Not to go back, 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 controk
Between the fits, the fever of the soul;

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.
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 noble 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;
Fourscore thousand
Pray then what wants he?'
A pension, or such harness for a slave [pounds
As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have.
Barnard, thou art a cit with all thy worth;
But Bug and 1*1, their honours, and so forth.

will sing,

Yet every child another song
Virtue, brave boys' 'tis virtue makes a king.'
frue, 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 o d song?
The modern language of corrupted peers,
Or what was spoke at Cressy or Poitiers?
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 through •
And, while he bids thee, sets the example too?

If such a doctrine, in St. James's air,

Should chance to make the well-dress'd ribble

stare,

In 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 sire, 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:
But show me one who has it in his power
To act consistent with himself an hour.

Si Job sail'd forth, the evening bright and still:
No place on earth, he cried, 'like Greenwich-hiil"
Up starts a palace; lo, the obedient base
Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace,
The silver Thames reflects its marble facc.
Now let some whimsy, or that devil within,
Which guides all those who know not what they

mean,

But give the knight (or give his lady) spleen;
'Away, away! take all your scaffolds down,
For snug's the word: my dear, we'll live in town:
At amorous Flavio is the stocking thrown?
That very night he longs to lie alone.

The fool whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter,
For matrimonial solace dies a martyr
Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch,

Transform themselves so strangely as the rich?
Well, but the poor-the poor have the same itch
They change their weekly barber, weekly news,
Prefer a new japanner to their shoes;

Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and rum
(They know not whither) in a chaise and one;
They hire their sculler, and when once aboard,
Grow sick, and damn the climate-like a lord.

You laugh, half-beau half-sloven if I stand,
My wig all powder, and all snuff my band:
You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,
White gloves, and linen worthy lady Mary!

But when no prelate's lawn, with hair-shirt lined,
Is half so incoherent as my mind,

When (each opinion with the next at strife;
One ebb and flow of follies all my life,)

I plant, root up; I build and then confound;
Turn round to square, and square again to round;
You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this madness but a common case,
Nor once to Chancery, nor to Hale apply;
Yet hang your lip to see a seam awry !
Careless how ill I with myself agree,
Kind to my dress, my figure, not to me.
Is this my guide, philosopher, and friend?
This he, who loves me, and who ought to mend?
Who ought to make me (what he can, or none)
That man divine whom Wisdom calls her own;
Great without title, without fortune bless'd;
Rich e'en when plunder'd, honour'd while oppress',
Loved without youth, and follow'd without power:
At home, though exiled, free, though in the Tower;
In short, that reasoning, high immortal thing,
Just less than Jove, and much above a king;
Nay, half in heaven-except (what's mighty odd)
A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god!

BOOK I.-EPISTLE VI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

This piece is the most finished of all his imitations, and executed in the high manner the Italian painters call con amore; by which they mean, the exertion of that principle which puts the faculties on the stretch, and produces the supreme degree of excellence. For the poet had all the warmth of affection for the great lawyer to whom it is addressed; and, indeed, no man ver more deserved to have a poet for his friend. In

he obtaining of which, as neither vanity, party, no: fear, had any share, so he supported his title to it by all the offices of true friendship.

'Nor to admire, is all the art I know, To make men happy, and to keep them so.' (Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech, So take it in the very words of Creech.)

This vault of air, this congregated ball,
Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall,
There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes
Look through, and trust the Ruler with his skies,
To him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful all without a fear.

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold,
Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold;

All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?
Or popularity? or stars and strings?
'The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?
Say with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze,
And pay the great our homage of amaze?

If weak the pleasure that from these can spring
The fear to want them is as weak a thing:
Whether we dread, or whether we desire,
In either case, believe me, we admire;
Whether we joy or grieve, the same the curse,
Surprised at better, or surprised at worse.
Thus good or bad, to one extreme betray
The unbalanced mind, and snatch the man away
For virtue's self may too much ze¬l be had;
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
Go then, and if you can, admire the state
Of beaming diamonds, and reflected plate;
Procure a taste to double the surprise,
Ard gaze on Parian charms with learned eyes.
3e struck with bright brocade, or Tyrian dye,
Or birth day nobles' splendid livery.