a : For Locke or Milton 'uis in vain to look; These hugours, peace to happy Britain brings; And now the chapel's filver bell you hear, $ 16. Epifle to Mr. Addisor, occahored by bis Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. Dialogues on Medals. Pope. On painted ceilings you devoutly stare, SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years! Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears, Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! And bring all Paradise before your eye. The very tombs now vanith'd like their dead ! To rest, the cushion and foft dcan invite, Imperial wonders rais'd on nations spoild, Who never mentions hell to ears polite. Where, mix'd with flaves, the groaning martyr But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call; toil'd: Statues of men (carce less alive than they! Some felt the filent stroke of mould’ring age, A solemn facrifice, perform'd in state; Some hoftile fury, some religious rage, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal confpire, So quick retires cach flying course, you'd twear And Papal piety, and Gothic fire. Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there. Perhaps, by its own ruins sav'd from Aame, Between each act the trembling salvers ring, Some buried marble half preserves a name ; From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the king. That name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue, In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state, And give to Titus old Vespasian's due. And complaisantly help?d to all I hate, Ainbition figh’d: the found it vain to trust Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave, The faithless column and the crumbling buft: Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve; Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from there I curse fuch lavish cost, and little skill, to Thore, And twear no day was ever pass’d so ill: Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more! Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed; Convinc'd, the now contracts her vast design, Hсalth to himself, and to his infants bread And all her triumphs shrink into a coin. The lab'rer bears : what his hard heart denies, A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps; His charitable vanity supplies. Beneath her palm here fad Judea weeps. Another age shall see the golden car Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, Imbrown thc llope, and nod on the parterre, And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhinez Decp harvest bury all his pride has plann'd, A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd, And laughing Ceres reassume the land. And little cagles wave their wings in gold. Who then ihall grace, or who improve the soil? The Medal, faithful to its charge of faine, Who plants like Bathurst , or who builds like Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name; 'Tis ule alone that sanctifics expence, [Boyle. In one short view lubjected to our eye, And fplendour borrows all her rays from tenie. Gods, emp'rors, heroes, fagcs, beauties, lie. His father's acres who enjoys in peace, With sharpen'd fight pale antiquaries pore, Or makes his neighbours glad, if he incrcase: Th’infcription value, but the ruft adore. Whole cheerfui tenants bleís their yearly toil, This the blue varnish, that the green endears , Yet to their lord owe morc than to the soil; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years! Whose ample lawns are not alham'd to feed To gain Pefcennius one employs his schemes ; The milky heifer and deterving feed; One grafjs a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams. Whofc rising forests, not for pride or thow, Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devourid , Buc future buildings, future navics, grow : Can taste no picature since his thield was scour'd: Let his plantations stretch from dowa to down, And Curio, restlers by the fair one's side, Firit thade a country, and then raite a town. Sighs for an Oiho, and neglects his bride. You too proceed! make falling arts your care, Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine : Erect new wonders, and the old repair; Touch'd by thy hand, again Roine's glories fine; Joncs and Palladio to themielves restore, Her gods and godlike beroes risc to view, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before: And all her faded garments bloom a-new. Till kings call forth th'ideas of your mind Nor bluth, there studies thy regard engage; (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) | Thefe pleas'd the fathers of poetic rage : Bid harbours open, public ways extend, The verse and sculpture bore an equal part, Bid temples, worthicr of the god, alcend; And art reflected images to art. Bidthe broad arch the dang rous flood contain, Oh when shali Britain, conscious of her claim, The mole projected break the roaring main; Stand emulous of Greck and Roman fame? Back to his bounds their fubjcct fea command, In living medals fee her wars enroll d, And roll obedicnt rivers thro' the land; And vanquilh'd rcalins supply recording gold!! 6 a Here , 6 up rage!' Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face; To laugh, were want of goodnels and of gracc; I fit with fad civility, I read This faving counsel, Keep your piece nine years.' Then ihall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine) Nine years! cries he, who high in Drury-lane, On the cast ore, another Pollio, shine; Lulld by soft Zephyrs thro' the broken pane, With aspect open íhall crect his head, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term And round the orb in laiting notes be read, ends, “ Statcsinan, yet friend to truth! of foul sincere, Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends : In action faithful, and in honour clear; The piece, you think,is incorrect? why takeit; “ Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, • I'm all submission; what you'd have it, make it." * Who gain'd no title, and who loft no friend; Three things another's modest wishes bound, Ennobled by himself, by all approv’d, My Friendthip, and a Prologue, and ten pound, And prais'd, unenvied, by the Muse he lov’d.” Pitholeon sends to me: 'You know his Grace: "I want a Patron; ask him for a Place.' $ 17. Epifle to Dr. Arbuthnot, being tbe Prologue · Inforins you, Sir, 'twas when he knew no bet Pitholcon libell'd me—but here's a letter [ter. to the Satires. POPE. • Dare you refute him? Curl invites to dine; I P. SHUT, put the door, good John! fatigued I He'll write a Journal , or he'll turn Divine. , said, Bless me! a packet.—' 'Tis a ftranger lues, Tye the knocker; say I'm sick, I'm dcad. ' A Virgin Tragedy, an Orphan Mute.' The Dog-star rages ! nay 'tis past a doubt, If I ditlike it, · Furies, death and All Bedlam, or Parnaflus is let out : If I approve, • Coinmend it to the Stage.' [ends, Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, There (thank my stars) my whole commillion They rave, recite, and madden round the land. The players and I are, luckily, no friends. $ What walls can guard me, or what thades Fir'd that the house reject him, • 'Sdeath i'll can hide: [glide ; print it, (Lintor.' They pierce my thickets, thro' my grot they · And shame the fools-Your int’rest, Sir, with By land, by watcr, thcy renew the charge ; Lintut, dullrogue! will think your price too much: They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. Not, Sir, if you revise it, and retouch.' No place is facred, not the Church is free, All my demurs but double his attacks; Ev'n Sunday thines no Sabbath-day to me! At last he whispers, ' Do; and we go Inacks.' Then from the Mint walks forth the man of Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door: Happy ! to catch me just at Dinner-time. (rhyme, , Sir, let me tee your works and you no morc. Is there a Parfon, much bemus'd in beer, 'Tis fung, when Midas' Ears began to spring A maudlin Poetels, a rhyming Peer, (Midas, a sacred person and a King), A Clerk, forcdcom'd his father's foul to cross, His very Minister who spicd them first Who pens a Stanza when he Thould engrofs ? (Some say his Queen) was forc dto fpcak, or burst. Is there, who, lock J from ink and paper, Icrawls | And is not mine, my friend, a forer case, With defp'rate charcoal round his darken'd When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face? walls? * A. Good friend, forbcar! you deal in dang’rous All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain things, Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. I'd never name Queens, Ministers, or Kings; Arthur, whole giddy fon neglects the laws, Keep close to Ears, and those let alles prick, Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause: 'Tis nothing-P. Nothing, if they bite and kick ? Poor Cornus secs his frantic wife ciopc; Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pars, Fiend to my Life' (which did not you pro- The truth once told (and wherefore should we Let pcals of laughter, Codrus! round thce break, 6 a a a VARIATIONS. With all their brandith'd reams they run to me : To plague Sir Robert, or to turn Divine, Who would do something in his Sempitress' praise Cibber and I are, luckily, no friends. + Dear Doctor, tell me, is not this a curse? Say, is their anger or their friendship worse? Who shames a Scribbler è break one cobweb thro', Happy iny studies, when by these approv’d! He spins the light, felf-pleasing thread anew : Happier their Author, when by these belor'd! Destroy his lib or fophitry, in vain, From thete the world will judge of men and The creature's at his dirty work again, books, Thron d on the centre of his thin designs, Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks. Proud of a vast extent of himsy lines ! Soft were my numbers; who could take ottunce Whom have I hurt? has Poet yet, or Peer, While pure Description held the place of Sente? Loft the arci'd eyebrow, or Parnallian fneer? Like gentle Fanny's was my fiow'ry theine, And has not Colley still his lord, and whore ? A painted mittreis, or a purling stream. His butchers Henly, his free-mafons Moor? Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill; Does not one table Bavius still adinit? I with'd the man a dinner, and fat full. Still to one Bishop Philips feum a wit? [offend, Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; Still Sappho— H. Hold, for God's fake--you'll I never antiserd, I was not in debt. No names-be calm-learn prudence of a friend: "If want provok'd, or madneís made them print, I too could write, and I am twice as tall; (all. I way'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint. But foes like these--P. One Flate rer's worse than Did fome rrore foter Critic coinc abroad; Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right, If wrong, I finid; if rigit, I kiss'd the rod. It is the flaver kills, and not thc bite. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence; A fool quite angry is quite innocent: And all they want is fpirit, taftc, and tense. Alas ! 'tis ten times worse when they repent. Conmas and points they set exactly right; One dedicates in high heroic prote, And 'twere a fin to rob them of their mite. And ridicules beyond a hundred foes : Yet ne'er one fprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds, One froin all Grublireet will my famne defend, From faining Bentley down to pidling Tibalds : And more abusive, calls himfelt my friend. Each wight whoreads not, and butfcans and spells, This prints my Letters, that expects a bribe, Each Word-catcher, that lives on syllables, And others roar aloud, “Subscribe, subscribe!' Evin such small Critics fomc regard inay claim, There arc, who to my person pay their court: Preferv'd in Milion's or in Shakespear's name. I cough like Horace, and, tho' lean, am short. Pretty! in Amber to observe the forms Ammon's great ton one thoulder had too high; Of hairs, or straws, or diit, or grubs, or worms! Such Ovidnote; and, • Sir! you have an lèye'-- The things we know are neither rich nor rare, Go on, obliging creatures, make me fee But wonder how the devil they got there. All that digrac d my Reiters met in me. Were others angry: 1 excus'd then ton; Say for my comfort, languishing in bed, Well might thev rage, I gave them but their due. Just so immortal Maro held his head;' A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; And when I die, be sure you let me know But cach man's secret standard in his mind, Gruat Homer dies three thousand years ago. + That cafting-weight pride adds to emptiness, Why did I write? what fin to me unknown This who can gratify? for who can guess? Dipt me in ink, my parent's, or my own? The Bard whom pilfer'd Paftorals renown, As vet a child, nor yet a tool to fame, Who turns a Perlian tale for half a crown, I lipid in numbers, for the numbers came. Just writes to make his barrenness appear, I left no calling for this idle trade, And strains, from hard-bound brains, cight lincs No duty broke, 110 father disobey'd : Wife, a vear; The Mufe but ferv'd to case fome Friend, not He, who itill wanting, thio' he lives on theft, To help me thro this long disease, my Lite; Stcals inuch, lends little, yet has nothing left: To fecond, Arbuthnot! thy Art and Care, And He, who now to fense, now nontenfe leading, And teach the Being you preferv'd to bear. Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: But why then publish: Granville the polite, And lie, whole fuftian's fo fublimely bad, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; : It is not poetry, but proto run mad: Well-natur'd Garib inflam'd with carly praite, All thete, my modent Satire bade translate, And Congreve lov’d, and Swift endur'd my lays; í And own’d that nine fuch locts made a Tate. The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read; How did they fume, and ftanp, and roar and Ev'n mitred Rochefer would noi the head; And swear, not Addison himseif was safe. [chafe! And St. John's telf (grcat Dryden's friends be- Peace to all such! but were there one whoíc With open arms receiv d onc Poet more. [fore) True Geniuskindles and fair Fame inspires; (fires VARIATIONS. * For song, for filence, fome expect a bribe ; And for my head, if you'll the truth excuse, And others roar aloud, · Subscribe, fublcribe!' I had it from my mother (c), not the Muse. Time, praise, or money, is the least they crave; Happy, if he, in whom these frailties join'd, Yet cach declares the other fool or knave. [admire, Had heir'd as well the virtues of the mind. + But, friend, this shape, which You and Curl (a) Came not from Ammon's son, but from my Sire (b): (a) Curl set up his head for a liga. Ib) His Father was crvoks d. (C) His Mother was much aflided with head-achs. Bleft a a a . DESCRIPTIVE, , 225 Bleft with each talent and each art to please, But still the great have kindness in reserve; And born to write, converse, and live with case : He help'd to bury whom he help'd tp starve. Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, May some choice pat: on bless each grey goose Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo itill! [quill! View him with scoinful, yet with jealous eves, So when a Itatesman wants a day's defence, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rile; Or envy holds a whole week's war with lente, Damn with faint praise, allent with civil leer, Or simple pride for Hatt’ry makes demands, And, without sneering, teach the rest to Incer; May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands! Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Bleit be the great for those they take away, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; And those they left me, for they left me Gay; Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend, Left me to see neglc&ted Genius bloom, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend; Noglected dic, and tell it on his tomb: Dreading ev’n Fouls, by Flatterors befieg'd, Of all thy blameless life the sole return, And to obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd ; * My Verse, and Queensb’ry weeping o'er thy urn, Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, Oh let me live iny own, and die 1o too! And fit attentive to his own applause; (To live and die is all I have to do): While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise, Maintain a Poet's dignity and case, And wonder with a foolith face of praile- And see what friends, and read what books I please; Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? Above a patron, tho' I condescend Who would not weep, if Articus were he? Sometimes to call a minister my friend. What tho' my name stood rubric on the walls, I was not born for courts or grcat affairs : Or platter'd posts, with claps, in capitals? I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray’rs ; Or îmoking forth, a hundred hawkers load, Can sleep without a poem in my head, On wings of winds came flying all abroad? Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead. I I fought no homage from the race that write ; Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light? I kept, like Afan monarchs, from their hight: Heavens ! was I born for notiing but to write? Poems I heeded (now berhym'd so long) Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) No more than thou, great George! a birthday song. Have I no friend to serve, no soul to lave? [doubt I nc'er with wits or witlings pass’d my days, “ I found himn close with Swift - Indeid? no To spread about the itch of verle and praile; (Cries prating Balbus) something will come our Nor, like a puppy, dangied thro' the town, 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will; To fetch and carry fing-long up and down; No, such a Genius never can lie fill;' Nor at rehearfals sweat, and mouth'd, and cried, And then for mine obligingly mistakes With handkerchief and orange at my side: The first lampoon Sir Will or Bubo makes. But fick of fops, and poetry, and prate, Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but linile, To Bufo left the whole Casialian state. When ev'ry coxcomb knows me by my style ? || Proud, as Apollo on his forked hill, Curst be the verle, how well soe'er it How, Sat full-blown Bufo, puffd by cv'ry quill; That tends to make one worthy man my foc, Fed with soft dedication all day long, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, Horace and he went liand and hand in fong; + Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! His library (where busts of poets dead But he who hurts a harmiess neighbour's peace, And a true Pindar stood without a head) Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress; Received of wits an undiftinguith'd race, Who loves a lyc, lume Nander helps about, Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a place : Who writes a libel, or who copies out; Much they extollid his pictures, much his seat, That fop whose pride affects a patron's name, And Hattci'd ev'ry day, and some days eat : Yet absent wounds an author's honest farne; Till grown more frugal in his riper days, Who can your merit felfishly approve, He paid some bards with port, and some with praise; And shew the sense of it without the love; To fome a dry rehcarfal was allign'd; Who has the vanity to call you Friend, And others (harder still) he paid in kind. Yet wants the honour injur'd to defend; Dryden alone (what wonder :) came not nigh; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'cr you say Dryden alone escap'd this judging cye: And, if he lye not, must at least betray: VARIATIONS. * Who, if two Wits on rival themes contest, Be nice no more, but with a mouth profound Approves of each, but likes the worit the best, As rumbling D--s, or a Norfolk hound, To Bards reciting he vouchsaf'd a nod, With George and Fred'ric roughen ev'ry verse; And snuff'd their incense like a gracious god. Then smooth up all and Caroline rehearse. Fricndships from youth I fought, and leck them P. Nothe high walk to lift up Kings to Gods, till; Leave to Cuurt Sermons, and to Birth-day Odes, Fame, like the wind, may breathe where'er it will: On themes like these, superior far to thine, The world I knew, but made it not my school; Let laurellid Cibber and great Arnal thine. And in a course of flatt'ry liv'd no fool. Why write at all?--A. Yes, filence if you keep, s P. What if I fing Augustus great and good! The Town, the Court, the Wits, the Dunces weep, 4. You did fo lately, was it understood? Who a a } a a Who to the dean and fluer bell can swear, The whisper that, to greatness fill too near, Welcome for thee, fair Virtue ! all the past ; For thee, fair Virtuc! welcoine even the laft! A lath like mine no honest man thall dread, A. But why insult the poor, affront the great? But all such babbling blockhcads in his stead. P. A knave's a knave to me, in ev'ry ftate: Let Sporus tremble.-A. What? that thing of Alike my fcorn, if he succeed or fail , A hireling scribbler, or a hircling peer, This dreaded Sat'rift Dennis will confess So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Has drunk with Gibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor. Three thousand suns went down on Welfed's lye: He lath'd him not, but let her be his wife: His father, mother, body, soul, and muse. That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore : If there be force in Virtue or in Song, Of gentle blood (part fhed in Honour's cause , Wit that can crecp, and pride that licks the dust . While yet in Britain Honour had applause) Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool, Each parent sprung.-A. W'har fortune pray ?Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool, P. Their own; And better got than Beflia's from the throne. Born to no Pride, inheriting no Strife, Nor marrying Discord in a noble wife; The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age. Nor dar'd an Oath, nor hazarded a Lye. He stood the furious foe, the tiinid friend, Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's fubtle art; The damning critic, half approving wit, No language but the language of the heart. The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; By Nature honest, by Experience wife, Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had, Healthy by temp’rance, and by exercise; The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the inad; His life, tho" long, to sickness pass'd unknown, The distant threats of vengeance on his hcad, His death was initant, and without a groan. The blow unfelt, the tear he never thed; O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! The tale reviv'd, the lye so oft o'erthrown, Who fprung from Kings shall know less jos than I. t Be no unpleafing Melancholy mine: To rock the cradle of reposing Age ; VARIATIONS. + And of myself, too, something muf I say? Take then this verse, the trifle of a day: And if it live, it lives but to commend The man whose heart has ne'er forgot a friend, Or head, an Author; Critic, yet polite; 1 O Friend ! may each domestic bliss be thine ! And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write. |