That secret rare, between the extremes to move
Of mad good-nature, and of mean self-love.
B. To worth or want well-weigh'd, be bounty given,
And ease or emulate the care of Heaven;
(Whose measure full o'erflows on human race ;)
Mend fortune's fault, and justify her grace.
Wealth in the gross is death, but life, diffused;
As poison heals in just proportion used,
In heaps, like ambergris, a stink it lies,
But well dispersed, is incense to the skies
P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats.
Is there a lord, who knows a cheerful noon
Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon?
Whose table, wit or modest merit share,
Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player?
Who copies yours or Oxford's better part,
Shouldering God's altar a vile image stands,
Belies his features, nay, extends his hands;
That live-long wig, which Gorgon's self might own,
Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.
Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend!
And see what comfort it affords our end.
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies-alas! how chang'd from him,
That life of Pleasure, and that soul of whim'
240 Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring
Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king;
No wit to flatter, left of all his store;
No fool to laugh at, which he valu'd more;
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends!
To ease the oppress'd and raise the sinking heart?
Where'er he shines, O Fortune, gild the scene,
And angels guard him in the golden mean!
There, English bounty yet awhile may stand,
And honour linger ere it leaves the land.
But all our praises why should lords engross?
Rise, honest muse! and sing the MAN OF ROSS: 250
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns toss'd,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless pouring through the plain,
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread :
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate:
Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
any sick? the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives.
Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.
B. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue What all so wish, but want the power to do! Say, O what sums that generous hand supply; What mines to swell that boundless charity?
P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possess'd-five hundred pounds a year. Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze!
Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.
B. And what! no monument, inscription, stone?
His race,
his form, his name almost unknown?
P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough that virtue fill'd the space between,
Proved by the ends of being to have been.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch who, living, eaved a candle's end;
His Grace's fate sage Cutler could foresee,
And well (he thought) advis'd him, ‘Live like me.'
As well his Grace replied, 'Like you, sir John?
That I can do, when all I have is gone.'
Resolve me, reason, which of these is worse,
Want with a full or with an empty purse?
Thy life more wretched, Cutler! was confess'd:
Arise, and tell me, was thy death more bless'd?
Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall;
For very want he could not build a wall.
His only daughter in a stranger's power,
For very want, he could not pay a dower;
A few gray hairs his reverend temples crown'd;
'Twas very want that sold them for two pound.
What! e'en denied a cordial at his end,
Banish'd the doctor, and expell'd the friend?
What but a want, which you perhaps think mad,
Yet numbers feel the want of what he had!
Cutler and Brutus dying, both exclaim,
Virtue and wealth! what are ye but a name !'
Say, for such worth are other worlds prepared?
Or are they both, in this, their own reward?
A knotty point to which we now proceed,
But you are tired-I'll tell a tale-B. Agreed.
P. Where London's column, pointing at the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies,
There dwelt a citizen of sober fame,
A plain good man, and Balaam was his name;
Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth:
His word would pass for more than he was worth
One solid dish his week-day meal affords,
An added pudding solemnized the Lord's:
Constant at church and 'change; his gains were sure:
His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.
The Devil was piqued such saintship to behold,
And long'd to tempt him, like good Job of old; 350
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And teinpts by making rich, not making poor.
Roused by the prince of air, the whirlwinds sweep
The surge,
and plunge his father in the deep;
Then full against his Cornish lands they roar,
And two rich shipwrecks bless the lucky shore.
Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks,
290 He takes his chirping pint, and cracks his jokes:
Live like yourself,' was soon my lady's word;
And, lo! two puddings smoked upon the board. 360
Asleep and naked as an Indian lay, An honest factor stole a gem away:
He pledged it to the knight; the knight had wit,
So kept the diamond, and the rogue was bit.
Some scruple rose, but thus he eased his thought,
'I'll now give sixpence where I gave a groat;
Where once I went to church, I'll now go twice-
And am so clear too of all other vice.'
The tempter saw his time: the work he plied;
Stocks and subscriptions pour on every side,
Till all the demon makes his full descent
In one abundant shower of cent per cent,
Sinks deep within him, and possesses whole,
Then dubs director, and secures his soul.
Behold sir Balaam, now a man of spirit,
Ascribes his gettings to his parts and merit;
What late he call'd a blessing, now was wit,
And God's good providence, a lucky hit.
Things change their titles, as our manners turn:
His compting-house employed the Sunday morn : 380
Seldom at church ('twas such a busy life,)
But duly sent his family and wife.
There (so the devil ordain'd) one Christmas tide,
My good old lady catch'd a cold, and died.
A nymph of quality admires our knight;
He marries, bows at court, and grows polite;
Leaves the dull cits, and joins (to please the fair)
The well-bred cuckolds in St. James's air:
First, for his son, a gay commission buys,
Who drinks, whores, fights, and in a duel dies:
His daughter flaunts a viscount's tawdry wife;
She bears a coronet and p-x for life.
In Britain's senate he a seat obtains,
And one more pensioner St. Stephen gains.
My lady falls to play: so bad her chance,
He must repair it; takes a bribe from France;
The house impeach him, Coningsby harangues;
The court forsake him, and sir Balaam hangs :
Wife, son, and daughter, Satan! are thy own;
His wealth, yet dearer, forfeit to the crown:
The devil and the king divide the prize,
And sad sir Balaam curses God, and dies.
TO RICHARD BOYLE, EARL OF
BURLINGTON.
gether parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the repetition of the same too frequently, ver. 105, &c. A word or two of false taste in books, music, in painting, even in preaching and and prayer, a lastly in entertainments, ver. 133, &c. Yet Providence is justified in giving wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the poor and laborious part of mankind, ver. 169. (recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii. and in the Epistle preceding this, ver. 159, &c.] What are the proper objects of magnificence, and a proper field for the expense of great men, ver. 177, &c. And finally the great and public works which become a prince, ver. 191, to the end.
The extremes of avarice and profusion being treated of in the foregoing Epistle, this takes up one particular branch of the latter, the vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality; and is, therefore, a corollary to the preceding, just as the Epistle on the Characters of Women is to that of the Knowledge and Characters of Men. It is equally remarkable for exactness of method with the rest. But the nature of the subject, which is less philosophical, makes it capable of being analysed in a much narrower com pass.
"Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy :
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham drawings and designs;
For Pembroke statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone;
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane:
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.
For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show how many tastes he wanted. What brought sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste? Some demon whisper'd Visto! have a taste.' Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule. See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide: A standing sermon at each year's expense, That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence. You show us Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use; Yet shall, my lord, your just, your noble rules Fill half the land with imitating fools; The vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality. Whose random drawings from your sheets shall take, The abuse of the word Taste, ver. 13, That the first And of one beauty, many blunders make; principle and foundation in this, as in every thing Load some vain church with old theatric state, else, is good sense, ver. 40. The chief proof of it is to Turn arcs of Triumph to a garden gate; follow nature, even in works of mere luxury and elegance. Instanced in architecture and gardening, Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all where all must be adapted to the genius and use of On some patch'd dog-hole eked with ends of wall; the place, and the beauties not forced into it, but re- Then clap four slices of pilaster on 't, sulting from it, ver. 50. How men are disappointed That laced with bits of rustic makes a front; in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all; and the best examples and rules will be but perverted into something burthensome and ridiculous, ver. 65 to 90. A description of the false taste And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door:
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
Oft have you hinted to your brother
of magnificence; the first grand error of which is, to imagine that greatness consists in the size and dimen- A certain truth which many buy too dear; sion, instead of the proportion and harmony of the Something there is more needful than expense, whole, ver. 97, and the second either in joining to-And something previous c'en to taste-'tis sense; Q
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And, though no science, fairly worth the seven :
A light which in yourself you must perceive;
Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.
To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot,
In all, let Nature never be forgot:
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty every where be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole a labour'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before; a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call,
On every side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,
50 No artful wildness to perplex the scene:
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suffering eye inverted nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain never to be play'd,
And there a summer-house that knows no shade;
Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers;
There gladiators fight, or die in flowers;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.
Consult the genius of the place in all:
That tells the waters or to rise or fall;
Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades;
Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines,
Prints as you paint, and as you work designs.
Still follow sense, of every art the soul:
Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,
Start e'en from difficulty, strike from chance:
Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at-perhaps a Stow.
Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls;
And Nero's terraces desert their walls;
The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make,
Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake:
Or cuts wide views through mountains to the plain,
You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again.
E'en in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in a hermitage set Dr. Clarke.
Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete,
His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet;
The wood supports the plain, the parts unite,
And strength of shade contends with strength
light;
A waving gloom the bloomy beds display,
Blushing in bright diversities of day,
With silver-quivering rills meander'd o'er-
Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more :
Tired of the scene parterres and fountains yield,
He finds at last he better likes a field.
My lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen:
But soft-by regular approach-not yet—
First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat! 130
And when up ten steep slopes you've dragged your
thighs,
Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.
His study with what authors is it stored?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord;
70 To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound!
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good,
For all his lordship knows, but they are wood!
For Locke or Milton, 'tis in vain to look:
These shelves admit not any modern book.
And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of prayer :
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.
80 On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
of Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all Paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
But, hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall:
The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Through his young woods how pleased Sabinus Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
Or sat delighted in the thickening shade,
With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet,
Or see the stretching branches long to meet !
His son's fine taste an opener vista loves,
Foe to the Dryads of his father's groves!
One boundless green, or flourish'd carpet views,
With all the mournful family of yews:
The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made,
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.
At Timon's villa let us pass a day,
No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb.
90 A solemn sacrifice perform'd in state:
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick requires each flying course, you'd
Where all cries out,' What sums are thrown away!
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a drought
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect, shivering at a breeze!
Sancho's dead doctor and his wand were there. 160
Between each act the trembling salvers ring,
From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the king.
In plenty starving, tantalized in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave,
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost and little skill,
And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.
Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed;
Health to himself, and to his infants bread,
The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity supplies.
Another age shall see the golden ear
Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre,
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey; Statues of men, scarce less alive than they! Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age, Some hostile fury, some religious rage: Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire, 180 And papal piety, and Gothic fire.
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil?
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle.
'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,
And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.
His father's acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase:
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies, grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town.
You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before:
Till kings call forth the idea of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd ;)
Bid harbours open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthier of the God ascend;
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main;
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land:
These honours peace to happy Britain brings;
These are imperial works, and worthy kings.
TO MR. ADDISON. Occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals.
Perhaps by its own ruins saved from flame,
Some buried marble half preserves a name;
That name the learn'd with fierce dispute pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.
Ambition sigh'd; she found in vain to trust
The faithless column and the crumbling bust;
Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to
shore,
Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more!
190 Convinced, she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps,
Beneath her palm here sad Judea weeps,
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine,
A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.
The medal faithful to its charge of fame,
Through climes and ages bears each form and name:
200 In one short view subjected to our eye,
Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd sight pale antiquaries pore,
The inscription value, but the rust adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears.
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes,
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,
Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd:
And Curio, restless by his fair one's side.
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine :
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her gods and godlike heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush these studies thy regard engage:
These pleased the fathers of poetic rage:
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And art reflected images to art.
This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr. Addison intended to publish his book of medals; it was some time before he was secretary of state; but not published till Mr. Tickell's edition of his works; at which time his verses on Mr. Craggs, Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, which conclude the poem, were added, viz. in 1720. Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? As the third Epistle treated of the extremes of In living medals see her wars enroll'd, avarice and profusion; and the fourth took up one And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold? particular branch of the latter, namely, the vanity of Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face; expense in people of wealth and quality, and was There, warriors frowning in historic brass : therefore a corollary to the third; so this treats of Then future ages with delight shall see one circumstance of that vanity, as it appears in the How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree; 60 common collectors of old coin; and is, therefore, a Or in fair series laurell'd bards be shown, corollary to the fourth. A Virgil there, and here an Addison.
SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears!
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders raised on nations spoil'd,
Where mix'd with slaves the groaning martyr toil'd:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods :
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore, another Pollio, shine;
With aspect open shall erect his head,
And round the orb in lasting notes be read,—
'Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend:
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
And praised, unenvied, by the muse he loved.'
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped;
EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT, If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.
THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.
ADVERTISEMENT
To the first Publication of this Epistle.
This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune, [the authors of Verses to the imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge) but my person, morals, and family;
whereof, to those who know me not, a truer informa. tion may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own lazi. ness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this Epistle. If it have any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if any thing offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous. Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names; and they may escape being laughed at, if they please.
I would have some of them to know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine; since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and
P. 'SHUT, shut the door, good John,' fatigued, I said,
'Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.'
The dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;
By land, by water, they renew the charge;
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
E'en Sunday shines no sabbath-day to me;
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy to catch me !-just at dinner time.
Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross ;
Is there who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darken'd walls;
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace;
And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility; I read
With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,
This saving counsel, Keep your piece nine years.'
'Nine years!' cries he, who, high in Drury-lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Obliged by hunger and request of friends:
"The piece, you think, is incorrect: why take it;
I'm all submission; what you'd have it make it.'
Three things another's modest wishes bound,
My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.
Pitholeon sends to me; You know his grace;
I want a patron; ask him for a place.'
Pitholeon libell'd me-but here is a letter
Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him Curll invites to dine?
He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine.'
Bless me! a packet.-'Tis a stranger sues
A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.'
If I dislike it, 'Furies, death, and rage!'
If I approve, Commend it to the stage.'
There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The players and I are, luckily, no friends.
Fired that the house reject him, "'Sdeath! I'll print it,
And shame the fools-your interest, sir, with Lintot.'
Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much :'
Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.'
All my demurs but double his attacks:
At last he whispers, 'Do; and we go snacks.'
Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door,
Sir, let me see your works and you no more.'
"Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring
(Midas, a sacred person and a king,)
His very minister, who spied them first,
(Some say his queen,) was forced to speak, or
burst.
And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,
When every coxcomb perks them in my face?
A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dangerous
things,
I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings;
Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,
'Tis nothing-P. Nothing? if they bite and kick ?
Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he's an ass:
The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie ?)
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel : take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gallery, in convulsions hurl'd,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribbler? Break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew:
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again,
Throned on the centure of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines:
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arch'd eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer?
|