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Ye gods! shall Cibber's son, without rebuke, Swear like a lord; or Rich5 outwhore a duke? A favourite's porter with his master vie,

Be brib'd as often, and as often lie?

Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill?
Or Japhet pocket, like His Grace, a will?
Is it for Bond or Peter" (paltry things)

Το pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings?
If Blount dispatch'd himself, he play'd the man,
And so mayst thou, illustrious Passeran!
But shall a printer,1 weary of his life,

Learn from their books to hang himself and wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear;
Vice thus abus'd demands a nation's care;
This calls the church to deprecate our sin,
And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin.
Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple quaker, or a quaker's wife,3

4 Theophilus Cibber.

5 Manager of Covent Garden Theatre. 6 See note 1, vol. ii. p. 120.

7 See note 2, vol. ii. p. 121.

8 Charles Blount, author of The Oracles of Reason, &c. 9 A nobleman of Piedmont, author of A Philosophical Discourse on Death, who was banished from his country for his impieties.

1 Richard Smith: see Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1732.

2 An eloquent preacher and author of a Defence of Christianity against Tindal.

8 Mrs. Drummond, famous in her day.

Outdo Landaff in doctrine-yea, in life;
Let humble Allen,* with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
'Tis just alike to virtue and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same belov'd, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth;
But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore;
Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more:
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,
Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragg'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold,
Before her dance! behind her crawl the old!
See thronging millions to the pagod run,
And offer country, parent, wife, or son!
Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim,
That not to be corrupted is the shame.
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!

4 See Memoir prefixed to these volumes, p. cxi.

See all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up with reverential awe,

At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law: While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry'Nothing is sacred now but villany.'

Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show there was one who held it in disdain.

DIALOGUE II.

Fr. 'Tis all a libel-Paxton,1 sir, will say.
P. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow 'faith it may;
And for that very cause I print to-day.
How should I fret to mangle every line
In reverence to the sins of Thirty-nine!
Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,
Invention strives to be before in vain;

Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong,
Some rising genius sins up to my song.

2

F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash; E'en Guthry saves half Newgate by a dash. Spare then the person, and expose the vice.

P. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?

1 Solicitor to the Treasury.

2 Ordinary of Newgate, who published memoirs of the malefactors, and often, out of regard to their reputation, set down only the initial letters of their names.

Come on then, satire! general, unconfin'd,
Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!

Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!
Ye reverend atheists!

who?

F. Scandal! name them,

P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do. Who starv'd a sister, who forswore a debt,

I never nam'd; the town's inquiring yet.

The poisoning dame-F. You mean—P. I don't. F. You do.

P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! The bribing statesman-F. Hold, too high you go. P. The brib'd elector-F. There you stoop too low.

P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what. Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not? Must great offenders, once escap'd the crown, Like royal harts, be never more run down? Admit your law to spare the knight requires, As beasts of nature may we hunt the squires? Suppose I censure—you know what I meanTo save a bishop, may I name a dean?

F. A dean, sir? no: his fortune is not made; You hurt a man that's rising in the trade.

P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day, Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may. Down, down, proud satire! tho' a realm be spoil'd, Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;" 8 Jonathan Wild.

Or, if a court or country's made a job,
Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.
But, sir, I beg you-for the love of vice-
The matter's weighty, pray consider twice-
Have you less pity for the needy cheat,

The poor and friendless villain, than the great? Alas! the small discredit of a bribe

Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe. Then better sure it charity becomes

To tax directors, who (thank God!) have plums;
Still better ministers, or if the thing

May pinch e'en there-why, lay it on a king.
F. Stop! stop!

P. Must satire then nor rise nor fall?

Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all.
F. Yes, strike that Wild, I'll justify the blow.
P. Strike? why the man was hang'd ten years

ago:

Who now that obsolete example fears?
E'en Peter trembles only for his ears.

mad;

F. What, always Peter? Peter thinks you You make men desperate, if they once are bad; Else might he take to virtue some years henceP. As S**k, if he lives, will love the prince. F. Strange spleen to S** *k!

P. Do I wrong the man?

God knows I praise a courtier where I can.
When I confess there is who feels for fame,
And melts to goodness, need I Scarborough name?

4 The year before this was written, Peter had narrowly escaped the pillory for forgery. See note 2, vol. ii. p. 121.

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