Your tongue, too nimble for your sense,
  Is guilty of a high offence;
  Hath introduced unkind debate,
  And topsy-turvy turn’d our state. 
  In gallantry I sent the ring,
  The token of a love-sick king: 
  Under fair Mab’s auspicious name
  From me the trifling present came. 
  You blabb’d the news in Suffolk’s ear;
  The tattling zephyrs brought it here,
  As Mab was indolently laid
  Under a poppy’s spreading shade. 
  The jealous queen started in rage;
  She kick’d her crown, and beat her page: 
  ’Bring me my magic wand ’, she cries;
  ’Under that primrose, there it lies;
  I’ll change the silly, saucy chit,
  Into a flea, a louse, a nit,
  A worm, a grasshopper, a rat,
  An owl, a monkey, hedgehog, bat. 
  But hold, why not by fairy art
  Transform the wretch, into—? 
  Ixion once a cloud embraced,
  By Jove and jealousy well placed;
  What sport to see proud Oberon stare
  And flirt it with a—!’
  Then thrice she stamped the trembling ground,
  And thrice she waved her wand around;
  When I, endow’d with greater skill,
  And less inclined to do you ill,
  Mutter’d some words, withheld her arm,
  And kindly stopp’d the unfinish’d charm. 
  But though not changed to owl or bat,
  Or something more indelicate;
  Yet, as your tongue has run too fast,
  Your boasted beauty must not last. 
  No more shall frolic Cupid lie
  In ambuscade in either eye,
  From thence to aim his keenest dart
  To captivate each youthful heart: 
  No more shall envious misses pine
  At charms now flown, that once were thine: 
  No more, since you so ill behave,
  Shall injured Oberon be your slave.

There is one word which I could wish had not been there, though it is prettily excused afterwards.  The next day my Lady Suffolk desired I would write her a patent for appointing Lady Temple poet laureate to the fairies.  I was excessively out of order with a pain in my stomach, which I had had for ten days, and was fitter to write verses like a poet laureate, than for making one; however, I was going home to dinner alone, and at six I sent her some lines, which you ought to have seen how sick I was, to excuse; but first, I must tell you my tale methodically.  The next morning by nine o’clock Miss Hotham (she must forgive me twenty years hence for saying she was eleven, for I recollect she is but ten) arrived at Lady Temple’s, her face and neck all spotted with saffron, and limping.  ‘Oh, madam!’ said she, ’I am undone for ever if you do not assist me!’ ‘Lord, child,’ cried my Lady Temple, ‘what is the matter?’ thinking she had hurt herself, or lost the ring, and that she was stolen out before her aunt was up.  ’Oh, madam,’ said the girl, ‘nobody but you can assist me!’ My Lady Temple protests the child acted her part so well as to deceive her.  ’What can I do for you?’ ’Dear madam, take this load from my back; nobody but you can.’