[CONTENTS.]

PAGE
THE LOVER'S WATCH[1]
POEMS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS (1684)[113]
A VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF LOVE[223]
LYCIDUS; OR, THE LOVER IN FASHION (1688)[293]
POEMS APPENDED TO LYCIDUS[343]
WESTMINSTER DROLLERY (1671)[364]
MISCELLANY (1685)[365]
GILDON'S MISCELLANY (1692)[387]
GILDON'S CHORUS POETARUM (1694)[390]
MUSES MERCURY (1707)[391]
FAMILIAR LETTERS (1718)[395]
PROLOGUE TO ROMULUS[398]
EPILOGUE TO ROMULUS[399]
SATYR ON DRYDEN[400]
PROLOGUE TO VALENTINIAN[401]
TO HENRY HIGDEN, ESQ.[403]
ON THE DEATH OF E. WALLER, ESQ.[405]
A PINDARIC POEM TO DR. BURNET[407]
NOTES[411]
INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF POEMS[439]
GENERAL INDEX[446]

[THE LOVER'S WATCH.]

INTRODUCTION.

La Môntre: or, The Lover's Watch, 'Licensed 2 Aug. 1686. R.L.S.' is taken by Mrs. Behn from La Môntre of Balthazar de Bonnecorse. After having received an excellent education at Marseilles, where he was born, de Bonnecorse was appointed consul at Cairo, and later transferred to Sidon in the Levant. Whilst at Cairo he composed La Môntre, a mixture of prose and verse, which he sent to the great arbiter of Parisian taste, Georges de Scudéri, under whose care it was printed in 1666 at Paris. It was followed in 1671 by the second part, la Boëte et le Miroir, dedicated to the Duke de Vivonne. Upon his return to France, de Bonnecorse abridged La Môntre and put it wholly into verse, in which form it appears in his collected (yet incomplete) works, 'Chez Theodore Haak.' Leyden, 1720. Bonnecorse died at Marseilles in 1706. He is always piquant and graceful in his madrigals and songs, though both sentiment and verse have faded a little with the passing of time. Boileau immortalized him in Le Lutrin: la Môntre is one of the missiles the enraged canons hurl at each other's reverend pates: 'L'un prend l'Edit d'amour, l'autre en saisit la Môntre.' Bonnecorse's attempted parody on Le Lutrin, le Lutrigot (Marseille, 1686), is of no value, and brought a caustic epigram down on his head.

To Peter Weston, Esq.;
Of The Honourable Society Of The Inner-Temple.