This truth once known, our poets take the hint,
Get drunk or mad, and then get into print:
To raise their Flames indulge the mellow fit,
And lose their senses in the fearch of wit.
And when with claret fir'd they take the pen,
Swear they can write, because they drink, like Ben.
Such mimick Swift or Prior to their coft,
For in the rafh attempt the fools are lost.
When once a genius breaks through common rules,
He leads an herd of imitating fools.
If Pope, the prince of poets, fick a-bed,
O'er fteaming coffee bends his aching head,
The fools in publick o'er the fragrant Draught
Incline those heads that never ach'd or thought.
This must provoke his mirth, or his Disdain,
Cure his complaint,-
-or make him fick again.
I too, like them, the Poet's path pursue,
And keep great Flaccus ever in my View;
But in a distant View-yet what I write,
In these loose sheets, muft never fee the light;
Epiftles, Odes, and twenty trifles more,
Things that are born and die in half an hour,
What, you must dedicate, says sneering Spence,
This year fome new Performance to the prince :
Though money is your fcorn, no doubt in time,
You hope to gain fome vacant Stall by Rhime:
Like other Poet's, were the truth but knowp,
You too admire whatever is your own.
Thefe wife remarks my modefty confound.
While the Laugh rifes, and the mirth goes round
Vext at the Jeft, yet glad to fhun a fray,
whisk into my coach, and drive away.
LOW NG ER,
Rife about nine, get to breakfast by ten,
Blow a tune on my flute, or perhaps make a pen ;
Read a play till eleven, or cock my lac'd hat;
Then ftep to my neighbours till dinner to chat.
Dinner over, to Tom's, or to James's I go,
The news of the town fo impatient to know;
While Law, Locke, and Newton, and all the rum Race
That talk of their modes, their Ellipfes, and space,
The feat of the foul, and new Syftems on high,
In holes, as abftrufe as their myfteries, lye.
From the Coffee-houfe then I to Tennis away,
And at five I poft back to my College to pray.
I fup before eight, and fecure from all Duns,
Undauntedly march to the Mitre, or Tuns ;
Where in punch or good claret my forrows I drown,
And tofs off a Bowl, to the best in the town;
At one in the morning, I call what's to pay,
Then home to my College I stagger away,
Thus I tope all the night, as I trifle all day.
EPIGRAM, written by an EXCISEMAN. And addreffed to a Young Lady, who was courted at the fame Time by an APOTHECARY.
THAT though the Doctor boafts to fit
Your Mortar to his Peftle;
Inches every whit
As good to gauge your Vessel ?
When Tutor to Lord MIDDLESEX.
In Imitation of HORACE, Book i. Epift. 18
By the late Mr. CHRISTOPHER PITT.
PENCE, with a friend you pass the hours away
In pointed Jokes, yet innocently gay:
You ever differ'd from a flatterer more,
Than a chafte Lady from a flaunting Whore.
'Tis true you rallied every fault you found,
But gently tickled, while you cur'd the wound:
Unlike the paultry Poet's of the town,
Rogues who expofe themselves for half a crown;
And still impofe on ev'ry foul they meet
Rudeness for fenfe, and ribaldry for wit:
Who, tho' half-ftarv'd, in spite of time and Place,
Repeat their Rhymes' tho' dinner ftays for Grace:
And as their poverty their dreffes fit,
They think of course a Sloven is a wit:
But fenfe (a truth these coxcombs ne'er fufpect,)
Lies juft 'twixt affectation and Neglect,
One ftep, ftill lower, if you condefcend,
To the mean wretch, the great man's humble friend;
That moving shade, that pendant at his ear,
That two-legg'd dog, ftill pawing on the peer.
Studying his Looks, and watching at the board,
He gapes to catch the Droppings of my Lord;
And tickled to the foul at ev'ry Joke,
Like a prefs'd Watch, repeats what t'other spoke.
Echo to Nonsense! such a scene to hear !
'Tis juft like Punch and his Interpreter,
On Trifles fome are earnestly abfurd,
You'll think the world depends on ev'ry Word.-
What, is not ev'ry mortal free to speak?
I'll give my reasons, tho' I break my neck
And what's the question if it shines or rains,
Whether 'tis twelve or fifteen miles to Staines,
The wretch reduc'd to rags by ev'ry Vice,
Pride, Projects, Races, Miftreffes and Dice,
The rich rogue fhuns, tho' full as bad as he,
And knows a quarrel is good husbandry.
"Tis firange, cries Peter, you are out of Pelf
I'm fure I thought you wiser than myself;
Yet gives him nothing-but advice too late,
Retrench, or rather mortgage your Estate.
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