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His office keeps your parchment fates entire,
He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,
For not in chariots Peter puts his trust:
For you be sweats and labours at the laws,
Takes God to witness he affects your cause,
And lies to every lord in every thing,
Like a king's favourite-or like a king.
These are the talents that adorn them all,
From wicked Waters ev'n to godly **.
Not more of simony beneath black gowns,
Nor inore of bastardy in heirs to crowns.
In shillings and in pence at first they deal,
And steal so little, few perceive they steal;
Till like the sea, they compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover Strand:
And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,
Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's,
Or city-heir in mortgage melts away,
Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
Piece-meal they win this acre first, then that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate;
Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
Indentures, covenants, articles they draw,
Large as the fields themselves, and larger far
Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are;
So vast, our new divines, we must confess,
Are fathers of the church for writing less.
But let them write, for you each rogue impairs
The deeds, and dext'rously omits ses heires:
No commentator can more slily pass
O'er a learn'd unintelligible place;

Or in quotation shrewd divines leave out

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Those words that would against them clear the doubt.
So Luther thought the Pater-noster long,
When doom'd to say his beads and even-song;
But having cast bis cowl, and left those laws,
Adds to Christ's pray' the pow'r and glory clause.
The lauds are bought; but where are to be found
Those ancient woods that shaded all the ground?

We see no new-built palaces aspire,

No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.

Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of yore The good old landlord's hospitable door?

Well, I could wish that still, in lordly domes,

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Some beasts were kill'd, though not whole hecatombs;

That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,
Carthusian fasts and fulsome bacchanals;
And all mankind might that just mean observe,
In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.
These are good works, 'tis true, we'll all allow,
But, oh! these works are not in fashion now:
Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare,
Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

Thus much I've said, I trust without offence:
Let no court sycophant pervert my sense,
Nor sly informer watch, these words to draw
Within the reach of treason or the law,

SATIRE IV.

WELL; if it be my time to quite the stage,
Adieu to all the follies of the age!

I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my purgatory here betimes,
And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes:
The poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames,
To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fir'd,
Nor the vain itch t' admire or be admir'd;
1 hop'd for no commission from his grace;
I bought no benefice, I begged no place ;
Had no new verses nor new suit to show,
Yet went to court!-the devil would have it so.
But as the fool that in reforming days

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Would go to mass in jest; (as story says.)
Could not but think to pay his fine was odd,
Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God,

So was I punish'd, as if full as proud,
As prone to ill, and negligent of good,
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,
As vain as idle, and as false as they

Who live at court, for going once that way!
Scarce was I enter'd, when behold! there came
A thing which Adam had been pos'd to name;
Noah had refus'd it lodging in his ark,

Where all the race of reptiles might embark:
A verier monster than on Afric's shore
The sun e'er got, or slimy Nilus bore,

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Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain, Nay, all that lying travellers can feign.

The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,

At night would swear him dropp'd out of the moon:
One whom the mob, when next we find or make
A popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take,

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And the wise justice, starting from his chair,
Cry, by your priesthood, tell me what you are?
Such was the wight: th' apparel on his back,
Though coarse was reverend, and though bare was
black:

The suit, if by the fashion one might guess,
Was velvet in the youth of good queen Bess,
But mere tuff-taffety what now remain'd;
So time, that changes all things, had ordain'd!
Our sous shall see it leisurely decay,
First turn plain rash, then vanish quite away,

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This thing has travell'd, speaks each language too, And knows what's fit for every state to do; Of whose best phrase and courtly accent join'd He forms one tongue, exotic and refin'd. Talkers I've learn'd to bear; Motteux I knew, Henley himself I've heard, and Budgell too, The doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs, The whole artillery of the terms of war,

And (all those plagues in one) the bawling bar: 55 These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil

Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil;

A tongue that can cheat widows, cancel scores,
Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,
With royal favourites in flatt'ry vie,
And Oldmixon and Burnet both out-lie.

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He spies me out; I whisper, gracious God! What sin of mine could merit such a rod? That all the shot of dulness now must be From this thy blunderbuss discharg'd on me! Permit, he cries, no stranger to your fame, To crave your sentiment, if ***'s your name. What speech esteem you most? "The king's," said I. But the best words?" O, sir, the dictionary." You miss my aim; I mean the most acute, And perfect speaker-" Onslow, past dispute." But, sir, of writers?" Swift for closer style, But Hoadly for a period of a mile.”

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Why, yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pass ;
Good common linguists, and so Panurge was;
Nay, troth, th' apostles (though perhaps too rough)
Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough;
Yet these were all poor gentlemen! 1 dare
Affirm 'twas travel made them what they were.
Thus others' talents having nicely shown,
He came by sure transition to his own:
Till I cried out, "You prove yourself so able,
Pity you was not druggerman at Babel;
For had they found a linguist half so good,
I make no question but the tow'r had stood."
"Obliging sir! for courts you sure were made,
Why then for ever buried in the shade?
Spirits like you should see and should be seen;
The king would smile on you-at least the queen."
"Ah, gentle sir! you courtiers so cajole us→→
But Tully has it, Nunquam minus solus;
And as for courts, forgive me if I say,
No lessons now are taught the Spartan way.
Though in his pictures lust be full display'd,
Few are the converts Aretine has made;

And though the court show vice exceeding clear,
None should, by my advice, learn virtue there."

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At this entranc'd, he lifts his hands and eyes, Squeaks like a high-stretch'd lutestring, and replies, "Oh, 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things

To gaze on princes, and to talk of kings!"
"Then happy man who shews the tombs! (said I)
He dwells amidst the royal family;

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He every day from king to king can walk,
Of all our Harries, all our Edwards talk,
And get, by speaking truth of monarchs dead,
What few can of the living, ease and bread.”
"Lord, sir, a mere mechanic! strangely low,
And coarse of phrase your English all are so.
How elegant your Frenchmen!", Mine, d'ye mean?
I have but one, I hope the fellow's clean."
"O Sir! politely so! nay, let me die,
Your only wearing is your Paduasoy."
"Not, sir, iny only; I have better still,
And this you see is but my dishabille-"
Wild to get loose, his patience I provoke,
Mistake, confound, object at all he spoke:
But as coarse iron, sharpen'd, mangles more,
And itch most hurts when anger'd to a sore;
So when you plague a fool, 'tis still the curse,
You only make the matter worse and worse.

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He past it o'er; affects an casy smile At all my peevishness, and turns his style. He asks, What news:" I tell him of new plays, New eunuchs, harlequins, and operas. He hears, and as a still, with simples in it, Between each drop it gives stays half a minute, Loth to enrich me with too quick replies, By little and by little drops his lies. Mere household trash! of birth-nights, balis, and More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stows. 131 When the queen frown'd or smil'd he knows, and what

A subtle minister may make of that:

[shows,

Who sins, with whom; who got his pension rug,
Or quicken'd a reversion by a drug;

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