But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Infults fall'n worth, or beauty in diftrefs,
Who loves a lye, lame flander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out:
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet abfent, wounds an author's honeft fame :
Who can your merit felfifhly approve,
And fhow the fenfe of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you fay,
And, if he lie not, muft at leaft betray:
Who to the Dean, and filver bell can fwear,
And fees at Cannons what was never there;
Who reads, but with a luft to mifapply,
Make fatire a lampoon, and fiction lye.
A lafh like mine no honeft man fhall dread,
But all fuch babbling blockheads in his ftead.
Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of filk, 305 Sporus, that mere white curd of afs's milk? Satire or fenfe, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that ftinks and ftings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys;
Yet wit ne'er taftes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred fpaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal fmiles his emptinefs betray,
As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet fqueaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or fpite, or fmut, or rhymes, or blafphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now mafter up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithefis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now ftruts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expreft,
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest.
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the duft.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashions fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor fervile; be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways:
That flatt'ry, ev'n to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lye in verse or prose the same,
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But ftoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his fong:
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The diftant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv'd, "the lye so oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'fcape,
The libel'd perfon, and the pictur'd shape;
Abufe, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his Sov'REIGN's ear—
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome e'en the laft!
A. But why infult the poor, affront the great ?
P. A knave's a knave, to me, in ev'ry ftate:
Alike my scorn, if he fucceed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,
A hireling fcribler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the poft corrupt, or of the fhire;
If on a pillory, or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.
Yet foft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit :
This dreaded fat' rift Dennis will confefs
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor.
Full ten years flander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand funs went down on Welfted's lye. 375 To please a mistress one afpers'd his life;
He lafh'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his will;
Let the two Curls of town and court, abufe
His father, mother, body, foul, and muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
It was a fin to call our neighbour fool :
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore :
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore ! 385 Unfpotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in virtue, or in fong.
Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause,
While yet in Britain Honour had applause)
Each parent sprung-A! What fortune, pray?——
And better got, than Beftia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no ftrife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age.
No courts he faw, no fuits would ever try;
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lye.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's fubtile art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By nature honeft, by experience wife,
Healthy by tempʼrance, and by exercise;
His life, tho' long, to fickness past unknown,
His death was inftant, and without a groan.
O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!
Who fprung from kings fhall know lefs joy than I. 405 O friend! may each domeftic blifs be thine!
Be no unpleafing melancholy mine :
Me, let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of repofing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make langour smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May heav'n, to blefs thofe days, preferve my friend, 415
Preferve him focial, chearful, and ferene,
And juft as rich as when he ferv'd a QUEEN.
A. Whether that bleffing be deny'd or giv❜n,
Thus far was right, the reft belongs to heav'n.
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