'Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,
          I would be with you, June the third;
          Changed it to August, and (in short)
          Have kept it—as you do at court.
          You humour me when I am sick,
          Why not when I am splenetic?
          In town, what objects could I meet?
          The shops shut up in every street,
          And funerals blackening all the doors,
          And yet more melancholy whores:                          10
          And what a dust in every place!
          And a thin court that wants your face,
          And fevers raging up and down,
          And W—— and H—— both in town!

          'The dog-days are no more the case.'
          'Tis true, but winter comes apace:
          Then southward let your bard retire,
          Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,
          And you shall see, the first warm weather,
          Me and the butterflies together.                         20

          My lord, your favours well I know;
          'Tis with distinction you bestow;
          And not to every one that comes,
          Just as a Scotchman does his plums.
          'Pray, take them, sir,—enough's a feast:
          Eat some, and pocket up the rest.'
          What! rob your boys? those pretty rogues
          'No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs.'
          Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
          Contriving never to oblige ye.                           30
          Scatter your favours on a fop,
          Ingratitude's the certain crop;
          And 'tis but just, I'll tell ye wherefore,
          You give the things you never care for.
          A wise man always is, or should,
          Be mighty ready to do good;
          But makes a difference in his thought
          Betwixt a guinea and a groat.

          Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
          A safe companion, and a free;                            40
          But if you'd have me always near—
          A word, pray, in your honour's ear.
          I hope it is your resolution
          To give me back my constitution!
          The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
          Th' engaging smile, the gaiety,
          That laugh'd down many a summer sun,
          And kept you up so oft till one:
          And all that voluntary vein,
          As when Belinda168 raised my strain.                     50

          A weasel once made shift to slink
          In at a corn-loft through a chink;
          But having amply stuff'd his skin,
          Could not get out as he got in:
          Which one belonging to the house
          ('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
          Observing, cried, 'You 'scape not so;
          Lean as you came, sir, you must go.'

          Sir, you may spare your application,
          I'm no such beast, nor his relation;                     60
          Nor one that temperance advance,
          Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans:
          Extremely ready to resign
          All that may make me none of mine.
          South-Sea subscriptions take who please,
          Leave me but liberty and ease.
          'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
          Who praised my modesty, and smiled.
          Give me, I cried, (enough for me)
          My bread, and independency!                              70
          So bought an annual rent or two,
          And lived—just as you see I do;
          Near fifty, and without a wife,
          I trust that sinking fund, my life.
          Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
          Shrink back to my paternal cell,
          A little house, with trees a-row,
          And, like its master, very low.
          There died my father, no man's debtor,
          And there I'll die, nor worse, nor better.               80

          To set this matter full before ye,
          Our old friend Swift will tell his story.

          'Harley, the nation's great support'—
          But you may read it,—I stop short.

          I've often wish'd that I had clear,
          For life, six hundred pounds a-year,
          A handsome house to lodge a friend,
          A river at my garden's end,
          A terrace-walk, and half a rood
          Of land, set out to plant a wood.

          Well, now I have all this and more,
          I ask not to increase my store;
          But here a grievance seems to lie,
          All this is mine but till I die;                         10
          I can't but think 'twould sound more clever,
          To me and to my heirs for ever.

          If I ne'er got or lost a groat,
          By any trick, or any fault;
          And if I pray by reason's rules,
          And not like forty other fools:
          As thus, 'Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker!
          To grant me this and t' other acre:
          Or, if it be thy will and pleasure,
          Direct my plough to find a treasure:'                    20
          But only what my station fits,
          And to be kept in my right wits.
          Preserve, Almighty Providence!
          Just what you gave me, competence:
          And let me in these shades compose
          Something in verse as true as prose;
          Removed from all the ambitious scene,
          Nor puff'd by pride, nor sunk by spleen.

          In short, I'm perfectly content,
          Let me but live on this side Trent;                      30
          Nor cross the Channel twice a-year,
          To spend six months with statesmen here.

          I must by all means come to town,
          'Tis for the service of the crown.
          'Lewis, the Dean will be of use,
          Send for him up, take no excuse.'
          The toil, the danger of the seas;
          Great ministers ne'er think of these;
          Or let it cost five hundred pound,
          No matter where the money's found,                       40
          It is but so much more in debt,
          And that they ne'er consider'd yet.

          'Good Mr Dean, go change your gown,
          Let my lord know you're come to town.'
          I hurry me in haste away,
          Not thinking it is levee-day;
          And find his honour in a pound,
          Hemm'd by a triple circle round,
          Checquer'd with ribbons blue and green:
          How should I thrust myself between?                      50
          Same wag observes me thus perplex'd,
          And smiling, whispers to the next,
          'I thought the Dean had been too proud,
          To jostle here among a crowd.'
          Another in a surly fit,
          Tells me I have more zeal than wit,
          'So eager to express your love,
          You ne'er consider whom you shove,
          But rudely press before a duke.'
          I own, I'm pleased with this rebuke,                     60
          And take it kindly meant to show
          What I desire the world should know.

          I get a whisper, and withdraw;
          When twenty fools I never saw
          Come with petitions fairly penn'd,
          Desiring I would stand their friend.

          This, humbly offers me his case—
          That, begs my interest for a place—
          A hundred other men's affairs,
          Like bees, are humming in my ears.                       70
          'To-morrow my appeal comes on,
          Without your help the cause is gone'—
          The duke expects my lord and you,
          About some great affair, at two—
          'Put my Lord Bolingbroke in mind,
          To get my warrant quickly sign'd:
          Consider, 'tis my first request.'—
          Be satisfied, I'll do my best:
          Then presently he falls to tease,
          'You may for certain, if you please;                     80
          I doubt not, if his lordship knew—
          And, Mr Dean, one word from you'—

          'Tis (let me see) three years and more,
          (October next it will be four)
          Since Harley bid me first attend,
          And chose me for an humble friend;
          Would take me in his coach to chat,
          And question me of this and that;
          As, 'What's o'clock?' and, 'How's the wind?'
          'Who's chariot's that we left behind?'                   90
          Or gravely try to read the lines
          Writ underneath the country signs;
          Or, 'Have you nothing new to-day
          From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?'
          Such tattle often entertains
          My lord and me as far as Staines,
          As once a week we travel down
          To Windsor, and again to town,
          Where all that passes, inter nos,
          Might be proclaim'd at Charing Cross.                   100

          Yet some I know with envy swell,
          Because they see me used so well:
          'How think you of our friend the dean?
          I wonder what some people mean;
          My lord and he are grown so great,
          Always together, tête-à-tête:
          What, they admire him for his jokes—
          See but the fortune of some folks!'
          There flies about a strange report
          Of some express arrived at court;                       110
          I'm stopp'd by all the fools I meet,
          And catechised in every street.
          'You, Mr Dean, frequent the great;
          Inform us, will the Emperor treat?
          Or do the prints and papers lie?'
          Faith, sir, you know as much as I.
          'Ah, Doctor, how you love to jest!
          Tis now no secret'—I protest
          'Tis one to me—'Then tell us, pray,
          When are the troops to have their pay?'                 120
          And, though I solemnly declare
          I know no more than my Lord Mayor,
          They stand amazed, and think me grown
          The closest mortal ever known.

          Thus in a sea of folly toss'd,
          My choicest hours of life are lost;
          Yet always wishing to retreat,
          Oh, could I see my country-seat!
          There, leaning near a gentle brook,
          Sleep, or peruse some ancient book,                     130
          And there in sweet oblivion drown
          Those cares that haunt the court and town.
          O charming noons! and nights divine!
          Or when I sup, or when I dine,
          My friends above, my folks below,
          Chatting and laughing all a-row;
          The beans and bacon set before 'em,
          The grace-cup served with all decorum:
          Each willing to be pleased, and please,
          And even the very dogs at ease!                         140
          Here no man prates of idle things,
          How this or that Italian sings,
          A neighbour's madness, or his spouse's,
          Or what's in either of the Houses:
          But something much more our concern,
          And quite a scandal not to learn:
          Which is the happier or the wiser,
          A man of merit, or a miser?
          Whether we ought to choose our friends,
          For their own worth, or our own ends?                   150
          What good, or better, we may call,
          And what, the very best of all?

          Our friend Dan Prior told (you know)
          A tale extremely á propos:
          Name a town life, and in a trice,
          He had a story of two mice.
          Once on a time (so runs the fable)
          A country mouse, right hospitable,
          Received a town mouse at his board,
          Just as a farmer might a lord.                          160
          A frugal mouse upon the whole.
          Yet loved his friend, and had a soul,
          Knew what was handsome, and would do 't,
          On just occasion, coúte qui coúte,
          He brought him bacon (nothing lean);
          Pudding, that might have pleased a dean;
          Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,
          But wish'd it Stilton, for his sake;
          Yet, to his guest though no way sparing,
          He eat himself the rind and paring,                     170
          Our courtier scarce could touch a bit,
          But show'd his breeding and his wit;
          He did his best to seem to eat,
          And cried, 'I vow you're mighty neat.
          But, lord! my friend, this savage scene!
          For God's sake, come, and live with men:
          Consider, mice, like men, must die,
          Both small and great, both you and I:
          Then spend your life in joy and sport,
          (This doctrine, friend, I learn'd at court).'           180

          The veriest hermit in the nation
          May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.
          Away they come, through thick and thin,
          To a tall house near Lincoln's Inn;
          ('Twas on the night of a debate,
          When all their lordships had sat late.)

          Behold the place where, if a poet
          Shined in description, he might show it;
          Tell how the moonbeam trembling falls,
          And tips with silver169 all the walls;                  190
          Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
          Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors:
          But let it (in a word) be said,
          The moon was up, and men a-bed,
          The napkins white, the carpet red:
          The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
          And down the mice sat, tête-à-tête.

          Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
          Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;
          Tells all their names, lays down the law,               200
          'Que ça est bon! Ah goutez ça!          That jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,
          Pray, dip your whiskers and your tail in.'
          Was ever such a happy swain?
          He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again.
          'I'm quite ashamed—'tis mighty rude
          To eat so much—but all's so good.
          I have a thousand thanks to give—
          My lord alone knows how to live.'
          No sooner said, but from the hall                       210
          Rush chaplain, butler, dogs, and all:
          'A rat! a rat! clap to the door'—
          The cat comes bouncing on the floor.
          O for the heart of Homer's mice,
          Or gods to save them in a trice!
          (It was by Providence they think,
          For your damn'd stucco has no chink.)
          'An't please your honour, quoth the peasant,
          This same dessert is not so pleasant:
          Give me again my hollow tree,                           220
          A crust of bread, and liberty!'

          Again? new tumults in my breast?
            Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
          I am not now, alas! the man
            As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne.
          Ah, sound no more thy soft alarms,
            Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms.
          Mother too fierce of dear desires!
            Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires,
          To Number Five direct your doves,
            There spread round Murray all your blooming loves      10
          Noble and young, who strikes the heart
            With every sprightly, every decent part;
          Equal, the injured to defend,
            To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend.
          He, with a hundred arts refined,
            Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind;
          To him each rival shall submit,
            Make but his riches equal to his wit.
          Then shall thy form the marble grace,
            (Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face:            20
          His house, embosom'd in the grove,
            Sacred to social life and social love,
          Shall glitter o'er the pendant green,
            Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:
          Thither, the silver-sounding lyres
            Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires;
          There, every Grace and Muse shall throng,
            Exalt the dance, or animate the song;
          There, youths and nymphs, in consort gay,
            Shall hail the rising, close the parting day.          30
          With me, alas! those joys are o'er;
            For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more.
          Adieu!170 fond hope of mutual fire,
            The still believing, still-renew'd desire;
          Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,
            And all the kind deceivers of the soul!
          But why? ah, tell me, ah, too dear!
            Steals down my cheek th' involuntary tear?
          Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,
            Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee?         40
          Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam,
            Absent I follow through th' extended dream;
          Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms,
            And now you burst (ah, cruel!) from my arms;
          And swiftly shoot along the Mall,
            Or softly glide by the canal,
          Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,
            And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.

          1 Lest you should think that verse shall die,
              Which sounds the silver Thames along,
            Taught, on the wings of truth to fly
              Above the reach of vulgar song;

          2 Though daring Milton sits sublime,
              In Spenser, native Muses play;
            Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
              Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay.

          3 Sages and chiefs long since had birth
              Ere Caesar was, or Newton named;
            These raised new empires o'er the earth,
              And those, new heavens and systems framed.

          4 Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
              They had no poet, and they died.
            In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!
              They had no poet, and are dead.

    'Quid vetat et nosmet Lucilî scripta legentes Quaerere, num illius,
     numrerum dura negârit Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes Mollius?'

          HOR.

          SATIRE II.

          Yes; thank my stars! as early as I knew
          This town, I had the sense to hate it too:
          Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be still
          One giant-vice, so excellently ill,
          That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
          As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

          I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
          It brought (no doubt) the Excise and Army in:
          Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how,
          But that the cure is starving, all allow.                10
          Yet like the papist's is the poet's state,
          Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!

          Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
          Himself a dinner, makes an actor live;
          The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
          So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
          Thus as the pipes of some carved organ move,
          The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
          Heaved by the breath the inspiring bellows blow:
          The inspiring bellows lie and pant below.                20

          One sings the fair; but songs no longer move;
          No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love:
          In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
          And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all—but gold.
          These write to lords, some mean reward to get,
          As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.
          Those write because all write, and so have still
          Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

          Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
          Is he who makes his meal on others' wit:                 30
          'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before,
          His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
          Sense, pass'd through him, no longer is the same;
          For food digested takes another name.

          I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs,
          Who live like Sutton, or who die like Chartres,
          Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,
          Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear;
          Wicked as pages, who in early years
          Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears.          40
          Ev'n those I pardon, for whose sinful sake
          Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
          Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell
          In what commandment's large contents they dwell.

          One, one man only breeds my just offence;
          Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence:
          Time, that at last matures a clap to pox,
          Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
          And brings all natural events to pass,
          Hath made him an attorney of an ass.                     50
          No young divine, new-beneficed, can be
          More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
          What further could I wish the fop to do,
          But turn a wit, and scribble verses too;
          Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear
          With rhymes of this per cent, and that per year?
          Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts,
          Like nets or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts:
          Call himself barrister to every wench,
          And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench?              60
          Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold
          More rough than forty Germans when they scold.

          Cursed be the wretch, so venal and so vain:
          Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.
          'Tis such a bounty as was never known,
          If Peter deigns to help you to your own:
          What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies,
          And what a solemn face, if he denies!
          Grave, as when prisoners shake the head and swear
          'Twas only suretiship that brought 'em there.            70
          His office keeps your parchment fates entire,
          He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
          For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,
          For not in chariots Peter puts his trust;
          For you he sweats and labours at the laws,
          Takes God to witness he affects your cause,
          And lies to every lord in every thing,
          Like a king's favourite, or like a king.
          These are the talents that adorn them all,
          From wicked Waters ev'n to godly Paul.172          Not more of simony beneath black gowns,                  80
          Not more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.
          In shillings and in pence at first they deal;
          And steal so little, few perceive they steal;
          Till, like the sea, they compass all the land,
          From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand:
          And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,
          Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's,
          Or city-heir in mortgage melts away;
          Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
          Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that,           90
          Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.
          Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
          Indentures, covenants, articles they draw,
          Large as the fields themselves, and larger far
          Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are;
          So vast, our new divines, we must confess,
          Are fathers of the Church for writing less.
          But let them write for you, each rogue impairs
          The deeds, and dext'rously omits, ses heires:
          No commentator can more slily pass                      100
          O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place;
          Or, in quotation, shrewd divines leave out
          Those words, that would against them clear the doubt.

          So Luther thought the Pater-noster long,
          When doom'd to say his beads and even-song;
          But having cast his cowl, and left those laws,
          Adds to Christ's prayer, the Power and Glory clause.

          The lands are bought; but where are to be found
          Those ancient woods, that shaded all the ground?
          We see no new-built palaces aspire,                     110
          No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.
          Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of yore
          The good old landlord's hospitable door?
          Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes
          Some beasts were kill'd, though not whole hecatombs;
          That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,
          Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals;
          And all mankind might that just mean observe,
          In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.
          These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow;           120
          But oh! these works are not in fashion now:
          Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare,
          Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

          Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence;
          Let no court sycophant pervert my sense,
          Nor sly informer watch these words to draw
          Within the reach of treason, or the law.

          SATIRE IV.

          Well, if it be my time to quit the stage,
          Adieu to all the follies of the age!
          I die in charity with fool and knave,
          Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
          I've had my purgatory here betimes,
          And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.
          The poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames.
          To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

          With foolish pride my heart was never fired,
          Nor the vain itch t' admire, or be admired;              10
          I hoped for no commission from his Grace;
          I bought no benefice, I begg'd no place;
          Had no new verses, nor new suit to show;
          Yet went to court!—the devil would have it so.
          But, as the fool that, in reforming days,
          Would go to mass in jest (as story says)
          Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,
          Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God;
          So was I punish'd, as if full as proud,
          As prone to ill, as negligent of good.                   20
          As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,
          As vain, as idle, and as false as they
          Who live at court, for going once that way!
          Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold! there came
          A thing which Adam had been posed to name;
          Noah had refused it lodging in his ark,
          Where all the race of reptiles might embark:
          A verier monster than on Afric's shore
          The sun e'er got, or slimy Nilus bore,
          Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain,        30
          Nay, all that lying travellers can feign.
          The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,
          At night, would swear him dropp'd out of the moon.
          One whom the mob, when next we find or make
          A Popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take,
          And the wise justice, starting from his chair,
          Cry, By your priesthood, tell me what you are?

          Such was the wight; the apparel on his back,
          Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was black:
          The suit, if by the fashion one might guess,             40
          Was velvet in the youth of good Queen Bess,
          But mere tuff-taffety what now remain'd;
          So time, that changes all things, had ordain'd!
          Our sons shall see it leisurely decay,
          First turn plain rash, then vanish quite away.

          This thing has travell'd, speaks each language too,
          And knows what's fit for every State to do;
          Of whose best phrase and courtly accent join'd,
          He forms one tongue, exotic and refined
          Talkers I've learn'd to bear; Motteux I knew,            50
          Henley himself I've heard, and Budgell too.
          The Doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues
          A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs,
          The whole artillery of the terms of war,
          And (all those plagues in one) the bawling Bar:
          These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil,
          Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil;
          A tongue, that can cheat widows, cancel scores,
          Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,
          With royal favourites in flattery vie,                   60
          And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

          He spies me out; I whisper, Gracious God!
          What sin of mine could merit such a rod?
          That all the shot of dulness now must be
          From this thy blunderbuss discharged on me!
          Permit (he cries) no stranger to your fame
          To crave your sentiment, if ——'s your name.
          What speech esteem you most? 'The King's,' said I.
          But the best words?—'Oh, sir, the Dictionary.'
          You miss my aim; I mean the most acute                   70
          And perfect speaker?—'Onslow, past dispute.'
          But, sir, of writers? 'Swift, for closer style;
          But Hoadley,173 for a period of a mile.'
          Why, yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pass:
          Good common linguists, and so Panurge was;
          Nay, troth, the Apostles (though perhaps too rough)
          Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough:
          Yet these were all poor gentlemen! I dare
          Affirm, 'twas travel made them what they were.

          Thus others' talents having nicely shown,                80
          He came by sure transition to his own:
          Till I cried out, You prove yourself so able,
          Pity you was not druggerman at Babel;
          For had they found a linguist half so good,
          I make no question but the tower had stood.
          'Obliging sir! for courts you sure were made:
          Why then for ever buried in the shade?
          Spirits like you should see, and should be seen,
          The king would smile on you—at least the queen.'
          Ah, gentle sir! you courtiers so cajole us—             90
          But Tully has it, Nunquam minus solus:
          And as for courts, forgive me, if I say
          No lessons now are taught the Spartan way:
          Though in his pictures lust be full display'd,
          Few are the converts Aretine has made;
          And though the court show vice exceeding clear,
          None should, by my advice, learn virtue there.

          At this, entranced, he lifts his hands and eyes,
          Squeaks like a high-stretch'd lutestring, and replies:
          'Oh, 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things            100
          To gaze on princes, and to talk of kings!'
          Then, happy man who shows the tombs! said I,
          He dwells amidst the royal family;
          He every day, from king to king can walk,
          Of all our Harries, all our Edwards talk,
          And get by speaking truth of monarchs dead,
          What few can of the living-ease and bread.
          'Lord, sir, a mere mechanic! strangely low,
          And coarse of phrase,—your English all are so.
          How elegant your Frenchmen!' Mine, d'ye mean?           110
          I have but one, I hope the fellow's clean.
          'Oh! sir, politely so! nay, let me die:
          Your only wearing is your paduasoy.'
          Not, sir, my only, I have better still,
          And this, you see, is but my dishabille.
          Wild to get loose, his patience I provoke,
          Mistake, confound, object at all he spoke.
          But as coarse iron, sharpen'd, mangles more,
          And itch most hurts when anger'd to a sore;
          So when you plague a fool, 'tis still the curse,        120
          You only make the matter worse and worse.

          He pass'd it o'er; affects an easy smile
          At all my peevishness, and turns his style.
          He asks, 'What news?' I tell him of new plays,
          New eunuchs, harlequins, and operas.
          He hears, and as a still with simples in it
          Between each drop it gives, stays half a minute,
          Loth to enrich me with too quick replies,
          By little, and by little, drops his lies.
          Mere household trash! of birthnights, balls, and shows, 130
          More than ten Hollinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes.
          When the queen frown'd, or smiled, 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,             140
          And cheats the 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 vole,
          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)        150
          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:
          Trim's Europe's balance, tops the statesman's part.
          And talks Gazettes and Postboys 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 licensed spy, whom nothing can
          Silence or hurt, he libels the great man;
          Swears every place entail'd for years to come,          160
          In sure succession to the day of doom:
          He names the price for every 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 seized 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 the infection slide from him to me,              170
          As in the pox, some give it to get free;
          And quick to swallow me, methought I saw
          One of our giant statues 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 Umbra, joins the dirty train.
          Not Fannius' self more impudently near,
          When half his nose is in his prince's ear.
          I quaked at heart; and still afraid, to see             180
          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 wings,
          And the free soul looks down to pity kings!
          There sober thought pursued the amusing theme,
          Till fancy colour'd it, and form'd a dream.
          A vision hermits can to Hell transport,                 190
          And forced ev'n me to see the damn'd at court.
          Not Dante, dreaming all the 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 liveried 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            200
          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, O Sun! beheld an emptier sort,
          Than such as swell this bladder of a court?
          Now pox on those who show a court in wax!
          It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs:
          Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race
          Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face!
          Such waxen noses, stately staring things—              210
          No wonder some folks bow, and think them kings.

          See! where the British youth, engaged no more
          At Fig's,174 at White's, with felons, 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 flatterer swears;
          'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
          Our court may justly to our stage give rules,           220
          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 dress'd,
          And all is splendid poverty at best.

          Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell,
          Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal,
          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,                230
          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 praised for nought,
          For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
          'Twould burst ev'n Heraclitus 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,           240
          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-gloved chaplain goes,        250
          With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
          Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate 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 every fop to plague his brother,
          Just as one beauty mortifies another.
          But here's the captain that will plague them both,      260
          Whose air cries, Arm! whose very look's an oath:
          The captain's honest, sirs, and that's enough,
          Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
          He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
          Like battering rams, beats open every door:
          And with a face as red, and as awry,
          As Herod's hangdogs in old tapestry,
          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 licensed fool, commands like law.          270

          Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
          As men from jails to execution go;
          For hung with deadly sins175 I see the wall,
          And lined with giants deadlier than 'em all:
          Each man an Ascapart,176 of strength to toss
          For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.
          Scared at the grisly 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 Heaven's artillery, bold divine!       280
          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 writ.