Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;
Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in ;
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And, in one word, heroically mad :
He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,
But fagotted his notions as they fell,
And if they rhym'd and rattled, all was well.
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature:
He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,
All his occasions are to eat and drink.
If he call rogue and rascal from a garret,
He means you no more mischief than a parrot:
The words for friend and foe alike were made,
To fetter 'em in verse is all his trade.
For almonds he 'll cry whore to his own mother:
And call young Absalom king David's brother.
Let him be gallows free by my consent,
pension from the city for writing an annual panegyric on the lord mayor. Towards the end of his life he was reduced to great poverty, and wrote low drolls for Bartholomew fair, and was reduced in his old age to act in farce a dragon, inclosed in a green leather of his own invention. To which our witty satirist, Dr. Young, alludes in his epistle to Pope, on the authors of the age:
Poor Elkanah, all other changes past,
For bread in Smithfield dragons hiss'd at last:
Spit streams of fire to make the butchers gape,
And found his manners suited to his shape. J. W.
And nothing suffer since he nothing meant;
Hanging supposes human soul and reason,
This animal 's below committing treason;
Shall he be hang'd who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achitophel.
The woman that committed buggary,
Was rightly sentenc'd by the law to die;
But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog that never heard the statute read.
Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pass for mere instinct in him:
Instinct he follows, and no farther knows,
For to write verse with him is to transpose.
'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
Who makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key:
Let him rail on, let his invective muse
Have four and twenty letters to abuse,
Which, if he jumbles to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is, we know,
But to be master of a puppetshow,
On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight work to come,
Og, from a treason-tavern rolling home.
Round as a globe, and liquor'd every chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link;
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch, that is not fool, is rogue:
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spew'd to make the batter.
When wine has giv'n him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before curst him;
And if man could have reason, none has more,
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That e'en on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But though Heaven made him poor, (with reve-
rence speaking,)
He never was a poet of God's making;
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing — Be thou dull;
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk, do any thing but write:
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity — but for the pen ;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink.
Isee, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason botch'd in rhyme will be thy bane, 485
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck:
Why should thy metre good king David blast?
A psalm of his will surely be thy last.
Dar'st thou presume in verse to meet thy foes, 490
Thou whom the penny pamphlet foil'd in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade;
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
A poet is, though he 's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull;
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil:
Hadst thou the glories of thy king express'd, 500
Thy praises
had been satire at the best;
But thou in clumsy verse, unlick'd, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed:
I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
But of king David's foes, be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom ;
And, for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee.
Achitophel each rank, degree, and age,
For various ends neglects not to engage ;
The wise and rich, for purse and counsel brought,
The fools and beggars, for their number sought:
Who yet not only on the town depends,
For even in court the faction had its friends;
These thought the places they possess'd too small,
And in their hearts wish'd court and king to fall:
Whose names the muse disdaining, holds i' th' dark,
Thrust in the villain herd without a mark ;
With parasites and libel-spawning imps,
Intriguing fops, dull jesters, and worse pimps.
Disdain the rascal rabble to pursue,
Their set cabals are yet a viler crew;
See where involv'd in common smoke they sit:
Some for our mirth, some for our satire fit:
These gloomy, thoughtful, and on mischief bent,
While those for mere good fellowship frequent
The appointed club, can let sedition pass,
Sense, nonsense, any thing to employ the glass;
And who believe, in their dull honest hearts,
The rest talk treason but to show their parts;
Who ne'er had wit or will for mischief yet,
But pleas'd to be reputed of a set.
But in the sacred annals of our plot, Industrious Arod never be forgot: The labours of this midnight-magistrate May vie with Corah's to preserve the state. In search of arms he fail'd not to lay hold On war's most powerful dangerous weapon, gold. And last, to take from Jebusites all odds, Their altars pillag'd, stole their very gods.
V. 584. But in the sacred annals of our plot,
Industrious Arod never be forgot]
Arod, Sir William Waller, son to him who had done so much service to the Long Parliament. He upheld the exclusion bill with all his might, and took every opportunity of showing his hatred to Popery, by seeking out and dispersing the Papists, when assembled to celebrate divine service in their way. To which, if he was not much misrepresented, he was stimulated rather in hopes of spoil, their altars being generally rich, than out of respect for his country, or love for religion. D.
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