Bless'd be the great, for those they take away,
And those they left me; for they left me Gay;
Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:
Of all thy blameless life the sole return
My verse, and Queensberry weeping o'er thy urn!
O, let me live my own, and die so too!
(To live and die is all I have to do :)
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,
And see what friends, and read what books I please :
Above a patron, though I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my friend.
I was not born for courts or great affairs;
pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,
Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead.
Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light? Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me? or, (to be grave,) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?
'I found him close with Swift.'-'Indeed! no doubt,'
Cries prating Balbus, 'something will come out. "Tis all in vain, deny it as I will :
'No, such a genius never can lie still;
And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The first lampoon Sir Will* or Bubot makes. 280
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 neighbour'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;
* Sir William Young.
+ See Moral Essays, Ep. IV., 1. 20, note.
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,
Yet wants the honour, 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 Cannons 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,
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;
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,
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 see-saw, between 'that' and 'this,' Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis.
* Lord Hervey. He was an effeininate-looking man, and, having a pale complexion, is said to have improved it with a little rouge.
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.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,
Not proud nor servile; be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways;
That flattery, e'en 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,
But stoop'd to truth, and moralized 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;
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,
The imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libell'd person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile,* or a father dead;
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 e'en the last! 359
A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?
P. A knave's a knave to me, in every state;
Alike iny scorn, if he succeed or fail;
Sporus at court, or Japhet † in a jail,
* Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
+ See Moral Essays, Ep. III., 1. 86, note.
A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer;
Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;
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
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;
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;
Let the two Curlls of town and court abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and Muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore : Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore ! Unspotted names, and memorable long,
If there be force in virtue or in song.
Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause,
While yet in Britain honour had applause)
Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray ?-
P. Their own,
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,
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,
Healthy by temperance and by exercise;
Xu pond nor she be one poet's
That. The pleased, he pleased by manly ways
Than famery, een zo kings, he held a shame,
And thought & he in verse or pose the stame
That not in fancy's maze he winder'd long,
But storpid to truth, and moralized his sung
That not for fame, bu virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The danning critic, half-approving wit,
The cascomb hit, or fearing to be hit-
Langh'd at the loss of friends he n
The dull, the prond, the wicked
The distant threats of vengea
The blow felt, the tear he
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