Full Title: The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle. Volume XXXIV. For the Year M.DCC.LXIV. By Sylvanus Urban, Gent. London: Printed by D. Henry and R. Cave, at St. John’s Gate.
Poetical Essays: June 1764.
To the Rev. Gentleman on his being presented with a Pair of Garters by a Lady.
Since P—r, substitute of Venus now,
To whom a crowd of vot’ries daily bow,
From the rich stores of her abundant grace,
Mov’d with thy fair rotundity of face;
(That face where smiles eternal vigils keep,
For sure you smile when you are fast asleep)
Has on your Reverendship bestow’d the garter
From angry rivals, brother, hope no quarter;
But, by the lusty sun, she judges right,
Thou are a blooming, full proportion’d knight
But what, my rose of Sharon, means this gift,
Is now the business of thy brains to sift;
Say, did the fair present this mystic garter
Merely to make thy person something smarter?
Nought can be added to the man she loves,
Brawny as Mars, and sleek as Venus’ doves.
Perhaps she meant “but Friendship’s holy knot,
“The union incorporeal” — You sot
‘Twas not the ethereal touch of soul and soul
These garters typify’d. ’twas cheek by jole;
And, but for virgin shame, herself would own
The purpose was — to have the stocking thrown.
Eighteenth-Century Reading Room 