Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine; Charge them with heaven's artillery, bold divine! From such alone the great rebukes endure, Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure; "Tis mine to wash a few light stains; but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears. Howe'er, what's now Apocrypha, my wit, In time to come may pass for Holy Writ.

I shook like a spied spy-Preachers which are
Seas of wit and art, you can, then dare,
Drown the sins of this place; but as for me
Which am but a scant brook, enough shall be
To wash the stains away: although I yet
(With Maccabees' modesty) the known merit
Of my work lessen, yet some wise men shall,
I hope, esteem my writs Canonical.

EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.

DIALOGUE I.

Fr. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print, And when it comes the court sees 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 observes, he lash'd no sort of vice: Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, Higgins 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, and sent them to the king.
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 never offer'd you a groat.
Go see Sir Robert-

P. See Sir Robert!-hum

And never laugh-for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power;
Seen him, uncumber'd with a 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.

A joke on Jekyll, 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?"
Why answer, Lyttleton; 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, hurt not honest Fleury,
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.

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 Young!
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipp'd cream of courtly sense,
That first was H-vy's, F-'s next, and then,
The S-te's, and then H-vy's once again.
O come, that easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,
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;
Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn,
Hang the sad verse on Carolina's 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 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 S-k, and grave D-re.
Silent and soft, as saints removed 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;
There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace
Once break their rest, or stir them from their place;
But past the sense of human miseries,

All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;
No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a question, or a job.

A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty ; T

Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory;

And when three sovereigns died could scare be

vex'd,

Considering what a gracious prince was next.
Have 1, 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, 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, without rebuke,
Swear like a lord, or Rich outwhore a duke?
A favourite's porter with his master vie,
Be bribed as often, and as often lie?

DIALOGUE II.

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 scar,
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.

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. Hold: 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.

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 à 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;