Sell their presented partridges and fruits,
And humbly live on rabbits and on roots:

One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine,
And is at once their vinegar and wine.

But on some lucky day (as when they found

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A lost bank-bill, or heard their son was drown'd),
At such a feast, old vinegar to spare,

Is what two souls so generous cannot bear :
Oil, though it stink, they drop by drop impart,
But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart.

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He knows to live, who keeps the middle state,
And neither leans on this side nor on that;
Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay,
Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away;
Nor lets, like Nævius, every error pass,
The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass.

Now hear what blessings temperance can bring:

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(Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing :)
First health: the stomach (cramm'd from every dish,
A tomb of boil'd and roast, and flesh and fish,
Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar,
And all the man is one intestine war,)

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Remembers oft the school-boy's simple fare,

The temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air.

How pale each worshipful and reverend guest

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Rise from a clergy, or a city feast!

What life in all that ample body, say?
What heavenly particle inspires the clay?
The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines

To seem but mortal, even in sound divines.

80

On morning wings how active springs the mind
That leaves the load of yesterday behind!
How easy every labour it pursues!

How coming to the poet every Muse!

Not but we may exceed, some holy time,

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Or tired in search of truth, or search of rhyme;

Ill health some just indulgence may engage;
And more the sickness of long life, old age:
For fainting age what cordial drop remains,
If our intemperate youth the vessel drains?

Our fathers praised rank venison. You suppose,
Perhaps, young men! our fathers had no nose.

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Not so:

a buck was then a week's repast,

And 'twas their point, I ween, to make it last;

More pleased to keep it till their friends could come,
Than eat the sweetest by themselves at home.
Why had not I in those good times my birth,
Ere coxcomb-pies or coxcombs were on earth?
Unworthy he, the voice of fame to hear,
That sweetest music to an honest ear;

(For 'faith, Lord Fanny! you are in the wrong,
The world's good word is better than a song,)
Who has not learn'd fresh sturgeon and ham-pie
Are no rewards for want and infamy!
When luxury has licked up all thy pelf,
Cursed by thy neighbours, thy trustees, thyself,
To friends, to fortune, to mankind a shame,
Think how posterity will treat thy name;
And buy a rope, that future times may tell

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100

105

Thou hast at least bestowed one penny well.

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"Right," cries his Lordship, "for a rogue in need

To have a taste is insolence indeed:

In me 'tis noble, suits my birth and state,

My wealth unwieldy, and my heap too great."

Then, like the sun, let bounty spread her ray,
And shine that superfluity away.

Oh impudence of wealth

with all thy store,

How darest thou let one worthy man be poor?

115

Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall?

Make quays, build bridges, or repair Whitehall:

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Or to thy country let that heap be lent,

As M**o's was, but not at five per cent.5

Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her mind, Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.

And who stands safest? tell me, is it he

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That spreads and swells in puff'd prosperity;

Or, blest with little, whose preventing care

In peace provides fit arms against a war?

Thus Bethel spoke, who always speaks his thought,

And always thinks the very thing he ought:

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His equal mind I copy what I can,

And, as I love, would imitate the man.

5 [The Duke of Marlborough.]

In South-sea days not happier, when surmised
The lord of thousands, than if now excised; 6
In forest planted by a father's hand,
Than in five acres now of rented land.
Content with little, I can piddle here,
On brocoli and mutton, round the year;

But ancient friends (though poor, or out of play,)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
'Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards,

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140

But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords :
To Hounslow Heath I point, and Bansted Down,
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own:
From yon old walnut-tree a shower shall fall;

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And grapes, long lingering on my only wall,

And figs from standard and espalier join;

The devil is in you if you cannot dine:

Then cheerful healths (your mistress shall have place),
And, what's more rare, a poet shall say grace.

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Fortune not much of humbling me can boast: Though double taxed, how little have I lost! 7 My life's amusements have been just the same, Before and after standing armies came.

My lands are sold; my father's house is gone;
I'll hire another's; is not that my own,

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And yours, my friends? through whose free opening gate None comes too early, none departs too late;

(For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,

Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.)

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Pray heaven it last! (cries Swift!) as you go on;

I wish to God this house had been your own:

Pity! to build without a son or wife;
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."

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6 [Warburton states that Pope had South-Sea stock, which he did not sell out, that was valued at between £20,000 and £30,000 when it fell. This must have been a nominal-literally a South-Sea valuation. He could not have invested more than two or three thousand pounds, if so much, in the South Sea stock, and its depreciation deprived him of none of the comforts or elegancies of life to which he had been accustomed. For an account of Walpole's Excise Bill, here alluded to, see extract from Lord Hervey's Memoirs. Notes to Moral Essays, Ep. III.]

[Roman Catholics and Nonjurors had at that time to pay additional taxes.]

Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one,
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon ?8
What's property? dear Swift! you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or, in pure equity (the case not clear)

The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year:

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At best, it falls to some ungracious son,
Who cries, " My father's damn'd, and all 's my own."
Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;9

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8 [Mrs. Vernon, from whom he had a lease for life of his house and garden at Twickenham. She died about a year before Pope. He had then some idea of purchasing the property (valued at about £1000), if any of his "particular friends" wished to have it as a residence. No such arrangement was made, and, after the poet's death, the house was bought by Sir William Stanhope. See Life of Pope.]

[William, the first Lord Grimston.]

And Helmsley,10 once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener or a city knight:

Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

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10 [Helmsley, in Yorkshire, which had belonged to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was purchased by Sir Charles Duncombe, Knight, Lord Mayor of London in 1709, and M.P. for Downton, Wilts. The City Knight changed the name of the place to Duncombe Park.]