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 !"2 fatigued,
I said;
"Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead."
The dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt
All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can
hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide,
By land, by water, they renew the charge,
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
E'en Sunday shines no sabbath day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy to catch me just at dinner time.
Is there a parson much bemus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross ?
Is there who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
2 John Searl, Pope's faithful servant.
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my life, (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped;
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.
To laugh were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility, I read
With honest anguish and an aching head,
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,
This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years."
"Nine years!" cries he, who, high in Drury Lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Oblig'd by hunger and request of friends:
"The piece, you think, is incorrect? why, take it!
I'm all submission: what you'd have it—make it."
Three things another's modest wishes bound,
"My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound."
Pitholeon sends to me: "You know his grace;
I want a patron; ask him for a place."
Pitholeon libell'd me-" But here's a letter
Informs you, Sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine,
He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine.”
Bless me! a packet.-'Tis a stranger sues,
A virgin tragedy, an orphan Muse.
If I dislike it, "Furies, death, and rage!"
If I approve," Commend it to the stage."
There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The players and I are, luckily, no friends.
Fir'd that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath, I'll
-print it,
And shame the fools-your interest, Sir, with
Lintot, dull rogue, will think your price too much : "Not, Sir, if you revise it, and retouch."
All my demurs but double his attacks;
At last he whispers, " Do, and we go snacks." Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door; "Sir, let me see your works and you no more." 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king)
His very minister" who spied them first
(Some say his queen) was forc'd to speak or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my face?
5 An allusion to Sir Robert Walpole and Queen Caroline.
A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dangerous
I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings;
Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,
'Tis nothing-P. Nothing! if they bite and kick?
Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he's an ass:
The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus, round thee break,
Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurl'd,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb thro',
He spins the slight self-pleasing thread anew:
Destroy his fib, or sophistry-in vain!
The creature's at his dirty work again,
Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines.
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet or peer
Lost the arch'd eyebrow or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colley still his lord and whore?
His butchers Henley? his freemasons Moore? 7
6 Orator Henley declaimed among the butchers in Newport Market and Butcher's Row.
7 He used frequently to head the processions of the Free
Does not one table Bavius still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?
Still Sappho-A. Hold! for God's sake-you'll offend.
No names-be calm-learn prudence of a friend: I too could write, and I am twice as tall;
But foes like these-P. One flatterer's worse than
Of all mad creatures, if the learn❜d are right,
It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.
A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent.
One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes;
One from all Grub-street will my fame defend,
And, more abusive, calls himself my friend:
This prints my letters, that expects a bribe,
And others roar aloud, "Subscribe, subscribe!"
There are who to my person pay their court:
I cough like Horace; and, though lean, am short;
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,
Such Ovid's nose, and "Sir! you have an eye-."
Go on, obliging creatures! make me see
All that disgrac'd my betters met in me.
Say, for my comfort, languishing in bed,
"Just so immortal Maro held his head:"
And when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Bishop Boulter, the friend and patron of Ambrose Philips.
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