Or if you needs must write, write Cæsar's praise; You'll gain at least a knighthood or the bays.
P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,
With arms, and George, and Brunswick, crowd the verse;
Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder, With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and
Or nobly wild, with Budgell's fire and force,
Paint angels trembling round his falling horse?
F. Then all your Muse's softer art display,
Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay;
Lull with Amelia's liquid name the Nine,
And sweetly flow through all the royal line.
P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; They scarce can bear their laureate twice a year; And justly Cæsar scorns the poet's lays;
It is to history he trusts for praise.
F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, Than ridicule all taste, blaspheme quadrille, Abuse the city's best good men in metre, And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter. E'en those you touch not, hate you.
P. What should ail 'em?
F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam : The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.
5 Sir Richard Blackmore.
6 At the battle of Oudenard.
P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny Scarsdale his bottle, Darty" his ham-pie: Ridotta sips and dances till she see
The doubling lustres dance as fast as she:
Floves the senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
Like in all else, as one egg to another.
I love to pour out all myself as plain
As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne :
In them, as certain to be lov'd as seen,
The soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within;
In me what spots (for spots I have) appear,
Will prove at least the medium must be clear.
In this impartial glass my Muse intends
Fair to expose myself, my foes, my friends;
Publish the present age; but where my text
Is vice too high, reserve it for the next;
My foes shall wish my life a longer date,
And every friend the less lament my fate.
My head and heart thus flowing through my quill,
Verse-man or prose-man, term me which you will,
Papist or Protestant, or both between,
Like good Erasmus, in an honest mean,
In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet;
7 Dartineuf, a great epicure, with whom Pope appears to have lived on good terms.
8 Of this distinguished Member of Parliament, Sir Robert Walpole repeatedly said, that "he was not corruptible."
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,
Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors.
Save but our army! and let Jove incrust
Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust!
Peace is my dear delight—not Fleury's more:
But touch me, and no minister so sore.
Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burden of some merry song.
Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage;
Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page;
From furious Sappho1 scarce a milder fate,
Pox'd by her love, or libell'd by her hate.
Its proper power to hurt each creature feels;
Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels;
'Tis a bear's talent not to kick, but hug;
And no man wonders he's not stung by pug.
So drink with Walters, or with Chartres eat,
They'll never poison you, they'll only cheat.
Then, learned sir! (to cut the matter short)
Whate'er my fate, or well or ill at court,
Whether old age, with faint but cheerful ray,
Attends to gild the evening of my day,
Or death's black wing already be display'd,
To wrap me in the universal shade;
Whether the darken'd room to muse invite,
Or whiten❜d wall provoke the skewer to write;
Judge Page is said to have treated delinquents rather too roughly.
1. See Memoir prefixed to these volumes, p. xcii.
In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint,
Like Lee or Budgell I will rhyme and print.
F. Alas, young man, your days can ne'er be
long:
In flower of age you perish for a song!
Plums and directors, Shylock and his wife,
Will club their testers now to take your life.
P. What? arm'd for virtue when I point the pen,
Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men,
Dash the proud gamester in his gilded car,
Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star;
Can there be wanting, to defend her cause,
Lights of the church, or guardians of the laws?
Could pension'd Boileau lash in honest strain
Flatterers and bigots e'en in Louis' reign?
Could laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage,
Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?
And I not strip the gilding off a knave,
Unplac'd, unpension'd, no man's heir or slave?
I will, or perish in the generous cause;
Hear this, and tremble! you who 'scape the laws.
Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave
Shall walk the world in credit to his grave:
To Virtue only and her friends a friend,
The world beside may murmur or commend.
Know, all the distant din that world can keep,
Rolls o'er my grotto, and but soothes my sleep.
There my retreat the best companions grace, Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place: There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul:
And he, whose lightning pierc'd th' Iberian lines,
Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines;
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain,
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain.
Envy must own I live among the great,
No pimp of pleasure, and no spy of state,
With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne'er repeats,
Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats;
To help who want, to forward who excel;
This all who know me, know; who love me, tell;
And who unknown defame me, let them be
Scribblers or peers, alike are mob to me.
This is my plea, on this I rest my cause-
What saith my counsel, learned in the laws?
F. Your plea is good; but still I say, beware!
Laws are explain'd by men—so have a care.
It stands on record, that in Richard's times
A man was hang'd for very honest rhymes.
Consult the statute; quart. I think it is,
Edwardi sext. or prim. et quint. Eliz.
See libels, satires-here you have it—read.
P. Libels and satires! lawless things indeed!
But grave epistles, bringing vice to light,
Such as a king might read, a bishop write,
Such as Sir Robert would approve―F. Indeed!
The case is alter'd-you may then proceed:
In such a cause the plaintiff will be hiss'd,
My lords the judges laugh, and you're dismiss'd.
8 Walpole.
2 The Earl of Peterborough.
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