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F. Hayman inv.et del.

C. Grignion foulp.

Shut, shut the Door, good John fatigud I said Tye up the Knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

Opito Arbuthnot.

And now the Poem, which holds so much of the DRAMA, and opens with all the disorder and vexation that every kind of impertinence and slander could occafion, concludes with the utmost calmness and ferenity, in the retired enjoyment of all the tender offices of FRIENDSHIP and PIETY [ 388. to the end.]

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SATIRES.

P.SHUT, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd

I faid,

Tye up the knocker, say I'm fick, I'm dead,
The Dog-ftar rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, 5
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

NOTES.

VER. 1. Shut, shut the door, good John!] John Searl, his old and faithful servant: whom he has remembered, under that character, in his Will.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, thro'my Grot they glide,
By land, by water, they renew the charge,
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. 10
No place is facred, not the Church is free,
Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the Man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at Dinner-time.

Is there a Parfon, much be-mus'd in beer, 15
A maudlin Poetess, a rhyming Peer,
A Clerk, foredoom'd his father's foul to cross,
Who pens a Stanza, when he should engross?
Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With defp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
All fly to TWIT'NAM, and in humble strain 21
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.

VARIATIONS.

After y 20. in the MS.

Is there a Bard in durance? turn them free,
With all their brandish'd reams they run to me:
Is there a Prentice, having seen two plays,
Who would do something in his Semptress' praise-

NOTES.

VER. 12. Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me.] The beauty of this line arifes from the figurative terms of the predicate alluding to the subject. A fecret, in elegant expreffion, which our Author often practised.

VER. 13. Mint.) A place to which infolvent debtors retired, to enjoy an illegal protection, which they were there fuffered to afford one another, from the perfecution of their creditors.

25

Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the Laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause :
Poor Cornus fees his frantic wife elope,
And curses Wit, and Poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my Life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What Drop or Noftrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a Fool's wrath or love? 30
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped.

If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz'd and ty'd down to judge, how wretched I !
Who can't be filent, and who will not lye:
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace, 35
And to be grave, exceeds all Pow'r of face.
I fit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;

VARIATIONS.

VER. 29. in the 1st Ed.

Dear Doctor, tell me, is not this a curse?

Say, is their anger, or their friendship worse?

NOTES.

VER. 23. Arthur,] Arthur Moore, Efq.

VER. 33. Seiz'd and ty'd down to judge,] Alluding to the

scene in the Plain-Dealer, where Oldfox gags, and ties down the Widow, to hear his well-pen'd stanzas.

VER. 38. honest anguish,] i. e. undiffembled.

Ibid. an aching head; Alluding to the disorder he was then so conftantly afflicted with.

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