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24

POLLY PEACHUM:

A New BALLAD.

[_]

To the TUNE of, Of all the Girls that are so smart.

I

Of all the Belles that tread the Stage,
There's none like pretty Polly,
And all the Musick of the Age,
Except her Voice, is Folly;
The waining Nymphs of Drury-Lane
I now can bear no longer;
And when she's present, I disdain
My quondam Favourite Younger.

II

Compar'd with her, how flat appears
Cuzzoni or Faustina?
And when she sings, I shut my Ears
To warbling Senesino.
25

What though her Father is a Rogue,
Her Mother though a Whore is?
Those Vices now are high in Vogue,
And Virtue out of Door is.

III

Great Dames there are, who break their Vows
As oft as Madam Peachum,
And greater Robbers than her Spouse,
Though Tyburn cannot reach 'em.
What though Mackheath too is as bad
As Father or as Mother,
And, blest with Polly, is so mad
To ramble to another?

IV

Polly, I ween, is not the first,
Nor will she be the last, Sir,
Who in an Husband hath been curs'd,
And met the same Disaster.
How many Courtiers have we known,
Quite rotten ripe with Poxes,
Who, though they seldom wed but One,
Keep half a Dozen Doxies.
26

V

But Polly's not the worse a Pin,
Her Charms not less cœlestial;
But though to Rogues and Whores a-kin,
An Angel is terrestrial.
Some Prudes indeed, with envious Spight,
Would blast her Reputation,
And tell us that to Ribands bright
She yields, upon Occasion.

VI

But these are all invented Lies,
And vile outlandish Scandal,
Which from Italian Clubs arise,
And Partizans of Handel.
Then let us toast the blooming Lass,
Whose Charms have thus ensnared me,
I'd drink it in a brimming Glass,
Though Parson Herring heard me.
 

The Author of a late famous Sermon against the Beggar's Opera.

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