From fuch alone the Great rebukes endure,
Whofe fatire's facred, and whofe rage fecure:
'Tis mine to wash a few light ftains, but theirs
To deluge fin, and drown a court in tears.
Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my wit,
In time to come, may país for holy writ.
To wash the ftains away: although I yet
(With Maccabees modefty) the known merit
Of my work leffen, yet fome wise men fhall,
hope, efteem my writs canonical.
Written in MDCCXXXVIII,
1
DIALOGUE
FR.NOT twice a twelvemonth* you appear in print,
And when it comes, the court fee nothing in't.
You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
And are, befides, too moral for a wit.
Decay of parts, alas! we all muft feel-
Why now, this moment, don't I fee you
"Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said, "Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;"
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
"To laugh at fools who put their truft in Peter." IO
But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice;
fteal?
Bubo obferves § he lash'd no sort of vice:
These two lines are from Horace : and the only lines that are so in the whole poem.
§ Some guilty person very fond of making such an observation.
Horace would fay, Sir Billy ferv'd the crown,
Blunt could do bus'nefs, H-ggins knew the town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
*
In rev'rend bishops note some small neglects,
And own the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
Who cropt our ears §, and fent them to the king.
His fly, polite, infinuating style
Could please at court, and make AUGUSTUS fmile: 20
An artful manager, that crept between
His friend and fhame, and was a kind of fcreen.
But 'faith your very friends will foon be fore;
Patriots there are, who wish you'd jeft no more-
And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought
The great man † never offer'd you a groat.
Go fee Sir ROBERT
And never laugh-for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of focial pleasure, ill-exchang'd for pow'r;
Seen him, uncumber'd with the venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only diff'rence is, 1 dare laugh out.
F. Why yes: with Scripture ftill you may be free;
A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty;
A joke on JEKYL, or fome odd old whig,
Who never chang'd his principle, or wig:
40
Formerly jailor of the Fleet-prifon, enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled.
Said to be executed by the captain of a Spanish fhip on one Jenkins, a captain of an English one. He cut off his ears, and bid him carry them to the king his mafter.
A phrafe, by common ufe, uppropriated to the first minister.
Sir Jofeph Jekyl, Mafter of the Rolls, a true whig in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity. He fometimes voted against the court, which drew upon him the laugh here defcribed of on E who bestowed it equally upon religion and honefty. He died a few months after the publication of this
poem.
A pa
A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age,
45
Whom all lord chamberlains allow the ftage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,
And wear their ftrange old virtue, as they will.
If any afk you, "Who's the man, fo near
"His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear ?”
Why, anfwer, LYTTELTON *, and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage ;
But were his verfes vile, his whisper bafe,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's cafe.
Sejanus, Wolfey, hurt not honeft FLEURY †,
But well may put fome statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
Thefe you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are fore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To vice and folly to confine the jeft,
Sets half the world, God knows, against the reft;
Did not the fneer of more impartial men
At fenfe and virtue balance all agen.
Judicious wits fpread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.
P. Dear Sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:
Adieu diftinction, fatire, warmth, and truth !
Come, harmless characters that no one hit;
Come, Henley's oratory, Ofborn's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,
The flow'rs of Bubo, and the flow of Y-ng
George Lyttelton, fecretary to the Prince of Wales, diftinguished both for his writings and speeches in the spirit of liberty.
The one the wicked minister of Tiberius, the other, of Henry VIII. The writers against the court ufually bestowed thefe and other odious names on the minister, without distinction, and in the most injurious manner. See Dial. 2. ver. 137.
It was a patriot-fashion, at that
+ Cardinal, and minifter to Louis XV. time, to cry up his wisdom and honesty. See them in their places in the Dunciad.
4
The gracious dew* of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipt cream of courtly fenfe,
That first was H-vy's, F-'s next, and then
The S-te's, and then H-vy's once agen.
O come, that eafy, Ciceronian ftyle,
So Latin, yet fo English all the while,
As tho' the pride of Middleton and Bland,
All boys may read, and girls may understand!
Then might I fing, without the leaft offence,
And all I fung fhould be the nation's fenfe;
Or teach the melancholy mufe to mourn,
Hang the fad verfe on CAROLINA's §urn,
And hail her paffage to the realms of reft,
All parts perform'd, and all her children bleft!
So-Satire is no more-I feel it die-
No Gazetteer more innocent than İ
And let, a God's name, ev'ry fool and knave
Be grac'd thro' life, and flatter'd in his grave.
F. Why fo? if Satire knows its time and place,
You ftill may lafh the greatest in difgrace:
For merit will by turns forfake them all;
Would you know when exactly when they fall.
But let all fatire in all changes fpare
Immortal S-k, and grave D-—re †.
Silent and foft, as faints remove to Heav'n,
All tyes diffolv'd and ev'ry fin forgiv'n,
These may fome gentle minifterial wing
Receive, and place for ever near a king!
* Alludes to fome court fermons, and fiorid panegyrical fpeeches; parti. cularly one very full of puerilities and flatteries; which afterwards got into an addrefs in the fame pretty ftyle; and was lafly ferved up in an epitaph, between Latin and English, published by its author.
$ Queen confort of king George II. She died in 1737. Her death gave occafion, as is obferved above, to many indifcreet and mean performances unworthy of her memory, whofe laft moments manifefted the utmost courage and refolution.
:
A title given that lord by king James II. He was of the bedchamber to king William he was fo to king George I. he was fo to king George 11. This lord was very skilful in all the forms of the house, in which he dif charged himself with great gravity.
VOL. II.
Q.
There,
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