Considering what a gracious prince was next.
Have I, a ment wonder, seen each things
As pride in slaves, and avance in kings;
And at a peer or peeress, shali I fret,
Who starves a sister, or forewears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shal, the dignity of vice be lost?

Ye Goda ! sha., Cibber's son, without rebuke,
Bwear like a lord, or Rich outwhore a duke?
A favourite's porter with his master vie,
Be bribed as often, and as often he?

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 Blunt dispatch'd himself, he play'd the man;
And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran!
But shall a printer, weary of his life,

Learn, from their books, to hang himself and wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear:
Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care:
This calls the church to deprecate our sin,
And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin.
Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple quaker, or a quaker's wife,
Outdo Landaff in doctrine,-yea in life:
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame:
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
"Tis just alike to virtue and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same beloved, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:
But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore;
Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more:
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And hers the Gospel is, and hers the laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,
Old England's genius, rough with many a sear,
Dragg'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold,
Before her dance: behind her crawl the old !
See thronging millions to the pagod run,
And offer country, parent, wife, or son!
Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim,
That not to be corrupted is the shame.

In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!
See, all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up, with reverential awe,
At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law:
While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry-
'Nothing is sacred now but villany.'

Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
Show there was one who held it in disdain.

Fr.

DIALOGUE II

Tis all a liber-Parton, sir, will say.
P. Not yet my friend! to-morrow, 'faith it may;
And for that very cause I print to-day.
How should I fret to mangle every line,

In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine!
Vice with such giant-strides comes on amain,
Invention strives to be before in vain:
Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong,
Some rising genics sins up to my song.

F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;
E'en Gathry saves half Newgate by a dash.
Spare then the person, and expose the vice.

P. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice!
Come on then, satire! general unconfined,
Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!
Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!
Ye reverend atheists.-F. Scandal! name them, who?
P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do.
Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt,

I never named: the town's inquiring yet.
The poisoning dame-F. You mean-P. I don't.-
F. You do.

P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you!
The bribing statesman-F. Hoid: too high you go.
P. The bribed elector-F. There you stoop too

low.

P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what: Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not? Must great offenders, once escaped the crown, Like royal harts, be never more run down? Admit your law to spare the knight requires, As beasts of nature, may we hunt the 'squires? Suppose I censure-you know what I meanTo save a bishop, may I name a dean?

F. A dean, sir? no; his fortune is not made; You hurt a man that's rising in the trade.

P. If not the tradesman who sets up to-day,
Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may.
Down, down, proud satire! though a realm be
spoil'd,

Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild:
Or, if a court or country's made a job,
Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.

But, sir, I beg you, (for the love of vice!)
The matter's weighty, pray consider twice:
Have you less pity for the needy cheat,
The poor and friendless villain, than the great?
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe

Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
Then better sure it charity becomes
To tax directors, who (thank God) have plums;
Still better, ministers; or, if the thing
May pinch e'en there-why lay it on a king.
F. Stop! stop!

P. Must satire, then, nor rise nor fall?
Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all.
F. Yes, strike that Wild, I'll justify the blow.
P. Strike? why the man was hang'd ten years

ago:

Who now that obsolete example fears?
E'en Peter trembles only for his ears.

F. What, always Peter? Peter thinks you mad,
You make men desperate, if they once are bad,
Else might he take to virtue some years hence-
P. As S-k, if he lives, will love the prince.

F. Strange spleen to S-k!

P. Do I wrong the man?
God knows, I praise a courtier where I can.
When I confess there is who feels for fame,
And melts to goodness, need I Scarborough name?
Pleased let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove
(Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love,)
The scene, the master, opening my view,
I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!
Ev'n in a bishop I can spy desert;
Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart;
Manners with candour are to Benson given;
To Berkley every virtue under heaven.
But does the court a worthy man remove?
That instant, I declare, he has my love:
I shun his zenith, court his mild decline;
Thus Somers once, and Halifax, were mine.
Oft, in the clear still mirror of retreat,

I studied Shrewsbury, the wise and great;
Carleton's calm sense, and Stanhope's noble flame
Compared, and knew their generous end the same :
How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour!
How shined the soul, unconquer'd in the Tower!
How can I Pulteney, Chesterfield, forget,
While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit?
Argyle, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field?
Or Wyndham, just to freedom and the throne,
The master of our passions, and his own?
Names, which I long have loved, nor loved in vain,
Rank'd with their friends, and number'd with their

train.

And if yet higher the proud list should end,
Still let me say, no follower, but a fi end.

Yet think not, friendship only proripts my lays
I follow virtue; where she shines, I praise;
Points she to priest or elder, Whig or Tory,
Or round a quaker's beaver cast a glory
I never (to my sorrow I declare)

Dined with the Man of Ross, or my Lord Mayor.
Some in their choice of friends (nay look not grave)
Have still a secret bias to a knave:

To find an honest man I beat about,
And love him, court him, praise him, in or out.
F. Then why so few commended?

P. Not so fierce;
Find you the virtue, and I'll find the verse.
But random praise-the task can ne'er be done :
Each mother asks it for her booby son;
Each widow asks it for the best of men,
For him she weeps, for him she weds again.
Praise cannot stoop, like satire, to the ground:
The number may be hang'd, but not be crown'd.
Enough for half the greatest of these days,
To escape my censure, not expect my praise.
Are they not rich? what more can they pretend?
Dare they to hope a poet for their friend?
What Richlieu wanted, Louis scarce could gain,
And what young Ammon wish'd, but wish'd in vain.
No power the muse's friendship can command;
No power, when virtue claims it, can withstand:
To Cato, Virgil paid one honest line:

O let my country's friends illumine mine!

F. They too may be corrupted, you'll allow. P. I only call those knaves who are so now. Is that too little? Come then, I'll complySpirit of Arnall! aid me while I lie : Cobham's a coward, Polwarth is a slave, And Lyttleton a dark, designing knave; St. John has ever been a wealthy foolBut let me add, Sir Robert's mighty dull, Has never made a friend in private life, And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife.

But pray when others praise him, do I blame?
Call Verres, Wolsey, any odious name!
Why rail they then, if but a wreath of mine,
O all-accomplish'd St. John! deck thy shrine?
What! shall each spur-gall'd hackney of the day
When Paxton gives him double pots and pay,
Or each new-pension'd sycophant, pretend
To break my windows, if I treat a friend,
Then wisely plead, to me they meant no hurt,
But 'twas my guest at whom they threw the dirt?
Sure, if I spare the minister, no rules

Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools;
Sure, if they cannot cut, it may be said
His saws are toothless, and his hatchets lead.
It anger'd Turenne, once upon a day,
To see a footman kick'd that took his pay;
But when he heard the affront the fellow gave,
Knew one a man of honour, one a knave;
The prudent general turn'd it to a jest,
And begg'd he'd take the pains to kick the rest:
Which not at present having time to do-

F. Hold, sir! for God's sake, where's the affront to you?

Against your worship when had S-k writ?
Or P-ge pour'd forth the torrent of his wit?
Or grant the bard whose distich all commend
[In power a servant, out of power a friend]
To W-le guilty of some venial sin;
What's that to you who ne'er was out nor in?

The priest whose flattery bedropt the crown,
How hurt he you? he only stain'd the gown.
And how did, pray, the florid youth offend,
Whose speech you took, and gave it to a friend?
P. 'Faith, it imports not much from whom it

came;

Whoever borrow'd could not be to blame,
Since the whole house did afterwards the same.
Let courtly wits to wits afford supply,
As hog to hog in huts of Westphaly :
If one, through nature's bounty or his lord's
Has what the frugal, dirty soil affords,
From him the next receives it, thick or thin,
As pure a mess almost as it came in ;
The blessed benefit, not there confined,
Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind.
From tail to mouth, they feed and they carouse;
The last full fairly gives it to the house.

F. This filthy simile, this beastly line
Quite turns my stomach-

P. So does flattery mine: And all your courtly civet-cats can vent, Perfume to you, to me is excrement. But hear me further-Japhet, 'tis agreed,

sin,

I think your friends are out, and would be in. P. If merely to come in, sir, they go out, The way they take is strangely round about.

In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite :
But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write;
And must no egg in Japhet's face be thrown,
Because the deed he forged was not my own?

Must never patriot then declaim at gin,
Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?
No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse,
Without a staring reason on his brows?
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult's not on man, but God?
Ask you what provocation I have had?
The strong antipathy of good to bad.
When truth and virtue an affront endures,

The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours.
Mine, as a foe profess'd to false pretence,
Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense;
Mine, as a friend to every worthy mind;
And mine as man, who feel for all mankind.
F. You're strangely proud.

P. So proud, I am no slave;
So impudent, I own myself no knave;
So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud: I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me :
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone.

O sacred weapon! left for Truth's defence, Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence! To all but heaven-directed hands denied, The muse may give thee, but the gods must guide. Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal; To rouse the watchmen of the public weal, To virtue's work provoke the tardy hall, And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall. Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains, That counts your beauties only by your stains, Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day! The muse's wing shall brush you all away: All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,

All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings;
All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the
press,
Like the last gazette, or the last address.

When black ambition stains a public cause,
A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws,
Not Waller's wreath can hide a nation's scar,
Not Boileau turn the feather to a star.

Not so, when, diadem'd with rays divine,

Touch'd with the flame that breaks from virtue's

And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let flattery sickening see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal verse as mean as mine.
Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,
When truth stands trembling on the edge of law;
Here, last of Britons! let your names be read:
Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,
And for that cause which made your fathers shine,
Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.

F. Alas, alas! pray end what you began,
And write next winter more Essays on Man.

IMITATIONS OF HORACE,

EPISTLE VII.

Imitated in the Manner of Dr. Swift

'Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores :
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W✶ and H** both in town!

'The dog-days are no more the case.' 'Tis true, but winter comes apace: Then southward let your bard retire, Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire, And you shall see, the first warm weather Me and the butterflies together.

My lord, your favours well I know: 'Tis with distinction you bestow;

And not to every one that comes,
Just as a Scotsman does his plums.
'Pray take them, sir-Enough's a feast:
Eat some, and pocket up the rest'—
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues.
'No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs.'
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude's the certain crop;

And 'tis but just, I'll tell you wherefore,
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is or should
Be mighty ready to do good;
But makes a difference in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.

Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
A safe companion and a free;
But if you'd have me always near-
A word, pray, in your honour's ear:
I hope it is your resolution
To give me back my constitution!
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
The engaging smile, the gaiety,

That laugh'd down many a summer sun
And kept you up so oft till one!
And all that voluntary vein,
As when Belinda raised my strain.

A weasel once made shift to slink
In at a corn loft through a chink;
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in;
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, 'You 'scape not so;
Lean as you came, sir, you must go.'

Sir, you may spare your application,
I'm no such beast, nor his relation;
Not one that temperance advance,
Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans;

Extremely ready to resign

All that may make me none of mine;
South-sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.

'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who praised my modesty, and smiled.
'Give me,' I cried (enough for me,)
My bread, and independency!'
So bought an annual rent or two,
And lived just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund, my life.
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low.

There died my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
'Harley, the nation's great support-'
But you may read it, I stop short.

THE LATTER PART OF SATIRE VI. B. II.*
O CHARMING noons! and nights divine!
Or when I sup, or when I dine,
My friends above, my folks below,
Chatting and laughing all a-row,
The beans and bacon set before 'em,
The grace-cup served with all decorum:
Each willing to be pleased, and please,
And e'en the very dogs at ease!
Here no man prates of idle things,
How this or that Italian sings,

A neighbour's madness, or his spouse's,
Or what's in either of the houses:
But something much more our concern,
And quite a scandal not to learn:
Which is the happier, or the wiser,
A man of merit, or a miser ?

Whether we ought to choose our friends,
For their own worth, or our own ends?
What good, or better, we may call,
And what the very best of all?

Our friend Dan Prior, told (you know)

A tale extremely 'à-propos:'
Name a town life, and in a trice
He had a story of two mice.
Once on a time (so runs the fable)
A country mouse, right hospitable,
Received a town mouse at his board,
Just as a farmer might a lord.
A frugal mouse upon the whole,
Yet loved his friend, and had a soul,
Knew what was handsome, and would do't,
On just occasion, 'coûte qui coûte.'
He brought him bacon, (nothing lean ;)
Pudding that might have pleased a dean;
Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,
But wish'd it Stilton for his sake;
Yet, to his guest though no way sparing,
He ate himself the rind and paring.
Our courtier scarce could touch a bit,
But show'd his breeding and his wit;

*See the first part in Swift's Poems

He did his best to seem to eat,
And cried, I vow you're mighty neat;
But, lord, my friend, this savage scene!
For God's sake come, and live with men:
Consider, mice, like men, must die,
Both small and great, both you and I.
Then spend your life in joy and sport;
(This doctrine, friend, I learn'd at court)
The veriest hermit in the nation

May yield, God knows, to strong temptation
Away they come, through thick and thin
To a tall house near Lincoln's-inn:
('Twas on the night of a debate,
When all their lordships had sat late.)
Behold the place, where if a poet
Shined in description, he might show it:
Tell how the moon-beam trembling falls,
And tips with silver all the walls;
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors:
But let it (in a word) be said,
The moon was up, and men a-bed,
The napkins white, the carpet red;
The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
And down the mice sat, 'tête á tête.'

Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law:
'Que ça est bon! Ah, goûtez ça!
That jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,
Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in.
Was ever such a happy swain?
He stuffs, and swills, and stuffs again.
'I'm quite ashamed-'tis mighty rude
To eat so much-but all's so good
I have a thousand thanks to give-
My lord alone knows how to live.'
No sooner said, but from the hall
Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all:

་

'A rat, a rat! clap to the door-' The cat comes bouncing on the floor. O for the heart of Homer's mice, Or gods to save them in a trice! (It was by Providence they think, For your damn'd stucco has no chink.) An't please your honour,' quoth the peasant, "This same desert is not so pleasant: Give me again my hollow tree,

A crust of bread, and liberty!'

BOOK IV.-ODE I.

TO VENUS.

AGAIN? new tumults in my breast?

Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest.

I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne.

Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms!

Mother too fierce of dear desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires: To number five direct your doves,

There spread round Murray all your blooming loves;

Noble and young, who strikes the heart
With every sprightly, every decent part;

Equal the injured to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend. He, with a hundred arts refined,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind: To him each rival shall submit,

Make but his riches equal to his wit. Then shall thy form the marble grace,

(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face; His house, embosom'd in the grove,

Sacred to social life and social love, Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,

Where Thames reflects the visionary scene: Thither the silver-sounding lyres

Shall call the smiling loves and young desires; There, every grace and muse shall throng,

Exalt the dance, or animate the song; There youths and nymphs, in concert gay,

Shall hail the rising, close the parting day. With me, alas! those joys are o'er;

For me the vernal garlands bloom no more. Adieu! fond hope of mutual fire,

The still-believing, still renew'd desire: Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,

And all the kind deceivers of the soul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear!

Steals down my cheek the involuntary tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,

Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dress'd in Fancy's airy beam,

Absent I follow through the extended dream; Now, now I cease, I clasp thy charms,

And now you burst (ah cruel) from my arms! And swiftly shoot along the Mall,

Or softly glide by the canal; Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,

And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.

PART OF ODE IX. OF BOOK IV.
A FRAGMENT.

LEST you should think that verse shall die,
Which sounds the silver Thames along,
Taught on the wings of truth to fly

Above the reach of vulgar song;
Though daring Milton sits sublime,
In Spenser native muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,

Nor pensive Cowley's moral laySages and chiefs, long since had birth

Ere Cæsar was, or Newton named; These raised new empires o'er the earth, And those new heavens and systems framed. Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride They had no poet, and they died; In vain they schemed, in vain they bled! They had no poet, and are dead.

MISCELLANIES.

On Receiving from the Right Hon. Lady Frances
Shirley, a Standish and two Pens.

Yes, I beheld the Athenian queen
Descend in all her sober charms;
And, 'Take,' she said, and smiled serene,
Take at this hand celestial arins:

'Secure the radiant weapons wield;

This golden lance shall guard desert, And if a vice dares keep the field,

This steel shall stab it to the heart.'

Awed, on my bended knees I fell,

Received the weapons of the sky,
And dipp'd them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.
'What well? what weapon?' Flavia cries
A standish, steel and golden pen;

It came from Bertrand's, not the skies;
I gave it you to write again.

'But, friend, take heed whom you attack;
You'll bring a house, I mean of peers,
Red, blue, and green, nay, white and black,
L***** and all about your ears.

'You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run on ivory so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.
'Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell you, fool, there's nothing in 't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.
'Come, and if you 'll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll

Of those that sing of these poor eyes.'

EPISTLE TO ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD,
AND EARL MORTIMER.

Sent to the Earl of Oxford, with Dr. Parnell's Poems, published by our Author, after the said Earl's imprisonment in the Tower and Retreat into the Coun try, in the Year 1721.

SUCH were the notes thy once-loved poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh, just beheld, and lost: admired, and mourn'd! With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd! Bless'd in each science, bless'd in every strain! Dear to the muse! to Harley dear-in vain! For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For Swift and him, despised the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great; Dexterous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleased to escape from flattery to wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear, (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear,) Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days, Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays, Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great; Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall. And sure, if aught below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine: A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, and passion, and all pride, The rage of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre and the dread of death