Brave Warwick Guy, at dinner time,

Challeng'd a gyant savage; And streight came out the unweildy lout Brim-full of wrath and cabbage: He had a phiz of latitude,

And was full thick i' th' middle; The cheeks of puffed trumpeter,

And paunch of squire Beadle.* But the knight fell'd him, like an oak, And did upon his back tread ; The valiant knight his weazon cut, And Atropos his packthread. Besides he fought with a dun cow,

As say the poets witty,

A dreadful dun, and horned too,
Like dun of Oxford city :

The fervent dog-days made her mad,

By causing heat of weather, Syrius and Procyon baited her,

As bull-dogs did her father: Grasiers, nor butchers this fell beast,

E'er of her frolick hindred; John Dosset† she'd knock down as flat, As John knocks down her kindred: Her heels would lay ye all along,

And kick into a swoon; Frewin's cow-heels keep up your corpse, But hers would beat you down. She vanquisht many a sturdy wight, And proud was of the honour; Was pufft by mauling butchers so, As if themselves had blown her. At once she kickt, and pusht at Guy, But all that would not fright him ; Who wav'd his winyard o'er sir-loyn, As if he'd gone to knight him. He let her blood, frenzy to cure, And eke he did her gall rip; His trenchant blade, like cook's long spit,

Ran thro' the monster's bald-rib:

* Men of bulk answerable to their places, as is well known at Oxford.

A butcher that then served the college. A cook, who on fast nights was famous for selling cow-heel and tripe.

He rear'd up the vast crooked rib, Instead of arch triumphal :

But George hit th' dragon such a pelt, As made him on his bum fall. St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France; Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Tamerlain, with Tartarian bow,
The Turkish squadrons slew;
And fetch'd the pagan crescent down,
With half-moon made of yew:
His trusty bow proud Turks did gall
With showers of arrows thick,
And bow-strings, without strangling,

sent

Grand-Visiers to old Nick:

Much turbants, and much Pagan pates
He made to humble in dust;
And heads of Saracens he fixt

On spear, as on a sign-post:
He coop'd in cage Bajazet the prop
Of Mahomet's religion,
As if 't had been the whispering bird,
That prompted him, the pigeon.
In Turkey-leather scabbard, he

Did sheath his blade so trenchant But George he swing'd the dragon's a. And cut off every inch on't. St. George he was for England; Dennis was for France; Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.

The amazon Thalestris was

Both beautiful and bold; She sear'd her breasts with iron hot, And bang'd her foes with cold. Her hand was like the tool, wherewith Jove keeps proud mortals under : It shone just like his lightning,

And batter'd like his thunder.
Her eye darts lightning, that would blast
The proudest he that swagger'd,
And melt the rapier of his soul,

In its corporeal scabbard.
Her beauty, and her drum to foes
Did cause amazement double;

As timorous larks amazed are

With light, and with a low-bell:
With beauty, and that lapland-charm,*
Poor men she did bewitch all;
Still a blind whining lover had,

As Pallas had her scrich-owl.
She kept the chastness of a nun
In armour, as in cloyster :
But George undid the dragon just
As you'd undo an oister.

St. George he was for England; St.
Dennis was for France;

Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Stout Hercules was offspring of
Great Jove and fair Alcmene:
One part of him celestial was,
One part of him terrene.
To scale the hero's cradle-walls

Two fiery snakes combin'd,
And, curling into swaddling cloaths,
About the infant twin'd:
But he put out these dragons' fires,
And did their hissing stop;
As red-hot iron with hissing noise

Is quencht in blacksmith's shop.
He cleans'd a stable, and rubb'd down
The horses of new-comers;

And out of horse-dung he rais'd fame,
As Tom Wrench+ does cucumbers.
He made a river help him through;

Alpheus was under-groom;
The stream, disgust at office mean,
Ran murmuring thro' the room:
This liquid ostler to prevent

Being tired with that long work, His father Neptune's trident took, Instead of three-tooth'd dung-fork. This Hercules, as soldier, and

As spinster, could take pains; His club would sometimes spin ye flax, And sometimes knock out brains: H' was forc'd to spin his miss a shift By Juno's wrath and hér-spite;

*The drum.

+ Who kept Paradise Gardens at Oxford.

Fair Omphale whipt him to his wheel,

As cook whips barking turn-spit. From man, or churn, he well knew how To get him lasting fame :

He'd pound a giant, till the blood,
And milk till butter came.
Often he fought with huge battoon,
And oftentimes he boxed;

Tapt a fresh monster once a month,
As Hervey* doth fresh hogshead.
He gave Anteus such a hug,

As wrestlers give in Cornwall:
But George he did the dragon kill,
As dead as any door-nail.

St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;

Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.

The Gemini, sprung from an egg,
Were put into a cradle :

Their brains with knocks and bottledale,

Were often-times full addle: And, scarcely hatch'd, these sons of him,

That hurls the bolt trisulcate,
With helmet-shell on tender head,

Did tustle with red-ey'd pole-cat.
Castor a horseman, Pollux tho'
A boxer was, I wist:
The one was fam'd for iron heel;
Th' other for leaden fist.
Pollux to shew he was a god,

When he was in a passion
With fist made noses fall down flat

By way of adoration:

This fist, as sure as French discase,
Demolish'd noses' ridges:
He like a certain lord+ was fam'd
For breaking down of bridges.

* A noted drawer at the Mermaid tavern in Oxford.

† Lord Lovelace broke down the bridges about Oxford at the beginning of the Revolu tion. See on this subject a ballad in Smith's Poems, p. 102. London, 1713.

Castor the flame of fiery steed,

With well-spur'd boots took down ; As men, with leathern buckets, quench A fire in country town.

His famous horse, that liv'd on oats,
Is sung on oaten quill;
By bards' immortal provender
The nag surviveth still.

This shelly brood on none but knaves
Employ'd their brisk artillery:
And flew as naturally at rogues,
As eggs at thief in pillory.*
Much sweat they spent in furious fight,

Much blood they did effund:
Their whites they vented thro' the pores;

Their yolks thro' gaping wound : Then both were cleans'd from blood and dust

To make a heavenly sign;

The lads were, like their armour, scowr'd,

And then hung up to shine; Such were the heavenly double-Dicks, The sons of Jove and Tyndar: But George he cut the dragon up,

As he had bin duck or windar.

St. George he was for England; St.
Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Gorgon a twisted adder wore

For knot upon her shoulder: She kemb'd her hissing periwig,

And curling snakes did powder. These snakes they made stiff changelings Of all the folks they hist on; They turned barbars into hones, And masons into free-stone: Sworded magnetic Amazon

Her shield to load-stone changes;

It has been suggested by an ingenious correspondent that this was a popular subject at that time:

"Not carted Bawd, or Dan de Foe,

In wooden Ruff ere bluster'd so."
Smith's Poems, P. 117.

Then amorous sword by magic belt

Clung fast unto her haunches. This shield long village did protect,

And kept the army from-town, And chang'd the bullies into rocks,

That came t' invade Long-Compton.* She post-diluvian stores unmans,

And Pyrrha's work unravels; And stares Deucalion's hardy boys Into their primitive pebbles. Red noses she to rubies turns, And noddles into bricks : But George made dragon laxative; And gave him a bloody flix. St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;

Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.

By boar-spear Meleager got

An everlasting name,

And out of haunch of basted swine,
He hew'd eternal fame.
This beast each hero's trouzers ript,

And rudely shew'd his bare-breech, Prickt but the wem, and out there came Heroic guts and garbadge.

Legs were secur'd by iron boots

No more than peas by peascods: Brass helmets, with inclosed sculls, Wou'd crackle in's mouth like chesnuts.

His tawny hairs erected were

By rage, that was resistless;
And wrath, instead of cobler's wax,
Did stiffen his rising bristles.
His tusk lay'd dogs so dead asleep,

Nor horn, nor whip cou'd wake 'um: It made them vent both their last blood,

And their last album-grecum. But the knight gor'd him with his spear, To make of him a tame one, And arrows thick, instead of cloves, He stuck in monster's gammon.

* See the account of Rolricht Stones, in Dr. Plott's History of Oxfordshire.