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Whom, with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed,
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed..
Had Colepepper's 1 whole wealth been hops and
hogs,

Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?

His Grace will game: to White's a bull be led,
With spurning heels, and with a butting head:
To White's be carried, as to ancient games,
Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,
Bear home six whores and make his lady weep ?
Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine,

Drive to St James's a whole herd of swine?

Oh filthy check on all industrious skill,

To spoil the nation's last great trade-quadrille !
Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall,
What say you?

B.

Say? Why, take it, gold and all. P. What riches give us, let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes.

B.

P.

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Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner 2 finds they give.
Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past)
Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!

1' Colepepper:' Sir William Colepepper, Bart., a person of an ancient family and ample fortune, without one other quality of a gentleman, who, after ruining himself at the gaming table, passed the rest of his days in sitting there to see the ruin of others; preferring to subsist upon borrowing and begging, rather than to enter into any reputable method of life, and refusing a post in the army which was offered him.-P.-2 Turner:' a miser of the day.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 77, in the former edition

Well then, since with the world we stand or fall,

Come, take it as we find it, gold and all.

What can they give? to dying Hopkins,1 heirs ;
To Chartres, vigour; Japhet,2 nose and ears?
Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow,
In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below;
Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,
With all th' embroidery plaster'd at thy tail?
They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend)
Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend;
Or find some doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife:
But thousands die, without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college, or a cat.s

To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate,
T'enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.

85

90

Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule,

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That 'every man in want is knave or fool:'

'God cannot love' (says Blunt, with tearless eyes)
The wretch he starves'-and piously denies:
But the good bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.
Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf,
Each does but hate his neighbour as himself:
Damn'd to the mines, an equal fate betides
The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides.

B. Who suffer thus, mere charity should own,
Must act on motives powerful, though unknown.

101

110

'Hopkins: a citizen whose rapacity obtained him the name of Vulture Hopkins.-P.-2Japhet:' Japhet Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, was punished with the loss of those parts, for having forged a conveyance of an estate to himself.-P. Endow a college or a cat:' a famous Duchess of Richmond, in her last will, left considerable legacies and annuities to her cats.—P.— Bond: the director of a charitable corporation.

P. Some war, some plague, or famine, they foresee, 118: Some revelation hid from you and me.

Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found,
He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound.
What made directors cheat in South-sea year?
To live on venison1 when it sold so dear.
Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys?
Phryne foresees a general excise.2

Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum?
Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.

4

Wise Peter 3 sees the world's respect for gold,
And therefore hopes this nation may be sold:
Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store,
And be what Rome's great Didius was before.
The crown of Poland, venal twice an age,
To just three millions stinted modest Gage.
But nobler scenes Maria's dreams unfold,
Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold.

Congenial souls! whose life one avarice joins,
And one fate buries in th' Asturian mines.

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130

Much-injured Blunt!5 why bears he Britain's hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate : At length corruption, like a general flood, (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun; Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box,

140

To live on venison:' in the extravagance and luxury of the South-sea year, the price of a haunch of venison was from three to five pounds.P-General excise:' many people, about the year 1733, had a conceit that such a thing was intended, of which it is not improbable this lady might have some intimation.-P.-Wise Peter:' an attorney who made a large fortune. - Rome's great Didius:' a Roman lawyer, so rich as to purchase the Empire when it was set to sale upon the death of Pertinax.-1-5 Blunt:' one of the first projectors of the South-sea scheme.

And judges job, and bishops bite the town,
And mighty dukes pack cards for half-a-crown.
See Britain sunk in lucre's sordid charms,

141

And France revenged of Anne's and Edward's arms!'
'Twas no court-badge, great scrivener! fired thy brain,
Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain:

No, 'twas thy righteous end, ashamed to see
Senates degenerate, patriots disagree,

And nobly wishing party-rage to cease,

To buy both sides, and give thy country peace.
'All this is madness,' cries a sober sage:
But who, my friend, has reason in his
rage ?
'The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.'
Less mad the wildest whimsy we can frame,
Than even that passion, if it has no aim;
For though such motives folly you may call,
The folly's greater to have none at all.

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160

Hear, then, the truth: "Tis Heaven each passion sends,
And different men directs to different ends.
Extremes in Nature equal good produce,
Extremes in man concur to general use.'

Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow?
That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow,
Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain,
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives th' eternal wheels to know their rounds.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir, to keep and spare;
The next a fountain, spouting through his heir,

170

In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,

And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Old Cotta shamed his fortune and his birth,
Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth:
What though (the use of barb'rous spits forgot)
His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot?
His court with nettles, moats with cresses stored,
With soups unbought and sallads bless'd his board?
If Cotta lived on pulse, it was no more
Than Brahmins, saints, and sages did before;
To cram the rich was prodigal expense,

And who would take the poor from Providence?
Like some lone Chartreux stands the good old Hall,
Silence without, and fasts within the wall;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound,
No noontide-bell invites the country round:
Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey,
And turn th' unwilling steeds another way:
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,
Curse the saved candle, and unopening door;
While the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.

Not so his son; he mark'd this oversight,
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right.
(For what to shun will no great knowledge need,
But what to follow, is a task indeed).
Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise,
More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise.

What slaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine,
Fill the capacious squire, and deep divine!
Yet no mean motive this profusion draws,
His oxen perish in his country's cause;
"Tis George and Liberty that crowns the cup,
And zeal for that great house which eats him up.

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