The race by vigour, not by vaunts is won; So take the hindmost, hell," (he said) "and run."
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,
He left huge Lintot and outstripped the wind.
As when a dab chick waddles through the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops:
So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and
head,
Wide as a windmill all his figure spread,
With arms expanded Bernard rows his state,
And left-legged Jacob seems to emulate.
Full in the middle way there stood a lake,
Which Curll's Corrina chanced that morn to
make:
(Such was her wont, at early morn to drop
Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop,) Here fortuned Curll to slide; loud shout the band,
And " Bernard! Bernard!" rings through all the Strand.
Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewrayed,
Fallen in the plash his wickedness had laid:
Then first (if poets aught of truth declare)
The catiff vaticide conceived a prayer.
"Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I
adore,
As much at least as any god's, or more;
And him and his if more devotion warms,
Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's arms."
A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,
Where, from Ambrosia, Jove retires for ease.
There in his seat two spacious vents appear,
On this he sits, to that he leans his ear,
And hears the various vows of fond mankind;
Some beg an eastern, some a western wind:
All vain petitions, mounting to the sky,
With reams abundant this abode supply;
Amused he reads, and then returns the bills
Signed with the Ichor which from gods distils.
In office here fair Cloacina stands,
And ministers to Jove with purest hands.
Forth from the heap she picked her votary's
And placed it next him, a distinction rare!
Oft had the goddess heard her servants call,
From her black grottos near the temple-wall,
Listening delighted to the jest unclean
Of link-boys vile, and watermen obscene;
Where as he fished her nether realms for wit,
She oft had favoured him, and favours yet.
Renewed by ordure's sympathetic force,
As oiled with magic juices for the course,
Vigorous he rises; from the effluvia strong
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along;
Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,
Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.
And now the victor stretched his eager hand, Where the tall nothing stood, or seemed to
A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight,
Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night,
To seize his papers, Curll, was next thy care;
His papers light fly diverse, tossed in air;
Songs, sonnets, epigrams the winds uplift,
And whisk 'em back to Evans, Young, and Swift.
The embroidered suit at least he deemed his
That suit an unpaid tailor snatched away.
No rag, no scrap, of all the beau, or wit,
That once so fluttered, and that once so writ. Heaven rings with laughter. Of the laughter vain,
Dulness, good queen, repeats the jest again.
Three wicked imps of her own Grub Street choir,
She decked like Congreve, Addison, and Prior;
Mears, Warner, Wilkins run: delusive thought!
Breval, Bond, Besaleel, the varlets caught.
Curll stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone:
He grasps an empty Joseph for a John;
So Proteus, hunted in a nobler shape,
Became, when seized, a puppy, or an ape.
To him the Goddess: "Son! thy grief lay down,
And turn this whole allusion on the town:
As the sage dame, experienced in her trade,
By names of toasts retails each battered jade;
(Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at
Paris
Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Maries;)
Be thine, my stationer! this magic gift;
Cook shall be Prior, and Concanen, Swift:
So shall each hostile name become our own,
And we too boast our Garth and Addison."
With that she gave him (piteous of his case,
Yet smiling at his rueful length of face)
A shaggy tapestry, worthy to be spread
On Codrus old, or Dunton's modern bed;
Instructive work! whose wry-mouthed por-
Displayed the fates her confessors endure.
Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe,
And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below.
There Ridpath, Roper, cudgelled might ye view;
The very worsted still looked black and blue.
Himself among the storied chiefs he spies,
As, from the blanket, high in air he flies;
And "Oh!" (he cried) "what street, what lane
but knows
Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings, and blows?
In every loom our labours shall be seen,
And the fresh vomit run for ever green!"
See in the circle next, Eliza placed,
Two babes of love close clinging to her waist;
Fair as before her works she stands confessed,
In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall
dressed.
The goddess then: "Who best can send on high
The salient spout, far streaming to the sky;
His be yon Juno of majestic size,
With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.
This China jordan let the chief o'ercome
Replenish, not ingloriously, at home."
Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife, (Though this his son dissuades, and that his wife). One on his manly confidence relies;
One on his vigour and superior size.
First Osborne leaned against his lettered post;
It rose, and laboured to a curve at most.
So Jove's bright bow displays its watery round,
(Sure sign that no spectator shall be drowned)
A second effort brought but new disgrace:
The wild Meander washed the artist's face;
Thus the small jet, which hasty hands unlock,
Spirts in the gardener's eyes who turns the cock.
Not so from shameless Curll; impetuous spread
The stream, and smoking flourished o'er his head.
So (famed like thee for turbulence and horns)
Eridanus his humble fountain scorns;
Through half the heavens he pours the exalted
His rapid waters in their passage burn.
Swift as it mounts, all follow with their eyes: Still happy impudence obtains the prize. Thou triumphest, victor of the high-wrought day, And the pleased dame, soft smiling, leadest away.
Osborne, through perfect modesty o'ercome, Crowned with the jordan, walks contented home.
But now for authors nobler palms remain; "Room for my lord!" three jockeys in his train; Six huntsmen with a shout precede his chair; He grins, and looks broad nonsense with a stare.
|