EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

(WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.)

DIALOGUE I.

Fr. Nor twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,
And when it comes, the court see nothing in 't.
You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
And are, besides, too moral for a wit.

Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel-
Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?
'Tis all from Horace; Horace, long before ye
Said, Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;'
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
'To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.'
But, Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice ;
Bubo 2 observes, he lash'd no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy 3 served the crown,
Blunt could do business, Huggins knew the town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
In reverend bishops note some small neglects,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,

Who cropp'd our ears, 5 and sent them to the king.

10

Epilogue: the first part of which was originally published as • One thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight.' It appeared the same day with Johnson's London.'-2 Bubo:' Bubb Doddington.-3 Sir Billy:' Yonge. Huggins:' formerly jailor of the Fleet prison, enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled.-P. 'Cropp'd our ears: said to be executed by the captain of a Spanish ship on one Jenkins, the captain of an English one. He cut off his ears, and bid him carry them to the king his master.-P.

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 2 in the MS.-
You don't, I hope, pretend to quit the trade,
Because you think your reputation made:
Like good Sir Paul, of whom so much was said,
That when his name was up, he lay a-bed.

56

Come, come, refresh us with a livelier song,
Or, like Sir Paul, you'll lie a-bed too long

P. Sir, what I write, should be correctly writ.
F. Correct! 'tis what no genius can admit.
Besides, you grow too moral for a wit.

His sly, polite, insinuating style

Could please at court, and make Augustus smile:
An artful manager, that crept between

His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.
But, faith, your very friends will soon be sore;
Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more-
And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought
The great man 1 never offer'd you a groat.

1

Go see Sir Robert

P.

See Sir Robert !-hum-

And never laugh-for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, 2 but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power;
Seen him, uncumber'd with the venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only difference is, I dare laugh out.

F. Why, yes: with Scripture still you may be

free;

A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty;
A joke on Jekyl, or some odd old Whig
Who never changed his principle, or wig:
A patriot is a fool in every age,

Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion
still,

And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.
If
any ask
you, 'Who's the man, so near
His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?'

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The great man:' the first minister.-2 Seen him I have:' alluding to Pope's service to Abbe Southcot, see 'Life.' 3 Jekyl:' Sir Joseph Jekyl, master of the rolls, a true Whig in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity.—P.

Why, answer, Lyttleton,1 and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage:
But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey,2 hurt not honest Fleury,3
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To vice and folly to confine the jest,

Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest ;
Did not the sneer of more impartial men
At sense and virtue, balance all again.
Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.

4

P. Dear sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:
Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth!
Come, harmless characters that no one hit;
Come, Henley's oratory, Osborn's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,
The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Yonge!
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipt cream of courtly sense,
That first wasHervey's, Fox's next, and then
The senate's, and then Hervey's once again.
Oh come, that easy, Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,

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60

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16 'Lyttleton: George Lyttleton, secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished both for his writings and speeches in the spirit of liberty.-P.

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Sejanus, Wolsey:' the one the wicked minister of Tiberius; the other, of Henry VIII. The writers against the court usually bestowed these and other odious names on the minister, without distinction, and in the most injurious manner.—P.—3 Fleury:' Cardinal; and minister to Louis XV. It was a patriot-fashion, at that time, to cry up his wisdom and honesty.-P.— 'Henley, Osborn: see them in their places in The Dunciad.'

As, though the pride of Middleton and Bland,
All boys may read, and girls may understand!
Then might I sing, without the least offence,
And all I sung should be the nation's sense;1
Or teach the melancholy Muse to mourn,
Hang the sad verse on Carolina's 2 urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
All parts perform'd, and all her children bless'd!
So satire is no more-I feel it die-
No gazetteer 3 more innocent than I-

And let, a-God's-name! every fool and knave
Be graced through life, and flatter'd in his grave.
F. Why so? if satire knows its time and place,
You still may lash the greatest-in disgrace :
For merit will by turns forsake them all
Would you know when? exactly when they fall.
But let all satire in all changes spare
Immortal Selkirk, and grave Delaware.5
Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven,
All ties dissolved, and every sin forgiven,
These may some gentle ministerial wing
Receive, and place for ever near a king!

There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport,
Lull'd with the sweet nepenthe of a court;

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90

There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace Once break their rest, or stir them from their place : 103 But past the sense of human miseries,

All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;

4

་

'Nation's sense:' the cant of politics at that time.—2 Carolina : ' Queenconsort to King George I. She died in 1737. See, for her character, 'Heart of Midlothian.'-3 'Gazetteer:' then Government newspaper.- 'Immortal Selkirk: Charles, third son of Duke of Hamilton, created Earl of Selkirk in 1687.5 Grave Delaware: a title given that lord by King James II. He was of the bed-chamber to King William; he was so to King George I.; he was so to King George II. This lord was very skilful in all the forms of the House, in which he discharged himself with great gravity.-P.

No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a question, or a job.

103

P. Good Heaven forbid that I should blast their glory, Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,

110

And when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vex'd,
Considering what a gracious prince was next.
Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings;
And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret,
Who starves a sister,1 or forswears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of vice be lost?

Ye gods! shall Cibber's son,2 without rebuke,
Swear like a lord, or Rich2 out-whore a duke?
A favourite's porter with his master vie,

Be bribed as often, and as often lie?

Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill?
Or Japhet pocket, like his Grace, a will?

Is it for Bond, or Peter, (paltry things)

To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings?
If Blount dispatch'd himself, he play'd the man,
And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran!

But shall a printer,5 weary of his life,

Learn from their books to hang himself and wife?

120

'Sister' alluding to Lady M. W. Montague, who is said to have neglected her sister, the Countess of Mar, who died destitute in Paris.-2 Cibber's son, Rich: two players; look for them in The Dunciad.’—P.—3 ‹ Blount:' author of an impious and foolish book, called 'The Oracles of Reason,' who, being in love with a near kinswoman of his, and rejected, gave himself a stab in the arm, as pretending to kill himself, of the consequence of which he really died.-P. Passeran:' author of another book of the same stamp, called 'A Philosophical Discourse on Death,' being a defence of suicide. He was a nobleman of Piedmont.-5 A printer:' a fact that happened in London a few years past. The unhappy man left behind him a paper justifying his action by the reasonings of some of these authors.-P.

VARIATION.

VER. 112 in some editions- Who starves a mother.'