Try it, my Own. You have no choice,
What if you lose your charming voice!"
She tried, it seems. And whether then
Some god stepped in, benign to men;
Or Modesty, too long outlawed,
Contrived to aid the pious fraud,
I know not:--but from that same day
She talked in quite a different way.

THE NOBLE PATRON.

"_Ce sont les amours
Qui font les beaux jours._"

What is a _Patron_? JOHNSON knew,
And well that lifelike portrait drew.
_He is a Patron who looks down
With careless eye on men who drown;
But if they chance to reach the land,
Encumbers them with helping hand._
Ah! happy we whose artless rhyme
No longer now must creep to climb!
Ah! happy we of later days,
Who 'scape those _Caudine Forks_ of praise!
Whose votive page may dare commend
A Brother, or a private Friend!
Not so it fared with scribbling man,
As POPE says, "under my Queen ANNE."

DICK DOVECOT (this was long, be sure,
Ere he attained his _Wiltshire_ cure,
And settled down, like humbler folks,
To cowslip wine and country jokes)
Once hoped--as who will not?--for fame,
And dreamed of honours and a Name.

A fresh-cheek'd lad, he came to Town
In homespun hose and russet brown,
But armed at point with every view
Enforced in RAPIN and BOSSU.
Besides a stout portfolio ripe
For LINTOT'S or for TONSON'S type.
He went the rounds, saw all the sights,
Dropped in at _Wills_ and _Tom's_ o' nights;
Heard BURNET preach, saw BICKNELL dance,
E'en gained from ADDISON a glance;
Nay, once, to make his bliss complete,
He supp'd with STEELE in _Bury Street_.
('Tis true the feast was half by stealth:
PRUE was in bed: they drank her health.)

By this his purse was running low,
And he must either print or go.
He went to TONSON. TONSON said--
Well! TONSON hummed and shook his head;
Deplor'd the times; abus'd the Town;
But thought--at length--it might go down;
With aid, of course, of _Elzevir_,
And _Prologue_ to a Prince, or Peer.
Dick winced at this, for adulation
Was scarce that candid youth's vocation:
Nor did he deem his rustic lays
Required a _Coronet_ for _Bays_.

But there--the choice was that, or none.
The Lord was found; the thing was done.
With HORACE and with TOOKE'S _Pantheon_,
He penn'd his tributary pae