Which, happening on the skin to light, And there corrupting to a wound, Spreads leprosy and baldness round.[5]        So have I seen a batter'd beau, By age and claps grown cold as snow, Whose breath or touch, where'er he came, Blew out love's torch, or chill'd the flame:      And should some nymph, who ne'er was cruel, Like Carleton cheap, or famed Du-Ruel, Receive the filth which he ejects, She soon would find the same effects Her tainted carcass to pursue, As from the Salamander's spue; A dismal shedding of her locks, And, if no leprosy, a pox.      "Then I'll appeal to each bystander, If this be not a Salamander?" 

      [Footnote 1: The famous Mareschal Turenne, general of the French forces, called the greatest commander of the age.]       [Footnote 2: Admiral of the States General in their war with England, eminent for his courage and his victories.]       [Footnote 3: Who obtained this name from his coolness under fire at the siege of Namur. See Journal to Stella, "Prose Works," vol. ii, p. 267.—W. E. B.]       [Footnote 4: "Animal lacertae figura, stellatum, numquam nisi magnis imbribus proveniens et serenitate desinens."—Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," lib. x, 67.]       [Footnote 5: "Huic tantus rigor ut ignem tactu restinguat non alio modo quam glacies. ejusdem sanie, quae lactea ore vomitur, quacumque parte corporis humani contacta toti defluunt pili, idque quod contactum est colorem in vitiliginem mutat."—Lib. x, 67. "Inter omnia venenata salamandrae scelus maximum est. . . . nam si arbori inrepsit omnia poma inficit veneno, et eos qui ederint necat frigida vi nihil aconito distans."—Lib. xxix, 4, 23.—W. E. B.] 

  

  

       TO CHARLES MORDAUNT, EARL OF PETERBOROUGH[1]     

        Mordanto fills the trump of fame, The Christian world his deeds proclaim, And prints are crowded with his name. In journeys he outrides the post, Sits up till midnight with his host, Talks politics, and gives the toast. Knows every prince in Europe's face, Flies like a squib from place to place, And travels not, but runs a race. From Paris gazette à-la-main, This day arriv'd, without his train, Mordanto in a week from Spain. A messenger comes all a-reek Mordanto at Madrid to seek; He left the town above a week. Next day the post-boy winds his horn, And rides through Dover in the morn:      Mordanto's landed from Leghorn. Mordanto gallops on alone,   

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