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foe,

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear!
Or from the soft-ey'd virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Insults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out:
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swear,

;

:

285

290

295

And sees at Cannons what was never there;

300

Who reads but with a lust to misapply,
Make satire a lampoon, and fiction lie.
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babling blockheads in his stead.

Let

P. Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound,
As rumb'ling D-s or a Norfolk hound;
With GEORGE and FREDRIC roughen ev'ry verse,
Then smooth up all, and CAROLINE rehearse.
the high task to lift up kings to gods,

A. No

Leave to court-sermons, and to birth-day odes.
On themes like these, superior far to thine,
Let laurell'd Cibber, and great Arnal shine.

P. Why write at all? A. Yes, silence if you keep,
The town, the court, the wits, the dunces weep.

306

Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; 310
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,

Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.

Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

315

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,

320

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.

His wit all sea-saw, between that and this,

Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.

325

Amphibious thing! that acting either part,

The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,

Fop

VER. 306. Sporus] Lord Hervey.

VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv.

VER. 322. or blasphemies.] In former editions these two lines followed immediately:

Did ever smock-face act so vile a part,
A trifling head, and a corrupted heart,

Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,

330

335

340

Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest,
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile; be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways:
That flatt'ry, ev'n to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song:
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit ;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad ;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv❜d, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libell'd person, and the pictur❜d shape;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father, dead:

345

350

355

The

The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his Sov'REIGN's ear—
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last!

A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?
P. A knave's a knave to me, in ev'ry state :
Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,

A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,

Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;
If on a pillory, or near a throne,

361

365

370

He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.
Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit;
This dreaded satʼrist Dennis will confess
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress :
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor.
Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie. 375
Το

VER. 355. A friend in exile,] The Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Atterbury.

VER. 363. Sporus at court,] In former editions, Glencus at

court.

VER. 368. in the MS.

Once, and but once, his heedless youth was bit,
And like that dang'rous thing, a female wit:
Safe as he thought, tho' all the prudent chid;
He writ no libels, but my lady did:

Great odds in am'rous or poetic game,

Where woman's is the sin, and man's the shame.

To please his mistress, one aspers'd his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will;
Let the two Curlls of town and court, abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:

380

That harmless mother thought no wife a whore : Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! 385 Unspotted names, and memorable long!

If there be force in virtue, or in

song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause,
While yet in Britain honour had applause)
Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray?
P. Their own,

And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

The good man walk'd innoxious through his age.

390

No

VER. 378. Let Budgel] Budgel, in a weekly pamphlet called the Bee, bestowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the Last Will of Dr. Tindal, in the Grub street Journal; a paper wherein he never had the least hand, direction, or supervisal, nor the least knowledge of its author.

VER. 379. except bis. Will ;] Alluding to Tindal's will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgel, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him.

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