The flatterer an ear-wig grows;
Thus worms suit all conditions;
Misers are muck-worms; silk-worms, beaus;
And death-watches, physicians.
That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;
Their conscience is a worm within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah, Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,
If thou couldst make the courtier void
The worm that never dies!
O learned friend of Abchurch-lane,
Who sett'st our entrails free;
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall eat ev'n thee.
Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
Ev'n Button's wits to worms shall turn:
Who maggots were before.
To Mrs. M. B. on her Birth Day.
OH be thou bless'd with all that Heav'n can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend :
Not with those toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and vanities that tire.
With added years, if life bring nothing new,
But like a seive let every blessing through,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth-day? 'tis, alas! too clear,
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear;
Till death, unfelt, that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstacy of joy,
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb,
And wake to raptures in a life to come.
To Mr. T. Southern, on his Birth-Day. 1742.
RESIGN'D to live, prepar'd to die,
With not one sin but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run,
(Without a blot) to eighty one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild-goose and the larks!
The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden!
And for his judgment, lo, a pudden!
Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May I'm, whom Heav'n sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.
To Mr, Addison; occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals.
SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears! With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead! Imperial wonders rais'd on nations spoil'd, Where, mix'd with slaves, the groaning marty toil'd:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods;
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey,
Statues of men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage:
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And papal piety, and gothic fire.
Perhaps, by its own ruins sav'd from fiame,
Some bury'd marble half preserves a name;
That name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.
Ambition sigh'd: she found it vain to trust
The faithless column and the crumbling bust:
Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to
shore,
Their ruins perish'd and their place no more!
Convinc'd, she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps,
Beneath her palm here sad Judea weeps,
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine:
A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.
The medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one short view subjected to our eye,
Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties lie.
With sharpen'd sight pale autiquaries pore,
Th' inscription value, but the rust adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes,
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,
Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd;
And Curio, restless by the fair one's side,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine:
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her gods and godlike heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush these studies thy regard engage;
These pleas'd the fathers of poetic rage;
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And art reflected images to art.
Oh, when shall Britian, conscious of her claim,
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living medals see her wars enroll'd,
And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold?
There, rising bold, the patriot's honest face;
There warriors frowning in historic brass :
Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree;
Or in fair series laurell'd bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison:
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore another Pollio shine;
With aspect open shall erect his head,
And round the orb in lasting notes be read.-
"Statesmen, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approv❜d,
And prais'd, unenvied, by the Muse he lov'd."
Being the Prologue to the Satires.
This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune [the authors of "Verses to the imitator of Horace," and of an "Epistle to a Doctor of divinity from a nobleman at Hampton-Court"] to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge) but my person, morals, and family; whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if any thing offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous. Many will know their own picture in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please. I would have some of them know it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend, to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.
P. "SHUT, shut the door, good John!" fatigued I said;
"Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead,"
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