P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and ftings; 310
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er taftes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred fpaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal fmiles his emptinefs betray,
As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet fqueaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad,
Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or fpite, or fmut, or rhymes, or blafphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now mafter up, now mifs,
And he himself one vile Antithefis.
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 ftruts a Lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,
A Cherub's face, a reptile all the reft.
Beauty that fhocks you, parts that none will truft,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the duft.
Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor fervile; be one Poet's Praife,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways:
That Flattery, ev'n to Kings, he held a shame,
And thought a Lie in verse or profe the fame;
That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But ftoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his song :
That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end,
He ftood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the lofs of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The diftant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never fhed;
The tale reviv'd, the lie fo oft o'erthrown, Th' imputed trash, and dulnefs not his own; The morals blacken'd when the writings 'fcape, The libel'd perfon, and the pictur'd shape; Abufe, on all he lov'd, or lov'd 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 earWelcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the paft: For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last! A. But why infult the poor, affront the great? 360 P. A knave's a knave, to me, in every Alike my fcorn, if he fucceed or fail, Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail; A hireling fcribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the poft corrupt, or of the fhire; If on a Pillory, or near a Throne, He gain his Prince's ear, or lose his own. M 2
Yet foft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded Sat'rift Dennis will confefs
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
Sɔ humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor.
Full ten years flander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand funs went down on Welfted's lie. 375
To please his Mistress one afpers'd his life;
He lafh'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgell charge low Grub-ftreet on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will;
Let the two Curlls of Town and Court, abuse
His father, mother, body, foul, and mufe.
Yet why? that Father held it for a rule,
It was a fin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and fpare his family, James Moore!
Unfpotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in Virtue, or in Song.
Of gentle blood (part fhed in Honour's cause, While yet in Britain Honour had applause)
Once, and but once, his heedlefs youth was bit,
And lik'd that dangerous thing, a female wit;
Safe as he thought, though all the prudent chid;
He writ no Libels, but my Lady did :
Great odds in amorous or poetic game,
Where Woman's is the fin, and Man's the fhame:
Each parent fprung-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. 395
No Courts he faw, no fuits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an Oath, nor hazarded a Lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's fubtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By Nature honeft, by Experience wife;
Healthy by temperance, and by exercise;
His life, though long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.
O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!
Who sprung from Kings shall know lefs joy than I.
O Friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleafing Melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of repofing Age,
With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,
Make Languor fmile, and smooth the bed of Death,
After ver. 405, in the MS.
And of myself, too, fomething must I say?
Take then this verfe, the trifle of a day.
And if it live, it lives but to commend
The man whofe heart has ne'er forgot a friend,
Or head, an Author; Critic, yet polite,
And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write.
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like thefe if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to blefs thofe days, preferve my friend,.
Preferve him focial, chearful, and ferene,
And just as rich as when he ferv'd a Queen!
A. Whether that bleffings be deny'd or given,
Thus far was right, the reft belongs to Heaven.
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