Like her, who mifs'd her name in a lampoon,
And griev'd to find herself decay'd fo foon.
No common coxcomb must be mention'd here:
Not the dull train of dancing fparks appear;
Nor fluttering officers who never fight;
Of fuch a wretched rabble who would write?
Much lefs half wits: that's more against our rules;
For they are fops, the other are but fools.
Who would not be as filly as Dunbar?
As dull as Monmouth, rather than Sir Carr?
The cunning courtier should be flighted too,
Who with dull knavery makes fo much ado;
Till the fhrewd fool, by thriving too too fast,
Like Alop's fox, becomes a prey at last:
Nor fhall the royal miftreifes be nam'd,
Too ugly or too eafy to be blam'd;

With whom each rhyming fool keeps fuch a pother,
They are as common that way as the other:
Yet fauntering Charles, between his beafly brace,"
Meets with diffembling ftill in either place,
Affected humour, or a painted face.
In loyal libels we have often told him,
How one has jilted him, the other fold him :
How that affects to laugh, how this to weep;
But who can rail fo long as he can fleep?
Was ever prince by two at once mifled,
Falfe, foolish, old, ill-natur'd, and ill-bred?
Eamley and Aylesbury, with all that race
Cf bufy blockheads fhall have here ro place;
At council fet as foils on Dorfet's fcore,
To make that great falfe jewel fhine the more;
Who all that while was thought exceeding wife,
Only for taking pains and telling lies.

But there's no meddling with fuch nauseous men ;
Their very names have tir'd my lazy pen :
Tis time to quit their company and chufe
Some fitter fubje&t for a fharper Muse.

First, let's behold the merrieft man alive
Against his careless genius vainly frive;
Quit his dear eafe, fome deep defign to lay,
'Gainft a fet time, and then forget the day:
Yet he will laugh at his best friends, and be
Juft as good company as Nokes and Lee.
But when he aims at reafon or at rule,
He turns himself at best to ridicule.
Let him at bufinefs ne'er fo earnest fit,

Alas! that foaring, to thofe few that know,
Is but a bufy groveling here below.

So men in rapture think they mount the sky,
Whilft on the ground th' entranced wretches lie:
So modern fops have fancy'd they could fly.
As the new earl with parts deferving praife,
And wit enough to laugh at his own ways;
Yet lofes all foft days and fenfual nights,
Kind nature checks, and kinder fortune flights;
Striving against his quiet all he can,

For the fine notion of a busy man.

And what is that at beft, but one, whofe mind
Is made to tire himself and all mankind?
For Ireland he would go; faith, let him reign;
For if fome odd fantaftic lord would fain
Carry in trunks, and all my drudgery do,
I'll not only pay him, but admire him too.
But is there any other beast that lives,
Who his own harm so wittingly contrives?
Will any dog, that has his teeth and stones,

To turn a wheel and bark to be employ'd,
While Venus is by rival dogs enjoy'd?
Yet this fond man, to get a ftatefinan's name,
Forfeits his friend, his freedom, and his fame.

}

Though fatire nicely writ no humour stings
But thofe who merit praise in other things;
Yet we must needs this one exception make,
And break our rules for folly Tropos fake;
Who was too much defpis'd to be accus'd,
And therefore fcarce deferves to be abus'd;
Rais'd only by his mercenary tongue,
For railing fmoothly, and for reasoning wrong.
As boys on holy-days let loofe to play,
Lay waggifh traps for girls that país that way;
Then fhout to fee in din and deep distress
Some filly cit in her flower'd foolish drefs:
So have I mighty fatisfaction found,
To fee his tinfel reafon on the ground:
To fee the florid fool defpis'd, and know it,
By fome who fcarce have words enough to show it:
For fenfe fits filent, and condemns for weaker
The finner, nay fometimes the wittieft speakers
But 'tis prodigious fo much eloquence
Should be acquired by fuch little sense;
For words and wit did arciently agree,

Shew him but mirth, and bait that mirth with wit; And I ully was no fool, though this man be:

That fhadow of a jeft shall be enjoy'd,

Though he left all mankind to be destroy'd.
Seat transform'd fat gravely and demure,

Til moufe appear`d, and thought himself fecure;
But foon the lady had him in her eye,
And from her friend did juft as oddly fly.
Reaching above our nature does ro good;
We must fall back to our own flesh and blood;
As by our little Machiavel we find

That nimbleft creature of the bufy kind,
His limbs are crippled, and his body shakes;

Yet his hard mind, which all this butle makes,
No pity of its poor companion takes.
What gravity can hold from laughing out,
To fee him drag his feeble legs about,
Like hounds ill-coupled? jowler lugs him still
Through hedges, ditches, and through all that's ill.
Twere crime in any man but him alone
To ufe a body fo, though 'tis one's own :
Yet this falfe comfort never gives him o'er,

At bar abufive, on the bench unable,
Knave on the woolfack, fop at council-table.
These are the grievances of fuch fools as would
Pe rather wife than honeft, great than good.

Some other kind of wits must be made known,
Whofe harmlefs errors hurt theinfelves alone;
Excefs of luxury they think can please,
And laziness call loving of their ease:
To live diffolv'd in pleasures ftill they feign,
Tough their whole life 's but intermitting pain:
So much of furfeits, head-aches, claps are feen,
We fcarce perceive the little time between:
Well-meaning men who make this grofs mif-
take,

And pleafure lofe only for pleasure's fake;
Each pleasure has its price, and when we pay
Too much of pain, we fquander life away.

Thus Dorfet, purring like a thoughtful cat,
Marry'd, but wiser pufs ne'er thought of that:
And firft he worried her with railing rhyme,

That whilft he creeps his vigorous thoughts can foar: Like Pembroke's maftives at his kindcft time; VOL. III.

F

T is not my intention to make an apology for my poem: fome will think it needs / no excufe, and others will receive none. The defign I am fure is honeft: but he who draws his pen for one party, must expect to make enemies of the other. For wit and fool are confequents of Whig and Tory; and every man is a knave or an afs to the contrary fide. There is a treafury of merits in the Fanatic church, as well as in the Popish and a pennyworth to be had of faintfhip, honefty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads: but the longeft chapter in Deuteronomy has not curfes enough for the Anti-Bromingham. My comfort, is their manifeft prejudice to my caufe will render their judgment of lefs authority against me. Yet if a poem have genius, it will force its own reception in the world.

now,

For there is a sweetness in

good verfe, which tickles even while it hurts: and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleafes him against his will. The commendation of adverfaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be fatisfied on more eafy terms: if I happen to please the more moderate fort, I shall be fure of an honeft party, and, in all probability, of the best judges: for the leaft concerned are commonly the leaft corrupt. And I confefs I have laid in for thofe, by rebating the fatire, where juftice would allow it, from carrying too fharp an edge. They who can criticife fo weakly, as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced at their own coft that I can write feverely, with more eafe than I can gently. I have but laughed at fome men's follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices and other men's virtues I have commended, as freely as I have taxed their crimes. And if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should return upon me that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am: but if men are not to be judged by their profeflions, God forgive you commonwealth's-men for profeffing fo plaufibly for the government. You cannot be fo unconscionable as to charge me for not fubfcribing my name; for that would reflect too grofly upon your own party, who never dare, though, they have the advantage of a jury to fecure them. If you like not my poem, the fault may poffibly be in my writing; though it is hard for an author to judge against himfelf. But more probably it is in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent on both fides will condemn the character of Abfalom, as either too favourably or too hardly drawn. But they are not the violent whom I defire to please. The fault on the right hand is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and to confefs freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Befides the refpect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I would be of his reputation. But fince the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being fuch, are the fooneft perverted by ill counfels, efpecially when baited with fame and glory; it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel, than it was for Adam not to have refifted the two devils, the ferpent and the woman. The conclusion of

F 2

the

the ftory I purpofely forbore to profecute, because I could not obtain from myfelf to fhew Abfalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist; and if the draught be fo far true, it is as much as 1 defigned.

Were I the inventor, who am only the hiftorian, I should certainly conclude the piece, with the reconcilement of Abfalom to David. And who knows but this may come to pafs? Things were not brought to an extremity where I left the ftory: there seems yet to be room left for a compofure; hereafter there may be only for pity. I have not fo much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel; but am content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope with Origen, that the devil himself may at last be faved. For which reafon, in this poem, he is neither brought to fet his houfe in order, nor to difpofe of his person afterwards as he in wisdom fhall think fit. God is infinitely merciful; and his vicegerent is only not fo, because he is not infinite.

The true end of fatire is the amendment of vices by correction. And he, who writes honestly, is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease; for thofe are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's work of an Enfe refcindendum, which I with not to my very enemies. To conclude all; if the body politic have any analogy to the natural, in my weak judgment, an act of oblivion were as neceffary in a hot diftempered state, as an opiate would be in a raging fever.