Now backs of letters, though design'd
For those who more will need 'em,
Are fill'd with hints, and interlin'd,
Himself can hardly read 'em.
Each atom by some other struck
All turns and motions tries:
Till, in a lump together stuck,
Behold a poem rise:
Yet to the dean his share allot;
He claims it by a canon;
That without which a thing is not,
Is, causa sine quâ non.
Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your wit;
For, had our deaf divine
Been for your conversation fit,
You had not writ a line.
Of Sherlock[1] thus, for preaching fam'd,
The sexton reason'd well;
And justly half the merit claim'd,
Because he rang the bell.
A LOVE POEM
FROM A PHYSICIAN TO HIS MISTRESS.
WRITTEN AT LONDON.
BY poets we are well assur'd
That love, alas! can ne'er be cur'd:
A complicated heap of ills,
Despising boluses and pills.
- ↑ The dean of St. Paul's, father to the bishop.
