I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care,
Averted half your parents' simple prayer;
And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf
That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself.
The generous God who wit and gold refines,
And ripens spirits as he ripens mines,
Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it,
To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.

[Footnote 142: A reference to Addison's tragedy of _Cato_.]
[Footnote 143: Young lawyers resident in the
temple. See Spenser's _Prothalamion_.]
[Footnote 144: Martha Blount, a dear friend of the poet's.]
[Footnote 145: The fashionable promenade in Hyde Park.]
[Footnote 146: The "pool" in the game of ombre.]

* * * * *

JOSEPH ADDISON.

SIGNOR NICOLINI AND THE LION.

[From the _Spectator_.]

There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater
amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini's combat with a lion in the
Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general
satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great
Britain....But before I communicate my discoveries I must acquaint the
reader that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was
thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous
animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it,
appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised,
told me in a gentle voice that I might come by him if I pleased; "for,"
says he, "I do not intend to hurt any body." I thanked him very kindly
and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the
stage and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by
several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice
since his first appearance, which will not seem strange when I acquaint
the reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three
several times.

The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of a testy,
choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be
killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of
him that he grew more surly every time he came out of the lion; and
having dropt some words in ordinary conversation, as if he had not
fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his back
in the scuffle, and that he would wr