Epigram On Hearing Mr. **** Boast That He Could Translate Virgil
By Thomas Oldham
Thou able, boaster! Virgil to translate!
Can'st thou, then, be so vain, so shallow-pated?
To a far higher intellectual state,
Coxcomb! thou must, thyself, be first translated.
*****
A lady had a sickly son;
A skeleton but for his skin:
Her pretty maid he woo'd, and won;
The mother chid him for his sin.
'Her charms were not to be withstood,
Too tempting for frail flesh and blood!
As you, dear Ma'am, must fairly own.'
"That's no excuse for skin and bone."