before;
His servants, horses, oxen, cows--
Short-sighted devil, _not_ to take his spouse!

_Samuel Taylor Coleridge._

REASONS FOR DRINKING

If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink;
Good wine--a friend--or being dry--
Or lest we should be by and by--
Or any other reason why.

_Dr. Henry Aldrich._

SMATTERERS

All smatterers are more brisk and pert
Than those that understand an art;
As little sparkles shine more bright
Than glowing coals, that give them light.

_Samuel Butler._

HYPOCRISY

Hypocrisy will serve as well
To propagate a church, as zeal;
As persecution and promotion
Do equally advance devotion:
So round white stones will serve, they say,
As well as eggs to make hens lay.

_Samuel Butler._

TO DOCTOR EMPIRIC

When men a dangerous disease did 'scape,
Of old, they gave a cock to AEsculape;
Let me give two, that doubly am got free;
From my disease's danger, and from thee.

_Ben Jonson._

A REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.

But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.

_Matthew Prior._

A WIFE

Lord Erskine, at women presuming to rail,
Calls a wife "a tin canister tied to one's tail";
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? consider'd aright,
A canister's useful, and polish'd, and bright:
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.

_Richard Brinsley Sheridan._

THE HONEY-MOON

The honey-moon is very strange.
Unlike all other moons the change
She regularly undergoes.
She rises at the full; then loses
Much of her brightness; then reposes
Faintly; and then ... has naught to lose.

_Walter Savage Landor._

DIDO

IMPROMPTU EPIGRAM ON THE LATIN GERUNDS

When Dido found AEneas would not come,
She mourn'd in silence, and was _Di-do-dum(b)_.