which is headed To Celia— Occasioned by her apprehending her House would be broke open, and having an old Fellow to guard it, who sat up all Night, with a Gun without any Ammunition, and from which it has been concluded that the Miss Cradocks were their own landlords, Venus chides Cupid for neglecting to guard her favourite:—
“‘Come tell me, Urchin, tell no lies; Where was you hid, in Vince’s eyes? Did you fair Bennet’s Breast importune? (I know you dearly love a Fortune.)’ Poor Cupid now began to whine; ‘Mamma, it was no Fault of mine. I in a Dimple lay perdue, That little Guard-Room chose by you. A hundred Loves (all arm’d) did grace The Beauties of her Neck and Face; Thence, by a Sigh I dispossest, Was blown to Harry Fielding’s Breast; Where I was forc’d all Night to stay, Because I could not find my Way. But did Mamma know there what Work I’ve made, how acted like a Turk; What Pains, what Torment he endures, Which no Physician ever cures, She would forgive.’ The Goddess smil’d, And gently chuck’d her wicked Child, Bid him go back, and take more Care, And give her Service to the Fair.”
Swift, in his Rhapsody on Poetry, 1733, coupled Fielding with Leonard Welsted as an instance of sinking in verse. But the foregoing, which he could not have seen, is scarcely, if at all, inferior to his own Birthday Poems to Stella. [Footnote: Swift afterwards substituted “the laureate [Cibber]” for “Fielding,” and appears to have changed his mind as to the latter’s merits. “I can assure Mr. Fielding,” says Mrs. Pilkington in the third and last volume of her Memoirs (1754), “the Dean had a high opinion of his Wit, which must be a Pleasure to him, as no Man was ever better qualified to judge, possessing it so eminently himself.”]
