[Page 47]

WRITTEN AT THE Request of a young Divine, TO BE SENT To his MISTRESS, with the Beggar's Opera.

1 In matters of important faith,
2 You rev'rence what the Parson saith;
3 With equal gravity peruse
4 The dictates of the Parson's Muse.
5 But, ere I tune my artless lays,
6 To sing your wit, and beauty's praise;
7 Let me in grateful notes renew
8 My thanks for obligations due.
9 And who indebted would not stand
10 For favours from so fair a hand?
11 Whose sprightly wit can always charm,
12 Whose beauty never fails to warm;
[Page 48]
13 Virtue and innocence your guide,
14 Your sex's pattern, and their pride.
15 Adorn'd with all these charms, beware
16 How you exert your pow'r too far;
17 Mould into smiles each pretty feature,
18 And act the tyrant with good-nature.
19 For see! this Op'ra will reveal
20 How great a crime it is to steal!
21 What laws invented to keep under
22 People inclin'd to theft and plunder.
23 What pity 'tis we cannot boast
24 Of laws to regulate a Toast!
25 For if a wretch, who steals a horse,
26 Or civilly demands your purse,
27 Deserves poor Mackbeath's threaten'd fate;
28 And for example swings in state;
29 What shall we do with those, I pray,
30 Who steal poor people's Hearts away?

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Title (in Source Edition): WRITTEN AT THE Request of a young Divine, TO BE SENT To his MISTRESS, with the Beggar's Opera.
Author: Mary Jones
Themes: virtue; vice
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Jones, Mary, d. 1778. Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. By Mary Jones. Oxford: Printed; and delivered by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Clements in Oxford, and Mr. Frederick in Bath, MDCCL., 1750, pp. 47-48. vi,[1],xlv,[1],405p. (ESTC T115196) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [Harding C 1723].)

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