Once on a Time a Nightingale,
To Changes prone,
Unconstant, fickle, whimsical,
(A Female one)
Who sung like others of her kind,
Hearing a well-taught Linnet's Airs,
Had other Matters in her Mind.
To imitate him she prepares;
Her Fancy strait was on the Wing:
I fly, quoth she,
As well as he;
I don't know why
I should not try
As well as he to sing.
From that Day forth she chang'd her Note,
She spoil'd her Voice, she strain'd her Throat:
She did, as learned Women do,
Till every Thing
That heard her sing
Wou'd run away from her——as I from you.
[Exit Esop running.
Hortensia sola.
How grossly does this poor World suffer itself to be impos'd upon!—--Esop, a Man of Sense——Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Alas, poor Wretch! I shou'd not have known him but by his Deformity; his Soul's as nauseous to my Understanding, as his odious Body to my Sense of Feeling. Well,
'Mongst all the Wits that are allow'd to shine,
Methinks there's nothing yet approaches mine:
Sure I was sent the homely Age t'adorn; }
What Star, I know not, rul'd when I was born, }
But every Thing besides myself's my Scorn. }
[Exit.
[ACT II.]
Enter Euphronia and Doris.
Dor. What, in the Name of Jove, 's the matter with you? Speak, for Heaven's sake!