"How think you of our friend the dean? What, they admire him for his jokes- 105 110 115 120 I know no more than my Lord Mayor, They stand amazed, and think me grown 145 But something much more our concern, And quite a scandal not to learn: A man of merit, or a miser ? Whether we ought to choose our friends For their own worth, or our own ends? 150 Knew what was handsome, and would do 't, On just occasion, coute qui coute, He brought him bacon (nothing lean), 165 Pudding that might have pleased a dean; Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make, 170 175 4 [Prior has several little apologues on mice. His first work was the City and Country Mouse, a parody on Dryden's Hind and Panther, by Prior and Montagu (afterwards Lord Halifax). Pope's silence as to Montagu's share in the satire, seems to countenance the observation of Lord Peterborough, who, being asked if Montagu did not write the Country Mouse with Prior, replied, "Yes, just as if I was in a chaise, with Mr. Cheselden here, drawn by his fine horse, and should say, 'Lord, how finely we draw this chaise.'"] Then spend your life in joy and sport, The veriest hermit in the nation May yield, God knows, to strong temptation. A RAT, A RAT! CLAP TO THE DOOR! Behold the place, where if a poet 180 185 190 195 The guests withdrawn had left the treat, Our courtier walks from dish to dish, He stuffs, and swills, and stuffs again. 200 205 210 215 (It was by Providence they think, For your damn'd stucco has no chink.) "An't please your honour," quoth the peasant, AGAIN? new tumults in my breast? Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest! I am not now, alas! the man As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne. Ah, sound no more thy soft alarms, Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms. Mother too fierce of dear desires! Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires. To Number Five direct your doves, There spread round Murray all your blooming loves; 5 Noble and young, who strike the heart With every sprightly, every decent part; Equal, the injured to defend, To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend. He, with a hundred arts refined, Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind: To him each rival shall submit, Make but his riches equal to his wit. Then shall thy form the marble grace (Thy Grecian form), and Chloe lend the face : His house, embosom'd in the grove, Sacred to social life and social love, Shall glitter o'er the pendant green, Where Thames reflects the visionary scene: Thither, the silver-sounding lyres Shall call the smiling loves, and young desires; For me the vernal garlands bloom no more. The still-believing, still-renew'd desire; Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl, And all the kind deceivers of the soul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear! Steals down my cheek the involuntary tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free, Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dress'd in Fancy's airy beam, Absent I follow through the extended dream; Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms, And now you burst (ah cruel!) from my arms, 5 [Murray's chambers were at this time in King's Bench Walks, No. 5.] |