And how did, pray, the florid Youth offend, 166
Whofe Speech you took, and gave it to a Friend?
P. Faith, it imports not much from whom it came;
Whoever borrow'd, could not be to blame,
Since the whole House did afterwards the fame.
Let Courtly Wits to Wits afford supply, 171
As Hog to Hog in huts of Weftphaly;
If one,
thro' Nature's Bounty or his Lord's,
Has what the frugal, dirty foil affords,
From him the next receives it, thick or thin, 175
As pure a mess almost as it came in ;
The bleffed benefit, not there confin'd,

Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind;
From tail to mouth, they feed and they carouse:
The last full fairly gives it to the House.
180

F. This filthy fimile, this beastly line Quite turns my ftomach -

P. So does Flatt'ry mine;

And all your courtly Civet-cats can vent,
Perfume to you, to me is Excrement,

NOTES.

VER. 164. The Prieft, etc.] Spoken not of any particular prieft, but of many priests. P.

VER. 166. And how did, etc.] This feems to allude to a complaint made 71. of the preceding Dialogue.

P.

But hear me further ---Japhet, 'tis agreed, 185
Writ not, and Chartres fcarce could write or read,
In all the Courts of Pindus guiltless quite;
But Pens can forge, my Friend, that cannot write;
And must no Egg in Japhet's face be thrown,
Because the Deed he forg'd was not my own?
Muft never Patriot then declaim at Gin,
Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?
No zealous Paftor blame a failing Spouse,
Without a staring Reason on his brows?
And each Blafphemer quite escape the rod, 195
Because the infult's not on Man, but God?

191

Afk you what Provocation I have had? The ftrong Antipathy of Good to Bad. When Truth or Virtue an Affront endures, Th'Affront is mine, my friend, and fhould be yours. Mine, as a Foe profefs'd to false Pretence, Who think a Coxcomb's Honour like his Sense;

201

VARIATIONS.

VER. 185. in the MS.

I grant it, Sir; and further, 'tis agreed,

Japhet writ not, and Chartres fcarce could read.

NOTES.

VER. 185. Japhet-Chartres] See the Epiftle to Lord Bathurst.

P.

Mine, as a Friend to ev'ry worthy mind;
And mine as Man, who feel for all mankind.
F. You're ftrangely proud.

P. So proud, I am no Slave:

So impudent, I own myself no Knave : 206
So odd, my Country's Ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me:

Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne,
Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone. 211
O facred weapon! left for Truth's defence,
Sole Dread of Folly, Vice, and Infolence!
To all but Heav'n-directed hands deny'd,
TheMufe may give thee, but the Gods muft guide:

NOTES.

VER. 204. And mine as Man, who feel for all mankind.] From Terence: "Homo fum: humani nihil a me alienum 66 puto." P.

VER. 208. Yes, I am proud; etc.] In this ironical exultation the Poet infinuates a fubject of the deepest humiliation.

VER. 211. Yet touch'd and foam'd by Ridicule alone.] The Paffions are given us to awake and fupport Virtue. But they frequently betray their truft, and go over to the interefts of Vice. Ridicule, when employed in the cause of Virtue, shames and brings them back to their duty. Hence the use and importance of Satire.

VER. 214. To all but Heav'n-directed hands] "The Citizen "(fays Plato, in his fifth book of Laws) who does no injury to 66 any one, without queftion, merits our efteem. He, who, not content with being barely just himself, opposes the

66

Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honeft zeal;
To rouse the Watchmen of the public Weal,
To Virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,
And goad the Prelate flumb'ring in his Stall.
Ye tinfel Infects! whom a Court maintains, 220
That counts your Beauties only by your Stains,

NOTES.

course of injustice, by profecuting it before the Magistrate, "merits our esteem vaftly more. The first difcharges the du"ty of a fingle Citizen; but the other does the office of a "Body. But he whose zeal stops not here, but proceeds to ASSIST THE MAGISTRATE IN PUNISHING is the most va"luable bleffing of Society. This is the PERFECT CITIZEN, to whom we fhould adjudge the prize of Virtue." VER. 219. And goad the Prelate flumb'ring in his Stall.] The good Eufebius, in his Evangelical Preparation, draws a long parallel between the Ox and the Chriftian Priesthood. Hence the dignified Clergy, out of mere humility, have ever fince called their thrones by the name of ftalls. To which a great Prelate of Winchefter, one W. Edinton, modeftly alluding (who otherwife had been long fince forgotten) has rendered his name immortal by this ecclefiaftical aphorifm, Canterbury is the bigher rack, but Winchester is the better manger. By which, however, it appears that he was not one of thofe here condemned, who flumber in their stalls. SCRIBL.

VER. 220, etc. Ye tinfel Infects! whom a Court maintains, That counts your Beauties only by your Stains, Spin all your Cobwebs] And again, to the fame purpose, in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,

This painted child of Dirt, that stinks and stings.

Thefe, it is objected, are Infects not of Nature's creating, but the Poet's, and therefore fuch compound images are to be condemned. One would think, by this, that mixed qualities troubled the fenfe, as much as mixed metaphors do the style. But whoever thinks fo, is mistaken. The fault of mixed meta

Spin all

your Cobwebs o'er the Eye of Day! The Mufe's wing shall brush you all away: All his Grace preaches, all his Lordship fings, All that makes Saints of Queens, and Gods of Kings.

NOTES.

phors is, that they call the imagination from image to image, when it is the writer's purpose to fix it upon one. On the contrary, mixed qualities do their office rightly, and inform the understanding of what the author would infinuate, that the moral infect is a more worthless creature than the phyfical, as he collects together, in one individual, divers bad or trifling qualities, which nature had difperfed in many. And when, in fact, we see them fo collected; as venom, fophiftry, and infidioufness, in a Court-Butterfly, the giving it the bite of the bug, and the web of the fpider, makes it a monfter indeed, but a monster of nature's producing, and not the poet's,

cujus velut ægri fomnia vanæ

Fingentur fpecies.

VER. 220 Ye Infects-The Mufe's wing shall brush you all away:] This it did very effectually; and the memory of them had been now forgotten, had not the Poet's charity, for a while, protracted their miferable Being. There is now in his library a complete collection of all the horrid Libels written and published against him;

The tale reviv'd, the lye fo oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd, when the writings 'fcape,
The libell'd Perfon, and the pictur'd shape.

These he had bound up in feveral volumes, according to their various fizes, from folios down to duodecimos; and to each of them hath affixed this motto out of the book of Job:

Behold, my defire is, that mine adversary fhould write a book. Surely I fhould take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to Ch. xxxi. 35, 36.

me.

VER. 222. Cobwebs] Weak and flight fophiftry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of Truth, as cobwebs to fhade the fun.

P.