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Were others angry: I excus'd them too;
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;

But each man's fecret standard in his mind,
That cafting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Perfian tale for half a crown,
Juft writes to make his barrenness appear,
And ftrains from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year,
He, who ftill wanting, tho' he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonfenfe leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but profe run mad :
All thefe, my modest satire bad tranflate,
And own'd that nine fuch poets made a Tate.
How did they fume, and ftamp, and roar, and chafe!
And fwear, not Addison himself was fafe.

Peace to all fuch! but were there one whofe fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Bleft with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should fuch a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rife;
Damn with faint praife, affent with civil leer,
And without fneering, teach the reft to fneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to frike,

Juft hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike referv'd to blame, or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a fufpicious friend;
Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers befieg'd,
And fo obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd:
Like Cato, give his little fenate laws,
And fit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praife-
Who but muft laugh, if fuch a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he!
What tho' my name stood rubric on the walls,
Or plaifter'd pofts, with claps, in capitals?
Or fmoaking forth, a hundred hawkers load,
On wings of winds came flying all abroad?
I fought no homage from the race that write ;
I kept, like Afian monarchs, from their fight:
Poems I heeded (now be rhym'd fo long)

No more than thou, great George! a birth-day fong.
I ne'er with wits or witlings pafs'd my days,
To fpread about the itch of verse and praise;
Nor like a puppy, daggl'd thro' the town,
To fetch and carry fing-fong up and down;
Nor at Rehearsals fweat, and mouth'd, and cry'd,
With handkerchief and orange
at my fide;

But fick of fops, and poetry,

and prate,

To Bufo left the whole Caftalian ftate.

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,
Sate full blown Bufo, puff'd by ev'ry quill;
Fed with foft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand and hand in song.

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His library, (where bufts of poets dead
And a true Pindar ftood without a head)
Receiv'd of wits an undistinguish'd race,
Who firft his judgment ask'd, and then a place :
Much they extoli'd his pictures, much his seat,
And flatter'd ev'ry day, and fome days eat:
Till grown more frugal in his riper days,

He paid fome bards with port, and fome with praife,
To fome a dry rehearsal was affign'd,

And others harder ftill) he paid in kind.
Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh,
Dryden alone escap'd this judging eye:
But ftill the great have kindness in reserve,
He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.
May fome choice patron bless each gray goofe quill!
May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo ftill!

So when a statesman wants a day's defence,
Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense,
Or fimple pride for flatt'ry makes demands,
May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!
Bleft be the great! for those they take away,
And those they left me, for they left me Gay;
Left me to fee neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:
Of all thy blameless life the fole return
My verfe, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn!
Oh let me live my own, and die fo too!
(To live and die is all I have to do:)
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,

And fee what friends, and read what books I pleafe:
Above a patron, tho' I condescend

Sometimes to call a minifter my friend.
I was not born for courts or great affairs ;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray❜rs;
Can fleep without a poem in my head,

Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.

Why am I ask'd what next shall fee the light? Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave)

Have I no friend to ferve, no foul to fave?

>> I found him clofe with Swift- - Indeed? no doubt
» (Cries pratling Balbus) fomething will come out.
'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will.

>> No, fuch a genius never can lie ftill;
And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The first lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes.
Poor guiltless I! and can I chufe but smile,
When ev'ry coxcomb knows me by my style?

Curft be the verfe, how well foe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue fcandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the foft-ey'd virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Infults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lye, lame flander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out:
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet abfent, wounds an author's honeft fame:
Who can your merit felfishly approve,
And show the fenfe of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;-

Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lye not, muft at least betray:
Who to the Dean, and filver bell can fwear,
And fees at Cannons what was never there;
Who reads, but with a luft to misapply,
Make fatire a lampoon, and fiction lye.

A lash like mine no honeft man shall dread,
But all fuch babbling blockheads in his stead.

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Let Sporus tremble A.What? that thing of filk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of afs's milk?
Satire or fenfe, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This 'painted child of dirt, that stinks and ftings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred fpaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal fmiles his emptinefs betray,

As shallow ftreams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet fqueaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,

Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad,

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or spite, or smut, ot rhymes, or blafphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now mafter up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithefis.

Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,

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