BODLEIAN

- 7 APR 1200

LIBRA

Come then, my Friend! my Genius! come along;
Oh, master of the poet and the song!

And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends,
To man's low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various Nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise.....
Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?
Shall then this Verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That, urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart?
For Wit's false mirror held up Nature's light,
Shew'd erring Pride--whatever is, is right---------
That virtue only makes our bliss below,
And all our knowledge is---ourselves to know?
Essay on Man.

PRINTED AND EMBELLISHED

Under the Direction of

C. COOKE.

EPISTLE

ΤΟ

DR. ARBUTHNOT;

BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

ADVERTISEMENT

To the first Publication of this Epistle.

This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune [the authors of "Verses to the Imitator of Horace," and of an "Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court"] to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge) but my person, morals, and family; whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so aukward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this Epistle. If it have any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if any thing offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please.

I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that 1 make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine, However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.

P." SHUT, shut the door, good John!” fatigued, I said;

"Tie up the knocker; say I'm sick, I'm dead."
The dog-star rages! nay, tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out:

5

Fire in each eye, and papers in cach hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide,

By land, by water, they renew the charge,
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. 10
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Ev'n Sunday shines no sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy to catch me just at dinner-time.

Is there a parson much be-mus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,`

A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
Is there who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song,)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped;

If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.
To laugh were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head,
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

15

21

25

30

35

This saving counsel, "Keep your peace nine years." "Nine years!" cries be, who, high in Drury

Lane,

Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends, Oblig'd by hunger and request of friends: 44 "The piece, you think, is incorrect? why take it; I'm all submission; what you'd have it—inake it."