Mere household trash! of birth-nights, balls, and shows, More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes1. When the Queen frown'd, or smil'd, he knows; and what A subtle Minister may make of that;
Who sins with whom: who got his Pension rug,
Or quicken'd a Reversion by a drug;
Whose place is quarter'd out, three parts in four,
And whether to a Bishop, or a Whore;
Who having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent,
Is therefore fit to have a Government;
Who in the secret, deals in Stocks secure,
And cheats th' unknowing Widow and the Poor; Who makes a Trust or Charity a Job, And gets an Act of Parliament to rob;
Why Turnpikes rise, and now no Cit nor clown Can gratis see the country, or the town; Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole3, But some excising Courtier will have toll. He tells what strumpet places sells for life, What 'Squire his lands, what citizen his Wife: And last (which proves him wiser still than all) What Lady's face is not a whited wall.
As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore, I puke, I nauseate, yet he thrusts in more: Trims Europe's balance, tops the statesman's part5, And talks Gazettes and Post-boys o'er by heart. Like a big wife at sight of loathsome meat Ready to cast, I yawn, I sigh, and sweat. Then as a licens'd spy, whom nothing can Silence or hurt, he libels the great Man; Swears ev'ry place entail'd for years to come, In sure succession to the day of doom; He names the price for ev'ry office paid, And says our wars thrive ill, because delay'd; Nay hints, 'tis by connivance of the Court,
That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a Port. Not more amazement seiz'd on Circe's guests, To see themselves fall endlong into beasts, Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise Already half turn'd traitor by surprise. I felt th' infection slide from him to me, As in the pox, some give it to get free; And quick to swallow me, methought I saw One of our Giant Statutes ope its jaw.
In that nice moment, as another Lie Stood just a-tilt, the Minister came by.
To him he flies, and bows, and bows again, Then, close as Umbra1, joins the dirty train. Not Fannius' self more impudently near, When half his nose is in his Prince's ear. I quak'd at heart; and still afraid, to see All the Court fill'd with stranger things than he, Ran out as fast, as one that pays his bail And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail.
Bear me, some God! oh quickly bear me hence To wholesome Solitude, the nurse of sense: Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings3, And the free soul looks down to pity Kings! There sober thought pursu'd th' amusing theme, Till Fancy colour'd it, and form'd a Dream. A Vision hermits can to Hell transport,
And forc'd ev'n me to see the damn'd at Court. Not Dante dreaming all th' infernal state, Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate. Base Fear becomes the guilty, not the free; Suits Tyrants, Plunderers, but suits not me: Shall I, the Terror of this sinful town, Care, if a liv'ry'd Lord or smile or frown? Who cannot flatter, and detest who can, Tremble before a noble Serving-man?
O my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee For huffing, braggart, puff'd Nobility? Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, oh Sun! beheld an emptier fort, Than such as swell this bladder of a court? Now pox on those who show a Court in wax1! It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs: Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race Of hollow gew-gaws, only dress and face! Such waxen noses, stately staring things-
No wonder some folks bow, and think them Kings. See! where the British youth, engag'd no more
At Fig's, at White's, with felons5, or a whore, Pay their last duty to the Court, and come
All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing room;
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,
As the fair fields they sold to look so fine. "That's velvet for a King!" the flatt'rer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
alludes to] a show of the Italian Gardens in Waxwork, in the time of King James I. P.
5 At Fig's, at White's, with felons,] White's was a noted gaming-house: Fig's, a Prize-fighter's Academy, where the young Nobility receiv'd instruction in those days. It was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate. P.
Our Court may justly to our stage give rules 1, That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools. And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes? For these are actors too, as well as those: Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest, And all is splended poverty at best.
Painted for sight, and essenc'd for the smell, Like frigates fraught with spice and cochinel, Sail in the Ladies: how each pirate eyes
So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!
Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim,
He boarding her, she striking sail to him:
"Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!"
And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!"
Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought, For both the beauty and the wit are bought. 'Twou'd burst ev'n Heraclitus2 with the spleen, To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin: The Presence seems, with things so richly odd, The mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pagod. See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools! Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw; But oh! what terrors must distract the soul Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole; Or should one pound of powder less bespread Those monkey tails that wag behind their head. Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the Fair. So first to preach a white-glov'd Chaplain goes, With band of Lily, and with cheek of Rose, Sweeter than Sharon, in immac'late trim, Neatness itself impertinent in him.
Let but the Ladies smile, and they are blest:
Prodigious! how the things protest, protest:
Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu! Nature made ev'ry Fop to plague his brother,
Just as one Beauty mortifies another.
But here's the Captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries Arm! whose very look's an oath: The Captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough, Tho' his soul's bullet, and his body buff. He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before, Like batt'ring-rams, beats open ev'ry door:
1 our stage give rules,] Alluding to the Chamberlain's Authority [as licenser of plays]. Warburton.
2 ["The weeping philosopher.'] 3 [Albrecht Dürer, among other works on the
theory of his art, published a work on the Proportions of the human figure.]
4 Much resembling Noll Bluff in Congreve's Old Bachelor, who was copied from Thraso, and also from Ben Jonson. Warton.
And with a face as red, and as awry, As Herod's hang-dogs in old Tapestry1, Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse, Has yet a strange ambition to look worse; Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe, Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like law. Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so As men from Jails to execution go; For hung with deadly sins 2 I see the wall, And lin'd with Giants deadlier than 'em all: Each man an Askapart3, of strength to toss For Quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross. Scar'd at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly, And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.
Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine: Charge them with Heav'n's Artill'ry, bold Divine! From such alone the Great rebukes endure, Whose Satire's sacred, and whose rage secure:
'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a Court in tears. Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my Wit, In time to come, may pass for holy writ1.
[THE first part of these Satires was published under the title of One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-eight, a Dialogue something like Horace; and the second part followed in the same year. It is remarkable, says Boswell (in his Life of Johnson), that Johnson's London came out on the same morning in May as Pope's 1738; so that England had at once its Juvenal and Horace as poetical monitors.' Johnson's satire, though published anonymously and having nothing, like Pope's, to betray its author, appears to have created the stronger sensation.]
You grow correct, that once with Rapture writ, And are, besides, too moral for a Wit. Decay of Parts, alas! we all must feel- Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal? 'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said, "Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;" And taught his Romans, in much better metre, "To laugh at Fools who put their trust in Peter." But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice; Bubo observes1, he lash'd no sort of Vice: Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the Crown2, Blunt could do Bus'ness, H-ggins knew the Town; In Sappho touch the Failings of the Sex,
In rev'rend Bishops note some small Neglects, And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropt our Ears, and sent them to the King. His sly, polite, insinuating style
Could please at Court, and make AUGUSTUS smile: An artful Manager, that crept between
His Friend and Shame, and was a kind of Screen 5. But 'faith your very Friends will soon be sore; Patriots there are", who wish you'd jest no more- And where's the Glory? 'twill be only thought The Great man never offer'd you a groat. 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 10. Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt; The only diff'rence is I dare laugh out.
F. Why yes: with Scripture still you may be free; A Horse-laugh, if you please, at Honesty;
Bubo observes,] Some guilty person very fond of making such an observation. P.
2 [V. Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 280.]
3 H-ggins] Formerly Jailor of the Fleet prison, enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled. P. [This Huggins] was the father of the author of the absurd and prosaic Translation of Ariosto. Warton.
4 Who cropt our Ears,] Said to be executed by the Captain of a Spanish ship on one Jenkins, a Captain of an English one. He cut off his ears, and bid him carry them to the King his master. P. [Vide Mr Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great, passim.]
5 Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit. PERS. [Sat. 1. 116.] P. Screen] A metaphor peculiarly appropriated to a certain person in power. P.
6 Patriots there are, &c.] This appellation was generally given to those in opposition to the Court. Though some of them (which our author hints at) had views too mean and interested to deserve that Name. P.
7 The Great man] A phrase by common use appropriated to the first minister. P.
8 [Explained by Warburton to refer to the favour conferred by Walpole at Pope's request upon the Catholic priest Southcote. See Introductory Memoir, p. xi.].
9 Seen him, uncumber'd] These two verses were originally in the poem, though omitted in all the first editions. P.
10 [Bowles quotes Coxe's correction of the cynical saying commonly attributed to Sir R. Walpole. The political axiom was perverted by leaving out the word those' (referring to certain pretended patriots).]
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