Go see Sir ROBERT!

P. See Sir Robert!-hum

And never laugh-for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchang'd for pow'r ;
Seen him, uncumber'd with the venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,

He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt
The only diff'rence is, I dare laugh out.

30

36

F. Why, yes; with scripture still you may be free;

A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty ;

A joke on JEKYL, or some odd old Whig
Who never chang'd his principle, or wig:
A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age,

40

Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,
And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.
If any ask you, "Who's the man so near
"His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear ?"
Why, answer, LYTTELTON, and I'll engage

The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage:

45

But

VER. 39. A joke on JEKYL,] Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a true Whig in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity.

VER. 47. Why, answer, LYTTELTON,] George Lyttelton, Secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished both for his writ ings and speeches in the spirit of liberty.

But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest FLEURY,
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To vice and folly to confine the jest,

Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest;

50

56

Did not the sneer of more impartial men

At sense and virtue, balance all agen.

60

Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.

P. Dear Sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:
Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth;
Come, harmless characters that no one hit;
Come Henley's oratory, Osborn's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,
The flow'rs of Bubo, and the flow of Y-ng!
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipt cream of courtly sense,
That first was H-vy's, F-'s next, and then
The S-te's, and then H-vy's once ́agen.

65

70

O come,

VER. 51. FLEURY,] Cardinal; and Minister to Louis XV. VER. 66. Henley-Osborn,] See them in their places in the Dunciad.

VER. 68. The flow'rs of Bubo, and the flow of Young!] Sir William Young.

VER. 71. F's] Foxe's.

O come,

that easy, Ciceronian style,

So Latin, yet so English all the while,

As, tho' the pride of Middleton and Bland,
All boys may read, and girls may understand!
Then might I sing, without the least offence,
And all I sung should be the nation's sense ;
Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn,
Hang the sad verse on CAROLINA's urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
All parts perform'd, and all her children blest!
So satire is no more— I feel it die-
No gazetteer more innocent than I—

And let, a God's-name, ev'ry fool and knave
Be grac'd through life, and flatter'd in his

grave.

75

80

85

F. Why so? if satire knows its time and place You still may lash the greatest-in disgrace : For merit will by turns forsake them all; Would you know when? exactly when they fall. 90 But let all satire in all changes spare

Immortal S-k, and grave De -re.

Silent

VER. 73. O come, that easy, Ciceronian style,] Dr. Bland of Eton was a very bad writer, Dr. Middleton a remarkable good one; perhaps, our best: but he was the friend of Pope's enemy, Lord Hervey.

VER. 80. CAROLINA] Queen consort to King George II. She died in 1737. Her death gave occasion, as is observed above, to many indiscreet and mean performances unworthy of her memory, whose last moments manifested the utmost courage and resolution.

VER. 92. Immortal S-k,] Charles Hamilton, third son of the Duke of Hamilton, who was created Earl of Selkirk in 1687.

Silent and soft, as saints remove to heav'n,
All tyes dissolv'd, and ev'ry sin forgiv❜n,
These may some gentle ministerial wing
Receive, and place for ever near a king!

There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport, Lull'd with the sweet nepenthe of a court;

95

There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace Once break their rest, or stir them from their place : But past the sense of human miseries,

All tears are wip'd for ever from all eyes;

No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a question, or a job.

ΙΟΙ

P. Good heav'n forbid, that I should blast their

glory,

Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,

105

And when three sov'reigns dy'd, could scarce be vext,
Consid'ring what a gracious prince was next.

Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings;
And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret,
Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of vice be lost?

110

Ye gods! shall Cibber's son, without rebuke,
Swear like a lord, or Rich outwhore a duke?

115

A fav'rite's

VER. 112. In some editions,

Who starves a mother

VER. 115. Cibber's son —. Rich] Two players look for them

in the Dunciad.

9

A fav'rite'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,)

120

To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings? If Blount dispatch'd himself, he play'd the man, And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran !

But shall a printer, weary of his life,

125

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, excell
Ten metropolitans in preaching well;

130

A simple

VER 123. If Blount dispatch'd himself,] He was the younger son of Sir Henry Blount, who wrote an admirable account of a Voyage to the Levant, 1636; and younger brother of Sir Thomas Pope Blount, who wrote the Censura Authorum. And this Charles Blount was not only the author of The Oracles of Reason, but of an infidel treatise, intitled Anima Mundi, and of the Life of Apollonius Tyanaus, in folio, 1680; with notes said to be taken from the manuscript of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. It was his sisterin-law, with whom he was in love, when he destroyed himself.

VER. 124. Passeran!] Author of another book of the same stamp, called, A Philosophical Discourse on Death, being a defence of suicide. He was a nobleman of Piedmont, banished from his country for his impieties, and lived in the utmost misery, but died at last a penitent.

VER. 125. But shall a printer, c.] A fact that happened in London a few years past. The unhappy man left behind him a paper justifying his action by the reasonings of some of these authors.