The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown',
The imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libel'd person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A frend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his SOVEREIGN's ear-
Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair virtue! welcome even the last!
A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?
P. A knave's a knave to me, in every state:
Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,
A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;
If on a pillory, or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded satirist Dennis will confess
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhymed for Moore.
Full ten years 3 slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie.
To please his mistress, one aspersed his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleased, except his will¤;
Let the two Curlls of town and court, abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and muse 7.

1 As, that he received subscriptions for Shakspeare, that he set his name to Mr Broome's verses, &c., which, though publicly disproved, were nevertheless shamelessly repost in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epistle.

2 Namely, on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr. Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Gay, his friends, his parents, and his very nurse, aspersed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Welsted, Tho. Bentley, and other obscure persons.

3 It was so long, after many libels, before the author of the Dunciad published that poem; till when, he never writ a word in answer to the many scurrilities and falsehoods concerning him.

This man had the impudence to tell, in print, that Mr. P. had occasioned a lady's death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also published that he libeled the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had lived in familiarity, and received from him a prosent of five hundred pounds: the falsehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr. P. never received any present, farther than the subscription for Homer, from him, or from any great man whatsoever.

Budgell, in a weekly pamphlet called The Bee, bestowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the last will of Dr. Tindal, in the Grub-street Journal; a paper wherein he never had the least hand, direction, or supervizal, nor the least knowledge of its author.

Alluding to Tindal's will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him.

Yet why that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!
Unspotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in virtue, or in song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause,
While yet in Britain honour had applause)
Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray?—
P. Their own,

And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walk'd innoxious through his age.
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By Nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance, and by exercise;
His life, though long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.
O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!
Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O Friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these, if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my
friend,

Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when he served a QUEEN.

A. Whether that blessing be denied or given, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

7 In some of Curll's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's father was said to be a mechanic, a hatter, a farmer, nay a bankrupt. But, what is stranger, a nobleman (if such a reflection could be thought to come from a nobleman) had dropt an allusion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity; and the following line,

"Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure,"

had fallen from a like courtly pen, in certain verses to the imitator of Horace. Mr. Pope's father was of a gentleman's family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole heiress married the Earl of Lindsay.— His mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq., of York: she had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of her family.-Mr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; she in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this poem was finished. The following inscription was placed by their son on their monument in the parish of Twickenham, in Middlesex:

D. O. M.

ALEXANDRO. POPE, VIRO, INNOCVO, PROBO. PIO.
QUI. VIXIT. ANNOS. LXXV. OB. MDCCXVII.
ET. EDITHE. CONIVGI. INCVLPABILI.
PIENTISSIMÆ, QUÆ, VIXIT. ANNOS.
XCIII. OB. MDCCXXXIII.

PARENTIBVS, BENEMERENTIBVS, FILIVS, FECIT.

ET. SIBI.

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE

IMITATED.

Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.-HOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I versified at the desire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was lord treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been secretary of state; neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage,— the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni æquus virtuti atque ejus amicis.

SATIRE I.

TO MR. FORTESCUE.

P. THERE are, (I scarce can think it, but am told)

There are, to whom my Satire seems too bold:
Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough,

And something said of Chartres much too rough.
The lines are weak, another's pleased to say,
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe,
I come to counsel learned in the law:

You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free,
Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.
F. I'd write no more.

P. Not write? but then I think,
And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.

I nod in company, I wake at night,

Fools rush into my head, and so I write.

F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Why, if the nights seem tedious-take a wife: Or rather truly, if your point be rest, Lettuce and cowslip-wine; Probatum est. But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes. Or, if you needs must write, write CESAR's praise, You'll gain at least a knighthood, or the bays.

P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,

With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK crowd

F. Then all your muse's softer art display, Let CAROLINA smooth the tuneful lay, Lull with AMELIA's liquid name the nine, And sweetly flow through all the royal line.

P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; They scarce can bear their laureat twice a year; And justly CESAR scorns the poet's lays, It is to history he trusts for praise.

F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, Than ridicule all taste, blaspheme quadrille, Abuse the city's best good men in metre, And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter. Even those you touch not hate you.

P. What should ail 'em? F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam: The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.

P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny
Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his ham-pie;
Ridotta sips and dances, till she see
The doubling lustres dance as fast as she;
F- loves the senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
Like in all else, as one egg to another.
I love to pour out all myself, as plain
As downright SHIPPEN, or as old Montaigne :
In them, as certain to be loved as seen,
The soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within;
In me what spots (for spots I have) appear,
Will prove at least the medium must be clear.
In this impartial glass, my muse intends
Fair to expose myself, my foes, my friends;
Publish the present age; but where my text
Is vice too high, reserve it for the next:
My foes shall wish my life a longer date,
And every friend the less lament my fate.
My head and heart thus flowing through my
quill,

Verse-man or prose-man, term me which you will,
Papist or protestant, or both between,
Like good Erasmus in an honest mean,
In moderation placing all my glory,

While tories call me whig, and whigs a tory.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet;
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,
Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors.
Save but our army! and let Jove incrust
Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust!
Peace is my dear delight-not FLEURY'S more:
But touch me, and no minister so sore.
Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song.

Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage,
Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page.
From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate,
P-x'd by her love, or libel'd by her hate.
Its proper power to hurt, each creature feels;
Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels;
"Tis a bear's talent not to kick, but hug;
And no man wonders he's not stung by pug.
So drink with Walters, or with Chartres eat,
They'll never poison you, they'll only cheat.

Then, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short)
Whate'er my fate, or well or ill at court,
Whether old age, with faint but cheerful ray,
Attends to gild the evening of my day,
Or Death's black wing already be display'd,
To wrap me in the universal shade;

Whether the darken'd room to muse invite,
Or whiten'd wall provoke the skewer to write;
In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint,
Like Lee or Budgell, I will rhyme and print.
F. Alas, young man! your days can ne'er be
In flower of age you perish for a song! [lor.g!
Plums and directors, Shylock and his wife,
Will club their testers, now, to take your life!
P. What? arm'd for virtue when I point the
pen,

Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men;
Dash the proud gamester in his gilded car;
Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star;
Can there be wanting, to defend her cause,
Lights of the church, or guardians of the laws?
Could pension'd Boileau lash in honest strain
Flatterers and bigots e'en in Louis' reign?
Could laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage,
Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?
And I not strip the gilding off a knave,
Unplaced, unpension'd, no man's heir, or slave?
I will, or perish in the generous cause:
Hear this, and tremble! you, who 'scape the laws.
Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave
Shall walk the world, in credit, to his grave.
TO VIRTUE ONLY and HER FRIENDS A FRIEND,
The world beside may murmur, or commend.
Know, all the distant din that world can keep,
Rolls o'er my grotto, and but soothes my sleep.
There, my retreat the best companions grace,
Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place.
There ST. JOHN mingles with my friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul:

And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines',

Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines,
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain.

Envy must own I live among the great,
No pimp of pleasure, and no spy of state,
With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne'er repeats,
Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats;
To help who want, to forward who excel;
This all who know me, know; who love me, tell ;
And who unknown defame me, let them be
Scribblers or peers, alike are mob to me.
This is my plea, on this I rest my cause--
What saith my counsel, learned in the laws?

F. Your plea is good; but still I say, beware! Laws are explain'd by men-so have a care. It stands on record, that in Richard's times A man was hang'd for very honest rhymes. Consult the statute: quart. I think, it is, Edwardi sext. or prim. et quint. Eliz. See Libels, Satires-here you have it-read. P. Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed! But grave epistles, bringing vice to light, Such as a king might read, a bishop write, Such as Sir ROBERT would approve

F. Indeed The case is alter'd-you may then proceed; In such a cause the plaintiff will be hiss'd, My lords the judges laugh, and you're dismiss'd.

1 Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, who in the year 1705 took Barcelona, and in the winter following, with only two hundred and eighty horse and nine hundred foot, enterprised and accomplished the conquest of Valencia.

THE SECOND SATIRE
OF THE

SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

TO MR. BETHEL.

WHAT, and how great, the virtue and the art
To live on little with a cheerful heart;
(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine)
Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine.
Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride
Turns you from sound philosophy aside;
Not when from plate to plate your eye-balls roll,
And the brain dances to the mantling bowl.

Hear BETHEL's sermon, one not versed in schools,

But strong in sense, and wise without the rules.
Go work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began)
Then scorn a homely dinner, if you can.
Your wine lock'd up, your butler stroll'd abroad,
Or fish denied, (the river yet unthaw'd)
If then plain bread and milk will do the feat,
The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat.

Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men
Will choose a pheasant still before a hen;
Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold,
Except you eat the feathers green and gold.
Of carps and mullets why prefer the great,
(Though cut in pieces ere my lord can eat)
Yet for small turbots such esteem profess?
Because God made these large, the other less.
Oldfield with more than harpy throat endued,
Cries, "Send me, Gods! a whole hog barbecued?!"
Oh blast it, south winds! till a stench exhale
Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit's tail.

By what criterion do ye eat, d'ye think,
If this is prized for sweetness, that for stink?
When the tired glutton labours through a treat,
He finds no relish in the sweetest meat,
He calls for something bitter, something sour,
And the rich feast concludes extremely poor:
Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we see ;
Thus much is left of old simplicity;
The robin-red-breast till of late had rest,
And children sacred held a marten's nest,
Till becaficos sold so devilish dear
To one that was, or would have been, a peer.
Let me extol a cat, on oysters fed,
I'll have a party at the Bedford-head";
Or e'en to crack live craw-fish recommend;
I'd never doubt at court to make a friend.
'Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother
About one vice, and fall into the other;
Between excess and famine lies a mean,
Plain, but not sordid; though not splendid, clean.
Avidien or his wife, (no matter which,
For him you'll call a dog, and her a bitch)
Sell their presented partridges, and fruits,
And humbly live on rabbits and on roots:
One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine,
And is at once their vinegar and wine.
But on some lucky day (as when they found
A lost bank-bill, or heard their son was drown'd)
At such a feast, old vinegar to spare,

Is what two souls so generous cannot bear:

2 A West Indian term of gluttony; a hog roasted whole, stuffed with spice, and basted with Madeira wine.

3 A famous eating-house.

Oil, though it stink, they drop by drop impart,
But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart.
He knows to live, who keeps the middle state,
And neither leans on this side, nor on that;
Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay,
Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away;
Nor lets, like Nævius, every error pass,
The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass.

Now hear what blessings temperance can bring:
(Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing)
First health: the stomach (cramm'd from every dish
A tomb of boil'd and roast, and flesh and fish,
Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar,
And all the man is one intestine war)
Remembers oft the schoolboy's simple fare,
The temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air.
How pale, each worshipful and reverend guest
Rise from a clergy, or a city feast!
What life in all that ample body say?
What heavenly particle inspires the clay?
The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines
To seem but mortal, even in sound divines.

On morning wings how active springs the mind
That leaves the load of yesterday behind?
How easy every labour it pursues?
How coming to the poet every muse?
Not but we may exceed, some holy time,

Or tired in search of truth, or search of rhyme;
Ill health some just indulgence may engage,
And more the sickness of long life, old age:
For fainting age what cordial drop remains,
If our intemperate youth the vessel drains?

Our fathers praised rank venison. You suppose,
Perhaps, young men, our fathers had no nose.
Not so: a buck was then a week's repast,
And 'twas their point, I ween, to make it last;
More pleased to keep it till their friends could come,
Than eat the sweetest by themselves at home.
Why had not I in those good times my birth,
Ere coxcomb-pies or coxcombs were on earth?
Unworthy he the voice of Fame to hear,
That sweetest music to an honest ear,
(For 'faith, Lord Fanny! you are in the wrong,
The world's good word is better than a song)
Who has not learn'd, fresh sturgeon and ham-pie
Are no rewards for want, and infamy!
When luxury has lick'd up all thy pelf,
Cursed by thy neighbours, thy trustees, thyself,
To friends, to fortune, to mankind a shame,
Think how posterity will treat thy name;
And buy a rope, that future times may tell
Thou hast at least bestow'd one penny well.
"Right," cries his lordship, "for a rogue in need
To have a taste, is insolence indeed:
In me 'tis noble, suits my birth and state,
My wealth unwieldy, and my heap too great."
Then, like the sun, let Bounty spread her ray,
And shine that superfluity away.

O impudence of wealth! with all thy store,
How darest thou let one worthy man be poor?
Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall?
Make keys, build bridges, or repair Whitehall:
Or to thy country let that heap be lent,
As Mo's was, but not at five per cent.

Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind. [mind,
And who stands safest? tell me, is it he
That spreads and swells in puff'd prosperity,
Or blest with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a war?

Thus BETHEL spoke, who always speaks his

thought,

And always thinks the very thing he ought:
His equal mind I copy what I can,

And as I love, would imitate the man.

In South-Sea days not happier, when surmised
The lord of thousands, than if now excised;
In forest planted by a father's hand,
Than in five acres now of rented land.
Content with little, I can piddle here
On brocoli and mutton, round the year;
But ancient friends (though poor, or out of play)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
"Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards,
But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords.
To Hounslow-heath I point, and Bansted-down,
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my

own:

From yon old walnut-tree a shower shall fall;
And grapes, long lingering on my only wall,
And figs from standard and espalier join;
The devil is in you if you cannot dine:
Then cheerful healths, (your mistress shall have
place)

And, what's more rare, a poet shall say grace.

Fortune not much of humbling me can boast; Though double tax'd, how little have I lost? My life's amusements have been just the same, Before and after standing armies came. My lands are sold, my father's house is gone; I'll hire another's; is not that my own, And yours, my friends? through whose free-opening gate

None comes too early, none departs too late; (For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.)

66

"Pray Heaven it last! (cries SWIFT)" as you go on
I wish to God this house had been your own:
Pity to build, without a son or wife:
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."
Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one,
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon ?
What's property? dear Swift! you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or, in pure equity, (the case not clear)
The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year:
At best, it falls to some ungracious son,
Who cries," My father's damn'd, and all's my own.”
Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;

And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight1,
Slides to a scrivener or a city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

THE FIRST EPISTLE
OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

ST. JOHN, whose love indulged my labours past, Matures my present, and shall bound my last! Why will you break the Sabbath of my days! Now sick alike of envy and of praise.

1 Villiers Duke of Buckingham.

Public too long, ah let me hide my age!
See modest Cibber now has left the stage:
Our generals now, retired to their estates,
Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates,
In life's cool evening satiate of applause,
Nor fond of bleeding, even in BRUNSWICK'S cause.
A voice there is, that whispers in my ear,
('Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)
Friend Pope! be prudent, let your muse take
And never gallop Pegasus to death; [breath,
Lest stiff, and stately, void of fire or force,
You limp, like Blackmore, on a lord mayor's
horse."

Farewell then verse, and love, and every toy,
The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy;
What right, what true, what fit we justly call,
Let this be all my care-for this is all:
To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste
What every day will want, and most, the last.
But ask not to what doctors I apply?
Sworn to no master, of no sect am I:
As drives the storm, at any door I knock:
And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke.
Sometimes a patriot, active in debate,
Mix with the world, and battle for the state,
Free as young Lyttelton, her cause pursue,
Still true to virtue, and as warm as true:
Sometimes with Aristippus, or St. Paul,
Indulge my candour, and grow all to all;
Back to my native moderation slide,
And win my way by yielding to the tide.

Long, as to him who works for debt, the day,
Long as the night to her whose love's away,
Long as the year's dull circle seems to run,
When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one:
So slow the unprofitable moments roll,
That lock up all the functions of my soul;
That keep me from myself; and still delay
Life's instant business to a future day:
That task, which as we follow, or despise,
The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise.
Which done, the poorest can no wants endure;
And which not done, the richest must be poor.
Late as it is, I put myself to school,
And feel some comfort not to be a fool.
Weak though I am of limb, and short of sight,
Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite;
I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise,
To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.
Not to go back, is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk at least before they dance.
Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move
With wretched avarice, or as wretched love?
Know, there are words, and spells, which can con-
Between the fits this fever of the soul; [trol
Know, there are rhymes which, fresh and fresh
applied,

Will cure the arrant'st puppy of his pride.
Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk,
Slave to a wife, or vassal to a punk,

A Switz, a High-Dutch, or a Low-Dutch bear;
All that we ask is but a patient ear.

"Tis the first virtue, vices to abhor; And the first wisdom, to be fool no more.

1 The fame of this heavy poet, however problematical elsewhere, was universally received in the city of London. His versification is here exactly described: stiff, and not strong; stately, and yet dull, like the sober and slow-paced animal generally employed to mount the lord mayor; and therefore here humorously opposed to Pegasus.

But to the world no bugbear is so great,
As want of figure, and a small estate.
To either India see the merchant fly,
Scared at the spectre of pale Poverty!
See him, with pains of body, pangs of soul,
Burn through the tropic, freeze beneath the pole !
Wilt thou do nothing for a nobler end,
Nothing to make philosophy thy friend?
To stop thy foolish views, thy long desires,
And ease thy heart of all that it admires?
Here, Wisdom calls: "Seek virtue first, be bold!
As gold to silver, virtue is to gold."
There, London's voice: "Get money, money still!
And then let Virtue follow, if she will."
This, this the saving doctrine, preach'd to all,
From low St. James's up to high St. Paul;
From him whose quills stand quiver'd at his ear,
To him who notches sticks at Westminster.
Barnard in spirit, sense, and truth abounds;
"Pray then, what wants he?" Fourscore thou-
sand pounds;

A pension, or such harness for a slave
As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have.
Barnard, thou art a cit, with all thy worth ;
But Bug and D * 1, their Honours, and so forth.
Yet every child another song will sing,
"Virtue, brave boys! 'tis virtue makes a king."
True, conscious honour is to feel no sin,
He's arm'd without that's innocent within;
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass;
Compared to this, a minister's an ass.

And say, to which shall our applause belong,
This new court jargon, or the good old song?
The modern language of corrupted peers,
Or what was spoke at CRESSY and POICTIERS?
Who counsels best? who whispers, "Be but great,
With praise or infamy leave that to fate;
Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place."
For what to have a box where eunuchs sing,
And foremost in the circle eye a king.

Or he, who bids thee face with steady view
Proud Fortune, and look shallow Greatness thro':
And, while he bids thee, sets the example too?
If such a doctrine, in St. James's air,
Should chance to make the well-drest rabble stare;
If honest S*z take scandal at a spark,
That less admires the palace than the park:
Faith I shall give the answer reynard gave:
"I cannot like, dread sir, your royal cave:
Because I see, by all the tracks about,
Full many a beast goes in, but none come out."
Adieu to virtue, if you're once a slave:
Send her to court, you send her to her grave.
Well, if a king's a lion, at the least

The people are a many-headed beast:
Can they direct what measures to pursue,
Who know themselves so little what to do?

Alike in nothing but one lust of gold,
Just half the land would buy, and half be sold:
Their country's wealth our mightier misers drain,
Or cross, to plunder provinces, the main ;
The rest, some farm the poor-box, some the pews;
Some keep assemblies, and would keep the stews;
Some with fat bucks on childless dotards fawn;
Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn;
While with the silent growth of ten per cent.,
In dirt and darkness, hundreds stink content.

Of all these ways, if each pursues his own,
Satire, be kind, and let the wretch alone: