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Britain to soft refinements less a foe,
Wit grew polite, and numbers learn'd to flow.
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Though still some traces of our rustic vein,
And splay-foot verse, remain'd, and will remain.
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tired Nation breathed from civil war.
Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire,
Show'd us that France had something to admire.
Not but the tragic spirit was our own,
And full in Shakspeare, fair in Otway shone :
But Otway fail'd to polish or refine,
And fluent Shakspeare scarce effaced a line.
Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire
The humble muse of comedy require.
But in known images of life, I guess
The labour greater, as the indulgence less.
Observe how seldom even the best succeed:
Tell me if Congreve's fools are fools indeed?
What pert, low dialogue has Farquhar writ!
How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit!
The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
Who fairly puts all characters to bed!
And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,
To make poor Pinky eat with vast applause!
But fill their purse, our poets' work is done,
Alike to them, by pathos or by pun.

O you! whom vanity's light bark conveys
On Fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise,
With what a shifting gale your course you ply,
For ever sunk too low, or borne too high!
Who pants for glory finds but short repose,
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.
Farewell the stage! if just as thrives the play,
The silly bard grows fat, or falls away.

There still remains, to mortify a wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit:
A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd;
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the farce, the Bear, or the Black-joke.
What dear delight to Britons farce affords!
Ever the taste of mobs, but now of lords:
(Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies
From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.)
The play stands still; damn action and discourse,
Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse;
Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn,
Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn;
The champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast 3.
With laughter sure Democritus had died,
Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.
Let bear or elephant be e'er so white,
The people, sure, the people are the sight!

1 Mr. Waller, about this time, with the Earl of Dorset, Mr. Godolphin, and others, translated the Pompey of Corneille, and the more correct French poets began to be în reputation,

* A name taken by Mrs. Behn, authoress of several obscene plays, &c.

3 The coronation of Henry VIII. and Queen Anne Boleyn, in which the playhouses vied with each other to represent all the pomp of a coronation. In this noble contention the armour of one of the kings of England was borrowed from the Tower, to dress the champion.

Ah luckless poet! stretch thy lungs and roar,
That bear or elephant shall heed thee more;
While all its throats the gallery extends,
And all the thunder of the pit ascends!
Loud as the wolves, on Orcas' stormy steep',
Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep.
Such is the shout, the long-applauding note,
At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;
Or when from court a birth-day suit bestow'd,
Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load.
Booth enters,-hark! the universal peal!
"But has he spoken?" Not a syllable.
"What shook the stage, and made the people
stare?"

Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.

Yet, lest you think I rally more than teach,
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once presume to instruct the times,
To know the poet from the man of rhymes:
'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns;
Enrage, compose, with more than magic art,
With pity, and with terror, tear my heart;
And snatch me, o'er the earth, or through the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.
But not this part of the poetic state,
Alone, deserves the favour of the great:
Think of those authors, sir, who would rely
More on a reader's sense than gazer's eye.
Or who shall wander where the muses sing?
Who climb their mountain, or who taste their
How shall we fill a library with wit, [spring?
When Merlin's Cave is half-unfinish'd yet?
My liege! why writers little claim your thought,
I guess; and, with their leave, will tell the fault:
We poets are (upon a poet's word)

Of all mankind, the creatures most absurd:
The season, when to come, and when to go,
To sing, or cease to sing, we never know;
And if we will recite nine hours in ten,
You lose your patience, just like other men.
Then too we hurt ourselves, when to defend
A single verse, we quarrel with a friend;
Repeat unask'd; lament, the wit's too fine
For vulgar eyes, and point out every line.
But most, when straining with too weak a wing,
We needs will write epistles to the king;
And from the moment we oblige the town,
Expect a place, or pension from the crown;
Or dubb'd historians by express command,
To enrol your triumphs o'er the seas and land,
Be call'd to court to plan some work divine,
As once for LOUIS, Boileau and Racine.

Yet think, great sir! (so many virtues shown)
Ah think, what poet best may make them known?
Or choose at least some minister of grace,
Fit to bestow the laureat's weighty place.
Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair,
Assign'd his figure to Bernini's care;
And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed;
So well in paint and stone they judged of merit:
But kings in wit may want discerning spirit.

4 The farthest northern promontory of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades.

5 Munus Apolline dignum. The Palatine Library, then building by Augustus.

6 A building in the Royal Gardens of Richmond, where is a small but choice collection of books.

The hero William, and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd
Quarles;

Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear,
"No lord's anointed, but a Russian bear."

Not with such majesty, such bold relief,
The forms august, of king, or conquering chief,
E'er swell'd on marble; as in verse have shined
(In polish'd verse) the manners and the mind.
Oh! could I mount on the Mæonian wing,
Your arms, your actions, your repose to sing!
What seas you traversed, and what fields you
fought!

Your country's peace, how oft, how dearly bought!
How barbarous rage subsided at your word,
And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the
sword!

How, when you nodded, o'er the land and deep,
Peace stole her wing, and wrapt the world in sleep;
Till earth's extremes your mediation own,
And Asia's tyrants tremble at your throne-
But verse, alas! your majesty disdains;
And I'm not used to panegyric strains :
The zeal of fools offends at any time,
But most of all, the zeal of fools in rhyme.
Besides, a fate attends on all I write,
That when I aim at praise, they say I bite.
A vile encomium doubly ridicules:
There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools.
If true, a woful likeness; and if lies,
"Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise:"
Well may he blush, who gives it, or receives;
And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
(Like journals, odes, and such forgotten things
As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of kings)
Clothe spice, line trunks, or fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.

THE SECOND EPISTLE

OF THE

SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

DEAR Colonel, COBHAM's and your country's friend!
You love a verse, take such as I can send.
A Frenchman comes, presents you with his boy,
Bows and begins-"This lad, sir, is of Blois1:
Observe his shape how clean! his locks how curl'd!
My only son, I'd have him see the world:
His French is pure; his voice too-you shall hear.
Sir, he's your slave, for twenty pound a-year.
Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease,
Your barber, cook, upholsterer, what you please:
A perfect genius at an opera-song-

To say too much, might do my honour wrong.
Take him with all his virtues, on my word;
His whole ambition was to serve a lord;
But, sir, to you, with what would I not part?
Tho' faith, I fear, 'twill break his mother's heart.
Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie,
And then, unwhipp'd, he had the grace to cry:
The fault he has I fairly shall reveal,
(Could you o'erlook but that) it is, to steal.”
If, after this, you took the graceless lad,
Could you complain, my friend, he proved so bad?

1 A town in Beauce, where the French tongue is spoken in great purity.

Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute,
I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit ;
Who sent the thief that stole the cash away,
And punish'd him that put it in his way.

Consider then, and judge me in this light ;
I told you when I went, I could not write;
You said the same; and are you discontent
With laws, to which you gave your own assent?
Nay, worse, to ask for verse at such a time!
D'ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme ?
In ANNA's wars, a soldier poor and old
Had dearly earn'd a little purse of gold:
Tired with a tedious march, one luckless night,
He slept, poor dog! and lost it, to a doit.
This put the man in such a desperate mind,
Between revenge, and grief, and hunger, join'd,
Against the foe, himself, and all mankind,
He leap'd the trenches, scaled a castle wall,
Tore down a standard, took the fort and all.
"Prodigious well :" his great commander cried,
Gave him much praise, and some reward beside.
Next pleased his excellence a town to batter;
(Its name I know not, and 'tis no great matter)
"Go on, my friend, (he cried) see yonder walls!
Advance and conquer! go where glory calls!
More honours, more rewards, attend the brave."
Don't you remember what reply he gave?
"D'ye think me, noble general, such a sot?
Let him take castles who has ne'er a groat."
Bred up at home, full early I begun
To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' son.
Besides, my father taught me from a lad,
The better art to know the good from bad:
(And little sure imported to remove,

To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove.)
But knottier points we knew not half so well,
Deprived us soon of our paternal cell;

And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust,
Denied all posts of profit or of trust:

Hopes after hopes of pious papists fail'd,

While mighty WILLIAM'S thundering arm prevail'd.
For right hereditary tax'd and fined,

He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me, the muses help'd to undergo it;
Convict a papist he, and I a poet.

But, (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive,
Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,
If I would scribble, rather than repose.

Years following years, steal something every day,
At last they steal us from ourselves away;
In one our frolics, one amusements end,
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend:
This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,
What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme?
If every wheel of that unwearied mill,
That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?
But after all, what would you have me do?
When out of twenty I can please not two;
When this heroics only deigns to praise,
Sharp satire that, and that Pindaric lays?
One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg;
The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg;
Hard task! to hit the palate of such guests,
When Oldfield loves, what Dartineuf detests.
But grant I may relapse, for want of grace,
Again to rhyme; can London be the place!

2 An eminent justice of peace, who decided much in the manner of Sancho Pancha.

Who there his muse, or self, or soul attends,
In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and
My counsel sends to execute a deed: [friends?
A poet begs me I will hear him read:
In Palace-yard, at nine you'll find me there-
At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square_
Before the lords, at twelve, my cause comes on-
There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one.-
"Oh but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets."
Not quite so well, however, as one ought;
A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought;
And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?
And peers give way, exalted as they are,
Even to their own s-r-v-nce in a car?

Go, lofty poet! and in such a crowd,
Sing thy sonorous verse-but not aloud.
Alas! to grottoes and to groves we run,
To ease and silence, every muse's son:
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,
Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's-court1.
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?

How match the bards whom none e'er match'd before?

The man, who stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives seven years complete,
See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on,
He walks, an object new beneath the sun!
The boys flock round him, and the people stare :
So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear,
Stept from its pedestal to take the air!

And here, while town, and court, and city roars,
With mobs, and duns, and soldiers, at their doors;
Shall I, in London, act this idle part?
Composing songs, for fools to get by heart?

The Temple late two brother serjeants saw, Who deem'd each other oracles of law; With equal talents, these congenial souls, One lull'd the Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls; Each had a gravity would make you split, And shook his head at MURRAY, as a wit. ""Twas, sir, your law," and "Sir, your eloquence," "Yours, Cowper's manner," and "Yours, Talbot's sense."

Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,
Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit.
Call Tibbald Shakspeare, and he'll swear the Nine,
Dear Cibber! never match'd one ode of thine.
Lord! how we strut through Merlin's Cave, to see
No poets there, but Stephen, you, and me.
Walk with respect behind, while we at ease
Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we
please.

"My dear Tibullus!" if that will not do,
"Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you :
Or, I'm content, allow me Dryden's strains,
And you shall rise up Otway for your pains."
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace
This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race;
And much must flatter, if the whim should bite,
To court applause by printing what I write :
But let the fit pass o'er, I'm wise enough
To stop my ears to their confounded stuff.

In vain, bad rhymers all mankind reject,
They treat themselves with most profound respect;

1 Two villages within a few miles of London.

"Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue,
Each praised within, is happy all day long.
But how severely with themselves proceed
The men, who write such verse as we can read?
Their own strict judges, not a word they spare
That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care,
Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place,
Nay, though at court (perhaps) it may find grace:
Such they'll degrade; and sometimes, in its stead,
In downright charity revive the dead;

Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years;
Command old words that long have slept, to wake,
Words, that wise Bacon, or brave Raleigh spake ;
Or bid the new be English, ages hence,
(For use will father what's begot by sense)
Pour the full tide of eloquence along,
Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong,

Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue;
Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine,
But show no mercy to an empty line:
Then polish all, with so much life and ease,
You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please:
"But ease in writing flows from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance."
If such the plague and pains to write by rule,
Better (say I) be pleased, and play the fool;
Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease,
It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.
There lived in primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;
Who, though the house was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate:
In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell,
And much too wise to walk into a well.
Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured,
They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they
cured:

Whereat the gentleman began to stare-
My friends! he cried, p-x take you for your care!
That from a patriot of distinguish'd note,
Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.

Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate:
Wisdom (curse on it) will come soon or late.
There is a time when poets will grow dull:
I'll even leave verses to the boys at school:
To rules of poetry no more confined,
I'll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind,
Teach every thought within its bounds to roll,
And keep the equal measure of the soul.

Soon as I enter at my country-door,
My mind resumes the thread it dropt before;
Thoughts, which at Hyde-park-corner I forgot,
Meet and rejoin me, in the pensive Grot.
There all alone, and compliments apart,
I ask these sober questions of my heart.

If, when the more you drink, the more you crave,
You tell the doctor; when the more you have,
The more you want, why not with equal ease
Confess as well your folly, as disease?
The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
"Men only feel the smart, but not the vice."

When golden angels cease to cure the evil, You give all royal witchcraft to the devil: When servile chaplains cry, that birth and place Indue a peer with honour, truth, and grace, Look in that breast, most dirty D-! be fair, Say, can you find out one such lodger there?

Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach,
You go to church to hear these flatterers preach.
Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit,
A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit,
The wisest man might blush, I must agree
If D*** loved sixpence, more than he.

If there be truth in law, and use can give
A property, that's yours, on which you live.
Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford

Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
All Worldly's hens, nay partridge, sold to town,
His venison too, a guinea makes your own;
He bought at thousands, what with better wit
You purchase as you want, and bit by bit;
Now, or long since, what difference will be found!
You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,
Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln fen,
Buy every stick of wood, that lends them heat,
Buy every pullet they afford to eat.

Yet these are wights, who fondly call their own
Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.
The laws of God, as well as of the land,
Abhor, a perpetuity should stand:
Estates have wings, and hang in fortune's power
Loose on the point of every wavering hour;
Ready, by force, or of your own accord,
By sale, at least by death, to change their lord.
Man? and for ever? wretch! what would'st thou
Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave. [have?
All vast possessions, (just the same the case
Whether you call them villa, park, or chase)
Alas, my BATHURST! what will they avail?
Join Cotswold hills to Saperton's fair dale,
Let rising granaries and temples here,
Their mingled farms and pyramids appear,
Link towns to towns with avenues of oak,
Enclose whole downs in walls, 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.
Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high,
Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,
There are who have not,-and thank Heaven there
are,

Who, if they have not, think not worth their care.
Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find
Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.
Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one
Plows, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun;
The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's

mines :

Why one like Bu- with pay and scorn content,
Bows and votes on, in court and Parliament;
One driven by strong benevolence of soul,
Shall fly like Oglethorpe 1, from pole to pole:
Is known alone to that directing power,
Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
That God of nature, who, within us still,
Inclines our action, not constrains our will;
Various of temper, as of face or frame,
Each individual: His great end the same.
Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap,
A part I will enjoy, as well as keep.
My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace
A man so poor would live without a place:
But sure no statute in his favour says,
How free, or frugal, I shall pass my days:

Employed in settling the colony of Georgia.

I, who at some times spend, at others spare,
Divided between carelessness and care.
"Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to heed to treasure more ;
Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day,
And pleased, if sordid want be far away.

What is't to me, (a passenger, God wot)
Whether my vessel be first rate or not?
The ship itself may make a better figure,
But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger.
I neither strut with every favouring breath,
Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.
In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

"But why all this of avarice? I have none."
I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone;
But does no other lord it at this hour,
As wild and mad? the avarice of power?
Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appall?
Not the black fear of death that saddens all?
With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne,
Despise the known, nor tremble at the unknown?
Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,
In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?
Pleased to look forward, pleased to look behind,
And count each birth-day with a grateful mind?
Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?
Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay?
Or will you think, my friend, your business done,
When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?

[fill:

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and loved, and eat, and drank your Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage: Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

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Yes; thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too:
Yet here, as even in hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,
That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.
I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
It brought (no doubt) the excise and army in:
Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows
But that the cure is starving, all allow. [how,
Yet like the papist's, is the poet's state,
Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:
The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.

Thus as the pipes of some carved organ move, The gilded puppets dance and mount above. Heaved by the breath, the inspiring bellows blow: The inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

One sings the fair; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love: In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold, And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold. These write to lords, some mean reward to get, As needy beggars sing at doors for meat. Those write because all write, and so have still Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others' wit: 'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before, His rank digestion makes it wit no more: Sense, pass'd through him, no longer is the same; For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs
Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres,
Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,
Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear ;
Wicked as pages, who in early years

Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears.
Even those I pardon, for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell
In what commandment's large contents they dwell.
One, one man only breeds my just offence;
Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impu-
Time, that at last matures a clap to pox, [dence:
Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
And brings all natural events to pass,
Hath made him an attorney of an ass.
No young divine, new beneficed, can be
More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
What further could I wish the fop to do,
But turn a wit, and scribble verses too;
Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear
With rhymes of this per cent. and that per year?
Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts,
Like nets, or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts;
Call himself barrister to every wench,
And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench?
Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold,
More rough than forty Germans when they scold.
Cursed be the wretch, so venal and so vain:
Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.
Tis such a bounty as was never known,
If PETER deigns to help you to your own:
What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies!
And what a solemn face, if he denies!
Grave, as when prisoners shake the head and swear
"Twas only suretyship that brought them there.
His office keeps your parchment fates entire,
He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,
For not in chariots Peter puts his trust;
For you he sweats and labours at the laws,
Takes God to witness he affects your cause,
And lies to every lord, in every thing,
Like a king's favourite-or like a king.
These are the talents that adorn them all,

From wicked Waters even to godly

黃黃

Not more of simony beneath black gowns,
Nor more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.
In shillings and in pence at first they deal;
And steal so little, few perceive they steal;
Till, like the sea, they compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand :

And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,
Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's,
Or city-heir in mortgage melts away;
Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.
Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
Indenture, covenants, articles they draw,
Large as the fields themselves, and larger far
Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are ;
So vast, our new divines, we must confess,
Are fathers of the church for writing less.
But let them write for you, each rogue impairs
The deeds, and dextrously omits, ses heires:
No commentator can more slily pass
O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place;
Or, in quotation, shrewd divines leave out
Those words, that would against them clear the
So Luther thought the pater-noster long, [doubt.
When doom'd to say his beads and even-song;
But having cast his cowl, and left those laws,
Adds to Christ's prayer, the power and glory clause.
The lands are bought; but where are to be found
Those ancient woods that shaded all the ground?
We see no new-built palaces aspire,
No kitchens emulate the vestal fire,
Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of
The good old landlord's hospitable door?
Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes
Some beasts were kill'd, though not whole heca-
tombs ;

[yore

That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,
Carthusian fasts, and fulsome bacchanals;
And all mankind might that just mean observe,
In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.
These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow,
But oh! these works are not in fashion now:
Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare,
Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence;
Let no court sycophant pervert my sense,
Nor sly informer watch these words to draw
Within the reach of treason, or the law.

SATIRE IV.

WELL, if it be my time to quit the stage,
Adieu to all the follies of the age!

I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my purgatory here betimes,
And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.
The poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames,
To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fired,
Nor the vain itch to admire, or be admired;
I hoped for no commission from his Grace;
I bought no benefice, I begg'd no place;
Had no new verses, nor new suit to show;
Yet went to court!-the devil would have it so.
But, as the fool that in reforming days
Would go to mass in jest (as story says)
Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,
Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God;
So was I punish'd, as if full as proud
As prone to ill, as negligent of good,
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,
As vain, as idle, and as false, as they
Who live at court, for going once that way!

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