Fie upon’t. 

All men are false, I think.  The date of love
Is out, expired, its stories all grown stale,
O’er past, forgotten, like an antique tale
Of Hero and Leander. 

    JOHN WOODVIL.

All are not false.  I knew a youth who died
For grief, because his Love proved so,
And married with another. 
I saw him on the wedding-day,
For he was present in the church that day,
In festive bravery deck’d,
As one that came to grace the ceremony. 
I mark’d him when the ring was given,
His countenance never changed;
And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing,
He put a silent prayer up for the bride,
For so his moving lip interpreted. 
He came invited to the marriage feast
With the bride’s friends,
And was the merriest of them all that day: 
But they, who knew him best, called it feign’d mirth;
And others said,
He wore a smile like death upon his face. 
His presence dash’d all the beholders’ mirth,
And he went away in tears.

          What followed then?

          Oh! then
          He did not, as neglected suitors use,
          Affect a life of solitude in shades,
          But lived,
          In free discourse and sweet society,
          Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best. 
          Yet ever when he smiled,
          There was a mystery legible in his face,
          That whoso saw him said he was a man
          Not long for this world.——­
          And true it was, for even then
          The silent love was feeding at his heart
          Of which he died: 
          Nor ever spake word of reproach,
          Only, he wish’d in death that his remains
          Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far
          From his mistress’ family vault, “being the place
          Where one day Anna should herself be laid.”

DICK STRYPE; OR, THE FORCE OF HABIT

A Tale—­By Timothy Bramble

(1801)

Habits are stubborn things:
And by the time a man is turn’d of forty,
His ruling passion’s grown so haughty
There is no clipping of its wings. 
The amorous roots have taken earth, and fix
And never shall P—­TT leave his juggling tricks,
Till H——­Y quits his metre with his pride,
Till W——­M learns to flatter regicide,
Till hypocrite-enthusiasts cease to vant
And Mister W——­E leaves off to cant. 
The truth will best be shewn,
By a familiar instance of our own.

Dick Strype
Was a dear friend and lover of the PIPE;
He us’d to say, one pipe of Kirkman’s best
Gave life a zest. 
To him ’twas meat, and drink, and physic,
To see the friendly vapour
Curl round his midnight taper,
And the black fume
Clothe all the room,