But here again you interpose-
Your favorite lord is none of those
Who owe their virtues to their stations
And characters to dedications:
For, keep him in, or turn him out,
His learning none will call in doubt;
His learning, though a poet said it
Before a play, would lose no credit;
Nor Pope would dare deny him wit,
Although to praise it Philips writ.
I own he hates an action base,
His virtues battling with his place:
Nor wants a nice discerning spirit
Betwixt a true and spurious merit;
Can sometimes drop a voter's claim,
And give up party to his fame.
I do the most that friendship can;
I hate the viceroy, love the man.
But you, who till your fortune's made
Must be a sweetener by your trade,
Should swear he never meant us ill;
We suffer sore against his will;
That, if we could but see his heart,
He would have chose a milder part:
We rather should lament his case,
Who must obey or lose his place.
Since this reflection slipp'd your pen,
Insert it when you write again
And to illustrate it, produce
This simile for his excuse:
"So, to destroy a guilty land,
An angel sent by Heaven's command,
While he obeys Almighty will,
Perhaps may feel compassion still;
And wish the task had been assign'd
To spirits of less gentle kind."
But I, in politics grown old,
Whose thoughts are of a different mould,
Who from my soul sincerely hate
Both kings and ministers of state;
Who look on courts with stricter eyes
To see the seeds of vice arise;
Can lend you an allusion fitter,
Though flattering knaves may call it bitter; Which, if you durst but give it place,
Would show you many a statesman's face:
Fresh from the tripod of Apollo,
I had it in the words that follow:
Take notice, to avoid offence,
I here except his excellence:
'So, to effect his monarch's ends,
His budget with corruptions cramm'd,
The contributions of the damn'd;
Which with unsparing hand he strews
Through courts and senates as he goes;
And then at Beelzebub's black hall
Complains his budget was too small."
Your simile may better shine
In verse, but there is truth in mine.
For no imaginable things
Can differ more than gods and kings:
And statesmen, by ten thousand odds,
Are angels just as kings are gods.
ON THE LIBELS WRITTEN AGAINST HIM.
Tanti tibi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi. - Juv.
As some raw youth in country bred,
To arms by thirst of honor led,
When at a skirmish first he hears
The bullets whistling round his ears,
Will duck his head aside, will start,
And feel a trembling at his heart,
Till 'scaping oft without a wound
Lessens the terror of the sound;
Fly bullets now as thick as hops,
He runs into a cannon's chaps.
An author thus, who pants for fame,
Begins the world with fear and shame;
When first in print you see him dread
Each popgun levell'd at his head:
The lead yon critic's quill contains
Is destined to beat out his brains:
As if he heard loud thunders roll,
Cries, Lord have mercy on his soul!
Concluding that another shot
Will strike him dead upon the spot.
But when squibbling, flashing, popping,
He cannot see one creature dropping;
That missing fire, or missing aim,
His life is safe, I mean his fame;
The danger past, takes heart of grace,
And looks a critic in the face.
Though splendor gives the fairest mark To poison'd arrows in the dark, Yet in yourself when smooth and round, They glance aside without a wound.
'Tis said, the gods tried all their art How pain they might from pleasure part: But little could their strength avail;
Thus fame and censure with a tether
By fate are always link'd together.
Why will you aim to be preferr'd
In wit before the common herd;
And yet grow mortified and vex'd
To pay the penalty annex'd?
'Tis eminence makes envy rise;
As fairest fruits attract the flies.
Should stupid libels grieve your mind,
You soon a remedy may find;
Lie down obscure like other folks
Below the lash of snarlers' jokes.
Their faction is five hundred odds;
For every coxcomb lends them rods,
And sneers as learnedly as they,
Like females o'er their morning tea.
You say the Muse will not contain,
And write you must, or break a vein.
Then if you find the terms too hard,
No longer my advice regard:
But raise your fancy on the wing;
The Irish senate's praises sing;
How jealous of the nation's freedom,
And for corruptions how they weed 'em;
How each the public good pursues,
How far their hearts from private views;
Make all true patriots, up to shoe-boys,
Huzza their brethren at the Blue-boys;
Thus grown a member of the club,
No longer dread the rage of Grub.
How oft am I for rhyme to seek
To dress a thought I toil a week:
And then how thankful to the town,
If all my pains will earn a crown!
While every critic can devour
My work and me in half an hour.
Would men of genius cease to write,
The rogues must die for want and spite;
Must die for want of food and raiment,
If scandal did not find them payment.
How cheerfully the hawkers cry
A satire, and the gentry buy!
While my hard-labor'd poem pines
Unsold upon the printer's lines.
A genius in the reverend gown Must ever keep its owner down; 'Tis an unnatural conjunction, And spoils the credit of the function, Round all your brethren cast your eyes, Point out the surest men to rise;
That club of candidates in black,
Aspiring, factious, fierce, and loud,
With grace and learning unendow'd,
Can turn their hands to every job,
The fittest tools to work for Bob;1
Will sooner coin a thousand lies
Than suffer men of parts to rise;
They crowd about preferment's gate,
And press you down with all their weight:
For as of old mathematicians
Were by the vulgar thought magicians,
So academic dull ale-drinkers
Pronounce all men of wit freethinkers.
Wit, as the chief of virtue's friends, Disdains to serve ignoble ends. Observe what loads of stupid rhymes Oppress us in corrupted times; What pamphlets in a court's defence Show reason, grammar, truth, or sense? For though the Muse delights in fiction, She ne'er inspires against convietion. Then keep your virtue still unmix'd, And let not faction come betwixt: By party-steps no grandeur climb at, Though it would make you England's primate; First learn the science to be dull,
You then may soon conscience lull;
If not, however seated high,
Your genius in your face will fly.
When Jove was from his teaming head
Of wit's fair goddess brought to bed,
There follow'd at his lying-in
For after-birth a sooterkin;
Which, as the nurse pursued to kill,
Attain'd by flight the Muses' hill,
There in the soil began to root,
And litter'd at Parnassus' foot.
From hence the critic vermin sprung,
With harpy claws and poisonous tongue:
Who fatten on poetic scraps,
Too cunning to be caught in traps.
Dame Nature, as the learned show,
Provides each animal its foe:
Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox
Devours your geese, the wolf your flocks.
Thus Envy pleads a natural claim
To persecute the Muse's fame;
On poets in all times abusive,
From Homer down to Pope inclusive.
Yet what avails it to complain?
You try to take revenge in vain.
A rat your utmost rage defies,
That safe behind the wainscot lies.
Say, did you ever know by sight
In cheese an individual mite?
Show me the same numeric flea
That bit your neck but yesterday:
You then may boldly go in quest
To find the Grub-street poet's nest;
What sponging-house, in dread of jail,
Receives them while they wait for bail;
What alley they are nestled in,
To flourish o'er a cup of gin;
Find the last garret where they lay,
Or cellar where they starve to-day.
Suppose you have them all trepann'd,
With each a libel in his hand,
What punishment would you inflict?
Or call them rogues, or get them kick'd;
These they have often tried before;
You but oblige them so much more:
Themselves would be the first to tell,
To make their trash the better sell.
You have been libell'd-Let us know
What fool officious told you so?
Will you regard the hawker's cries,
Who in his titles always lies?
Whate'er the noisy scoundrel says,
It might be something in your praise;
And praise bestow'd in Grub-street rhymes
Would vex one more a thousand times.
Till critics blame, and judges praise,
The poet cannot claim his bays.
On me when dunces are satiric,
I take it for a panegyric.
Hated by fools, and fools to hate,
Be that my motto and my fate.
DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING A BIRTHDAY SONG. 1729.
To form a just and finish'd piece,
Take twenty gods of Rome or Greece,
Whose godships are in chief request,
And fit your present subject best;
And, should it be your hero's case,
To have both male and female race,
Your business must be to provide
A score of goddesses beside.
Some call their monarchs sons of Saturn,
For which they bring a modern pattern;
Because they might have heard of one
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