Written in the year 1738.
F. NOT twice a twelvemonth you appear in print, And when it comes the court see nothing in't. 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." 10
But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes he lash'd no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the crown,
Blunt could do bus'ness, Higgins 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.
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?
See him I have; but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchang'd for pow'r ;
Seen him, uncumber'd with a 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.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt; 35
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,
A joke on Jekyll, or some odd old Whig,
Who never chang'd his principle or wig.
A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age,
Whom all lord chamberlains allow the stage!
These nothing hurts; they keep their passion still,
And wear their strange old virtue as they will.
If any ask you, "Who's the man so near
"His prince, that writes in verse,
Why, answer Lyttleton! and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage;
But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury,
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To vice and folly to confine the jest,
Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest,
Did not the sneer of more impartial men
At sense and virtue balance all agen.
Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.
P. Dear Sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:
Adieu distinction, satire, warmth and truth!
Come, harmless character that no one hit;
Come, Henley's oratory, Osborne's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonia's tongue,
The flow'rs of Bubo, and the flow of Young!
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipt cream of courtly sense;
The first of H**vy's, F******'s next, and then
The S***te's, and then H**vy's once agen.
O come! that easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin yet so English all the while.
As, tho' the pride of Middleton and Bland,
All boys may read and girls may understand!
Then might I sing without the least offence,
And all I sung should be the nation's sense;
Or teach the melancholy Muse to mourn,
Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
All parts perform'd, and all her children blest!
So....Satire is no more....I feel it die....
No gazetteer more innocent than I....
And let, a god's name! ev'ry fool and knave
Be grac'd thro' life, and flatter'd in his grave.
F. Why so? if Satire knows its time and place, You still may lash the greatest....in disgrace;
For merit will by turns forsake them all;
Would you know when? exactly when they fall. 90
But let all satire in all changes spare
Immortal S*****k, and grave De****re.
Silent and soft, as saints remove to heav'n,
All ties dissolv'd, and ev'ry sin forgiv❜n,
These may some gentle ministerial wing
Receive, and place for ever near a king!
There, where no passion, pride, or shame, transport, Lull'd with the sweet nepenthe of a court;
There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace, Once break their rest, or stir them from their place; But past the sense of human miseries,
All tears are wip'd for ever from all eyes:
No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a question or a job.
P. Good heav'n forbid that I should blast their
Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,
And when three sov'reigns dy'd could scarce be vext,
Consid'ring what a gracious prince was next.
Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
As pride in slaves and avarice in kings?
And at a peer or peeress shall I fret,
Who starves a sister or forswears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of vice be lost?
Ye gods! shall Cibber's son, without rebuke,
Swear like a lord, or Rich outwhore a duke?
A fav'rite porter with his master vie,
Be brib'd as often, and as often lie?
Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill?
Or Japhet pocket, like his grace, a will?
Is it for Bond or Peter (paltry things)
To pay their debts, or keep their faith like kings?
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