285

290

Poor guiltless I ! and can I choose but smile,
When every coxcomb knows me by my style?

Cursed be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbor's peace,
Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slanders helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out;
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend, 295
Yet wants the honor, injured, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you

say, And, if he lie not, must at least betray: Who to the dean' and silver bell’ can swear, And sees at Canons what was never there; 300 Who reads, but with a lust to misapply; Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie; A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead. Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of silk,

305 Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?

Satire or sense, 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 stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys; 311
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

315 As shallow streams run dimpling all the way; Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet

squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 320 In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all seesaw, between that' and 'this,' Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis.

325 Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have express'd, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; 331 Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will

trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

And thonery, ev'n to 1. pleased by it's praise,

Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool, Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool, 335 Not proud nor servile; be one poet's praise, That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways; That flattery, ev'n to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same; That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, - 340 But stoop'd to truth, and moralised his song; That not for fame, but virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half-approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit ; 345 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, 350 The imputed trash, and dulness not his own; The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape, The libelld person, and the pictured shape;

Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;

355
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 ev’n the last! 350

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; 365 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 370 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 slander'd, did he once reply? Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie. To please his mistress, one aspersed his life; 376 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;

Pope reckoned the caricatures of his person among his most atrocious injuries.'

Let the two Curlls of town and court abuse 380
His father, mother, body, soul, and Muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbor fool :
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore !
Unspotted names, and memorable long, 386
If there be force in virtue or in song.

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

390 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, 396 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, 400 Healthy by temperance and by exercise ;