The still believing, still-renew'd desire:
Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,
And all the kind deceivers of the soul!
But why? ah tell me, ah! too dear,
Steals down my cheek th' involuntary tear?
Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,
Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee?
Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam,
Absent I follow through th' extended dream;
Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms,
And now you burst (ah, cruel!) from my arms,
And swiftly shoot along the mall
Or softly glide by the canal ;
Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,
And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.
LEST you should think that verse shall die,
Which sounds the silver Thames along,
Taught on the wings of truth to fly
Above the reach of vulgar song.
Though daring Milton sits sublime,
In Spenser native muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay---
Sages and chiefs long since had birth
Ere Cæsar was or Newton nam'd;
These rais'd new empires o'er the earth,
And those new heav'ns and systems fram'd.
Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.
DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.-VERSIFIELD.
Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quærere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit
Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes
Mollius?
YES, thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too;
Yet here, as ev'n in hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,
That all beside one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, smiles at other w-s.
I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
It brought (no doubt) th' excise and army in: Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how,
But that the cure is starving, all allow.
Yet like the papist's is the poet's state,
Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:
The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompt and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of some carv'd organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above:
Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow,
Th' inspiring bellows lie and pant below.
One sings the fair; but songs no longer move;
No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold.
These write to lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars sing at doors for meat:
Those write because all write, and so have still
Excuse for writing; and for writing ill.
Wretched, indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others' wit:
'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before:
His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
Sense pass'd through him no longer is the same:
For food digested takes another name.
I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs,
Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres,
Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,
Out-sure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear;
Wicked as pages, who in early years
Acts sin which Priest's confessor scarcely hears.
Ev'n those I pardon for whose sinful såke
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make ;
Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell
In what commandment's large contents they dwell.
One, one man only breeds my just offence,
Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave
impudence.
Time; that at last matures a c-p to p-x;
Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
And brings all natural events to pass,
Hath made him an attorney of an ass.
No young divine, new benific'd, can be
More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
What further could I wish the fop to do,
But turn a wit, and scribble verses too?
Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear
With rhymes of this per cent. and that per year?
Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts,
Like nets, or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts;
Call him barrister to every wench,
And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench?
Language which Boreas might to Auster hold,
More rough than forty Germans when they scold.
Curs'd be the wretch, so venal and so vain,
Paltry and proud as drabs in Drury-lane,
'Tis such a bounty as was never known,
If Peter deigns to help you to your own,
What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies!
And what a solemn face if he denies!
Grave, as when prisoners shake the head, and swear
'Twas only suretyship, that brought 'em there.
His office keeps your parchment fates entire,
He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,
For not in chariots Peter puts his trust;
For you he sweats and labours at the laws,
Takes God to witness he affects your cause,
And lies to every lord in every thing,
Like a king's favourite---or like a king.
These are the talents that adorn them all,
From wicked Waters ev'n to godly Hall.
Not more of simony beneath black gowns,
Nor more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.
In shillings and in pence at first they deal,
And steal so little, few perceive they steal;
Till like the sea they compass all the land,"
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand:
And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,
Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's,
Or city-heir in mortgage melts away,
Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
Piece-meal they win this acre first, then that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate:
Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law.
Indentures, covenants, articles, they draw,
Large as the fields themselves, and larger far
Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are;
So vast, our new diviues, we must confess,
Are fathers of the church for writing less.
But let them wrlte, for you each rogue impairs
The deeds, and dext'rously omits ses heires:
No commentator can more slily pass
O'er a learn'd unintelligible place;
Or in quotations shrewd divines leave out
Those words that would against them clear the
doubt.
So Luther thought the Pater-noster long,
When doom'd to say his beads and even-song;
These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil
Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil:
A tongue that can cheat widows, cancel scores,
Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest w—s,
With royal favorites in flattery vie,
And Oldmixon and Burnet both outhe.
He spies me out; I whisper, gracious God! What sin of mine could merit such a rod ? That all the shot of dulness now must be From this thy blunderbuss discharg'd on me! Permit, he cries, no stranger to your fame, To crave your sentiment, if ***** s your name. What speech esteem you most; "The king's" said
But the best words? "O, sir, the dictionary."
You miss my aim; I mean the most acute,
And perfect speaker?-"Onslow, past dispute."
But, sir, of writers ?---" Swift, for closer style,
But Hoadly for a period of a mile."
Why, yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pass ;
Good common linguists, and so Panurge was;
Nay, troth th' Apostles (though perhaps too rough)
Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough:
Yet these were all poor gentlemen; I dare
Affirm 'twas travel made them what they were.
Thus others' talents having nicely shown,
He came by sure transition to his own;
Till I cried out, "You prove yourself so able,
Pity you was not dragoman at Babel;
For had they found a linguist half so good,
I make no question but the tow'r had stood."
"Obliging sir! for courts you sure were made, Why then for ever buried in the shade?
Spirits like you should see and should be seen;
The king would smile on you---at least the queen.?”
"Ah, gentle sir! your courtiers so conjole us---
But Tully has it, Nunquam minus sotus:
And as for courts, forgive me if I say
No lessons now are taught the Spartan way;
Though in his picture lust be full display'd,
Few are the converts Aretine has made;
And though the court show vice exceeding clear,
None should, by my advice, learn virtue there."
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