mind another epigram upon a bad fiddler, which we shall venture to insert merely for the humour of it, and not for any real excellence it contains.
To a bad Fiddler.
Old Orpheus play'd so well, he mov'd Old Nick; But thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddle stick.
One of Martial's epigrams, where he agreeably rallies the foolish vanity of a man who hired people to make verses for him, and published them as his own, has been thus translated into English.
Paul, so fond of the name of a poet is grown, With gold he buys verses, and calls them his own. Go on, master Paul, nor mind what the world says, They are surely his own for which a man pays.
Some bad writer having taken the liberty to censure Mr Prior, the poet very wittily lashed his impertinence in this epigram:
While faster than his coifive brain indites Philo's quick hand in flowing letters writes, His case appears to me like honest Teague's When he was run away with by his legs.