If Balak fhould be call'd to leave his place;
(As profit is the loudeft call of grace)
His temple, difpoflefs'd of one, would be
Replenish'd with feven devils more by thee.
Levi, thou art a load, I'll lay thee down,
And fhew rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor flaves in metre, dull and addle pated,
Who rhime below ev'n David's Pfalms tranflated.
Some in my speedy pace I muft out-run,
As lame Mephibofheth the wizard's fon :
To make quick way, I'll leap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza as I would the pox;
And haften Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble fenfe on verfe;
Who, by my Mufe, to all fucceeding times
Shall live, in fpite of their own dogrel rhimes.
Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody;
Spurr'd boldly on, and dafh'd through thick and thin;
Through fenfe and nonfenfe, never out nor in;
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And, in one word, heroically mad:
He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,
But faggoted his notions as they fell,
And if they rhim'd and rattled, all was well.
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a fatire,
For ftill there goes fome thinking to ill-nature:
He needs no more than birds and beafts to think;
All his occafions are to eat and drink.
If he call rogue and rafcal from a garret,
He means you no more mifchief than a parrot:
The words for friend and foe alike were made;
To fetter 'em in verse is all his trade.
For almonds he'll cry whore to his own mother,
And call young Abfalom King David's brother.
Let him be gallows-free by my confent,
And nothing fuffer, fince he nothing meant:
Hanging fuppofes human foul and reafon,
This animal's below committing treafon :
Shall he be hang'd, who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achitophel.
The woman that committed buggary,
Was rightly fentenc'd by the law to die:
But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog, that never heard the statute read.
Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pafs for mere inftinct in him :
Inftinct he follows, and no farther knows;
For to write verfe with him is to tranfprofe.
'Twere pity treafon at his door to lay,
Who makes heav'n's gate a lock to its own key.
Let him rail on; let his invective mufe
Have four and twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of fenfe,
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fire-works give him leave to vent his fpite:
Thofe are the only ferpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is, we know,
But to be master of a puppet-show:
On that one stage his works may yet appear ;
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Now stop your nofes, readers, all and fome; For here's a tun of midnight-work to come, Og from a treafon-tavern rolling home.
Round as a globe, and liquor'd ev'ry chink,
Goodly and great he fails behind his link.
With all this bulk there's nothing loft in Og,
For ev'ry inch, that is not fool, is rogue;
A monftrous mafs of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had fpew'd to make the batter.
When wine has given him courage to blafpheme,
He curfes God; but God before curft him:
And if man could have reafon, none has more,
That made his paunch fo rich, and him fo poor.
With wealth he was not trufted, for Heav'n knew,
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
'To what would he on quail and pheafant fwell,
That ev'n on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But though heav'n made him poor, (with rev'rence fpeaking)
He never was a poet of God's making.
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic bleffing------Be thou dull;
Drink, fwear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do any thing but write :
Thou art of lafting make, like thoughtless men ;
A strong nativity, but for the pen.
Eat opium, mingle arfenic in thy drink,
Still thou may'ft live, avoiding pen and ink.
I fee, I fee, 'tis counsel giv'n in vain,
For treafon botch'd in rhime will be thy bane:
Rhime is the rock, on which thou art to wreck;
"Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
Why should thy metre good King David blast ?
A pfalm of his will furely be thy last.
Dar'ft thou prefume in verfe to meet thy foes,
Thou, whom the penny pamphlet foil'd in profe?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade:
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck doft pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull.
To die for faction is a common evil;
But to be hang'd for nonfenfe is the devil.
Hadft thou the glories of thy king exprest,
Thy praises had been fatires at the best;
But thou in clumsy verfe, unlick'd, unpointed,
Haft shamefully defy'd the Lord's anointed.
I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes;
For who would read thy life, that reads thy rhimes?
But of King David's foes be this the doom;
May all be like the young man Abfalom;
And for my foes, may this their blessing be,
'To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee.
Per Graium populos, mediaeque per Elidis urbem, Ibat ovans, Divumque fibi pofcebat honores.
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