DIALOGUE I.

          Fr. 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;
          Bubo178 observes, he lash'd no sort of vice:
          Horace would say, Sir Billy179 served the crown,
          Blunt could do business, Huggins180 knew the town;
          In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
          In reverend bishops note some small neglects,
          And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
          Who cropp'd our ears,181 and sent them to the king.
          His sly, polite, insinuating style
          Could please at court, and make Augustus smile:          20
          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 man182 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,183 but in his happier hour
          Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power;             30
          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.
          Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
          The only difference 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 Jekyl,184 or some odd old Whig
          Who never changed his principle, or wig:                 40
          A patriot is a fool in every age,
          Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:
          These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion 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, and has his ear?'
          Why, answer, Lyttleton,185 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.             50
          Sejanus, Wolsey,186 hurt not honest Fleury,187          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 again.                  60
          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 characters that no one hit;
          Come, Henley's oratory, Osborn's188 wit!
          The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,
          The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Yonge!
          The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
          And all the well-whipt cream of courtly sense,           70
          That first was Hervy's, Fox's next, and then
          The senate's, and then Hervy's once again.
          Oh come, that easy, Ciceronian style,
          So Latin, yet so English all the while,
          As, though 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;189          Or teach the melancholy Muse to mourn,
          Hang the sad verse on Carolina's190 urn,                80
          And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
          All parts perform'd, and all her children bless'd!
          So—satire is no more—I feel it die—
          No gazetteer191 more innocent than I—
          And let, a-God's-name! every fool and knave
          Be graced through 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 Selkirk,192 and grave Delaware.193          Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven,
          All ties dissolved, and every sin forgiven,
          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:   100
          But past the sense of human miseries,
          All tears are wiped 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 Heaven forbid that I should blast their glory,
          Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,
          And when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vex'd,
          Considering what a gracious prince was next.
          Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
          As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings;               110
          And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret,
          Who starves a sister,194 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 Rich195 out-whore a duke?
          A favourite's porter with his master vie,
          Be bribed as often, and as often lie?
          Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill?
          Or Japhet pocket, like his Grace, a will?               120
          Is it for Bond, or Peter, (paltry things)
          To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings?
          If Blount196 dispatch'd himself, he play'd the man,
          And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran!197          But shall a printer,198 weary of his life,
          Learn from their books to hang himself and wife?
          This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear:
          Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care:
          This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,
          And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin,199           130
          Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
          Ten metropolitans in preaching well;
          A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife,200          Outdo Landaff201 in doctrine,—yea, in life:
          Let humble Allen,202 with an awkward shame,
          Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
          Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
          'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;
          Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
          She's still the same beloved, contented thing.          140
          Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
          And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:
          But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore;
          Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more:
          Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
          Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless:
          In golden chains the willing world she draws,
          And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws,
          Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
          And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.               150
          Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,
          Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,
          Dragg'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
          His flag inverted trails along the ground!
          Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold,
          Before her dance: behind her, crawl the old!
          See thronging millions to the pagod run,
          And offer country, parent, wife, or son!
          Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim,
          That NOT TO BE CORRUPTED IS THE SHAME!                  160
          In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
          'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!
          See, all our nobles begging to be slaves!
          See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
          The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,
          Are what ten thousand envy and adore!
          All, all look up with reverential awe,
          At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law:
          While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry—
          'Nothing is sacred now but villany.'                    170

          Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
          Show, there was one who held it in disdain.

          VARIATIONS.

          After VER. 2 in the MS.—

          You don't, I hope, pretend to quit the trade,
          Because you think your reputation made:
          Like good Sir Paul, of whom so much was said,
          That when his name was up, he lay a-bed.
          Come, come, refresh us with a livelier song,
          Or, like Sir Paul, you'll lie a-bed too long.

          P. Sir, what I write, should be correctly writ.

          F. Correct! 'tis what no genius can admit.
          Besides, you grow too moral for a wit.

          VER. 112 in some editions—'Who starves a mother.'

          DIALOGUE II.

          Fr. 'Tis all a libel—Paxton203 (sir) will say.

          P. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow, faith, it may;
          And for that very cause I print to-day.
          How should I fret to mangle every line,
          In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine!
          Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,
          Invention strives to be before in vain;
          Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong,
          Some rising genius sins up to my song.

          F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;           10
          Ev'n Guthrie204 saves half Newgate by a dash.
          Spare then the person, and expose the vice.

          P. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?
          Come on then, Satire! general, unconfined,
          Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
          Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!
          Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!
          Ye reverend atheists——

          F.             Scandal! name them, who?

          P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do.
          Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt,               20
          I never named; the town's inquiring yet.
          The poisoning dame——

          F.          You mean——

          P.                   I don't.

          F.                            You do.

          P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you!
          The bribing statesman——

          F.              Hold, too high you go.

          P. The bribed elector——

          F.                    There you stoop too low.

          P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what;
          Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?
          Must great offenders, once escaped the crown,
          Like royal harts, be never more run down?
          Admit, your law to spare the knight requires,            30
          As beasts of nature may we hunt the 'squires?
          Suppose I censure—you know what I mean—
          To save a bishop, may I name a dean?

          F. A dean, sir? no: his fortune is not made,
          You hurt a man that's rising in the trade.

          P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day,
          Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may.
          Down, down, proud Satire! though a realm be spoil'd,
          Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;205          Or, if a court or country's made a job,                  40
          Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.

          But, sir, I beg you (for the love of vice!)
          The matter's weighty, pray consider twice;
          Have you less pity for the needy cheat,
          The poor and friendless villain, than the great?
          Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
          Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
          Then better, sure, it charity becomes
          To tax directors, who (thank God) have plums;
          Still better, ministers; or, if the thing                50
          May pinch ev'n there—why lay it on a king.

          F. Stop! stop!

          P.        Must Satire, then, nor rise nor fall?
          Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all.

          F. Yes, strike that Wild, I'll justify the blow.

          P. Strike! why the man was hanged ten years ago:
          Who now that obsolete example fears?
          Ev'n Peter trembles only for his ears.

          F. What, always Peter! Peter thinks you mad,
          You make men desperate if they once are bad:
          Else might he take to virtue some years hence            60

          P. As Selkirk, if he lives, will love the Prince.

          F. Strange spleen to Selkirk!

          P.                     Do I wrong the man?
          God knows, I praise a courtier where I can.
          When I confess, there is who feels for fame,
          And melts to goodness,206 need I Scarb'rough207 name?
          Pleased, let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove208          (Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love)
          The scene, the master, opening to my view,
          I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!
          Ev'n in a bishop I can spy desert;                       70
          Secker is decent—Rundel has a heart—
          Manners with candour are to Benson given—
          To Berkeley, every virtue under heaven.

          But does the court a worthy man remove?
          That instant, I declare, he has my love:
          I shun his zenith, court his mild decline;
          Thus Somers once, and Halifax, were mine.
          Oft, in the clear, still mirror of retreat,
          I studied Shrewsbury, the wise and great:
          Carleton's209 calm sense, and Stanhope's noble flame,    80
          Compared, and knew their generous end the same:
          How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour!
          How shined the soul, unconquer'd in the Tower!
          How can I Pulteney, Chesterfield, forget,
          While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit:
          Argyll,210 the state's whole thunder born to wield,
          And shake alike the senate and the field:
          Or Wyndham,211 just to freedom and the throne,
          The master of our passions, and his own.
          Names, which I long have loved, nor loved in vain,       90
          Rank'd with their friends, not number'd with their train:
          And if yet higher212 the proud list should end,
          Still let me say,—No follower, but a friend.213
          Yet think not Friendship only prompts my lays;
          I follow Virtue; where she shines, I praise:
          Point she to priest or elder, Whig or Tory,
          Or round a Quaker's beaver cast a glory.
          I never (to my sorrow I declare)
          Dined with the Man of Ross, or my Lord Mayor.214          Some, in their choice of friends, (nay, look not grave) 100
          Have still a secret bias to a knave:
          To find an honest man I beat about.
          And love him, court him, praise him, in or out.

          F. Then why so few commended?

          P.                          Not so fierce;
          Find you the virtue, and I'll find the verse.
          But random praise—the task can ne'er be done;
          Each mother asks it for her booby son,
          Each widow asks it for 'the best of men,'
          For him she weeps, and him she weds again.
          Praise cannot stoop, like satire, to the ground;        110
          The number may be hang'd, but not be crown'd.
          Enough for half the greatest of these days,
          To 'scape my censure, not expect my praise.
          Are they not rich? what more can they pretend?
          Dare they to hope a poet for their friend?
          What Richelieu wanted, Louis scarce could gain,
          And what young Ammon wish'd, but wish'd in vain.
          No power the Muse's friendship can command;
          No power, when Virtue claims it, can withstand:
          To Cato, Virgil paid one honest line;                   120
          Oh let my country's friends illumine mine!
          —What are you thinking?

          F.              Faith, the thought's no sin—
          I think your friends are out, and would be in.

          P. If merely to come in, sir, they go out,
          The way they take is strangely round about.

          F. They too may be corrupted, you'll allow?

          P. I only call those knaves who are so now.
          Is that too little? Come then, I'll comply—
          Spirit of Arnall!215 aid me while I lie.
          Cobham's a coward, Polwarth216 is a slave,             130
          And Lyttleton a dark, designing knave,
          St John has ever been a wealthy fool—
          But let me add, Sir Robert's mighty dull,
          Has never made a friend in private life,
          And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife.

          But pray, when others praise him, do I blame?
          Call Verres, Wolsey, any odious name?
          Why rail they then, if but a wreath of mine,
          O all-accomplish'd St John! deck thy shrine?

          What! shall each spur-gall'd hackney of the day,        140
          When Paxton gives him double pots and pay,
          Or each new-pension'd sycophant, pretend
          To break my windows if I treat a friend?
          Then wisely plead, to me they meant no hurt,
          But 'twas my guest at whom they threw the dirt?
          Sure, if I spare the minister, no rules
          Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools;
          Sure, if they cannot cut, it may be said
          His saws are toothless, and his hatchet's lead.

          It anger'd Turenne, once upon a day,                    150
          To see a footman kick'd that took his pay:
          But when he heard the affront the fellow gave,
          Knew one a man of honour, one a knave,
          The prudent general turn'd it to a jest,
          And begg'd he'd take the pains to kick the rest:
          Which not at present having time to do——

          F. Hold sir! for God's-sake where 'a the affront to you?
          Against your worship when had Selkirk writ?
          Or Page pour'd forth the torrent of his wit?
          Or grant the bard217 whose distich all commend         160
          'In power a servant, out of power a friend,'
          To Walpole guilty of some venial sin;
          What's that to you who ne'er was out nor in?

          The priest whose flattery bedropp'd the crown,
          How hurt he you? he only stain'd the gown.
          And how did, pray, the florid youth offend,
          Whose speech you took, and gave it to a friend?

          P. Faith, it imports not much from whom it came;
          Whoever borrow'd, could not be to blame,
          Since the whole house did afterwards the same.          170
          Let courtly wits to wits afford supply,
          As hog to hog in huts of Westphaly;
          If one, through Nature's bounty, or his lord's,
          Has what the frugal, dirty soil affords,
          From him the next receives it, thick or thin,
          As pure a mess almost as it came in;
          The blessed benefit, not there confined,
          Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind;
          From tail to mouth, they feed and they carouse:
          The last full fairly gives it to the House.             180

          F. This filthy simile, this beastly line
          Quite turns my stomach——

          P.               So does flattery mine;
          And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,
          Perfume to you, to me is excrement.
          But hear me further—Japhet,218 'tis agreed,
          Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read,
          In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite;
          But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write;
          And must no egg in Japhet's face be thrown,
          Because the deed he forged was not my own?              190
          Must never patriot then declaim at gin,
          Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?
          No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse,
          Without a staring reason on his brows?
          And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
          Because the insult's not on man, but God?

          Ask you what provocation I have had?
          The strong antipathy of good to bad.
          When truth or virtue an affront endures,
          The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours.    200
          Mine, as a foe profess'd to false pretence,
          Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense;
          Mine, as a friend to every worthy mind;
          And mine, as man, who feel for all mankind.

          F. You're strangely proud.

          P.                    So proud, I am no slave:
          So impudent, I own myself no knave:
          So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
          Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
          Men not afraid of God, afraid of me:
          Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,          210
          Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone.

          O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,
          Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
          To all but heaven-directed hands denied,
          The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide:
          Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal;
          To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,
          To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,
          And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.
          Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains,              220
          That counts your beauties only by your stains,
          Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day!
          The Muse's wing shall brush you all away:
          All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,
          All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings,—
          All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
          Like the last gazette, or the last address.

          When black ambition219 stains a public cause,
          A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws,
          Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar,         230
          Nor Boileau220 turn the feather to a star.

          Not so, when, diadem'd with rays divine,
          Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine,
          Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die,
          And opes the temple221 of Eternity.
          There, other trophies deck the truly brave,
          Than such as Anstis222 casts into the grave;
          Far other stars than —— and —— wear,223          And may descend to Mordington from Stair:224          (Such as on Hough's unsullied mitre shine,              240
          Or beam, good Digby,225 from a heart like thine)
          Let Envy howl, while Heaven's whole chorus sings,
          And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
          Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,
          Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
          Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
          And makes immortal verse as mean as mine.

          Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,
          When truth stands trembling on the edge of law;
          Here, last of Britons! let your names be read;          250
          Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,
          And for that cause which made your fathers shine,
          Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.

          F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,
          And write next winter more 'Essays on Man.'

          VARIATIONS.

          VER. 185 in the MS.—

          I grant it, sir; and further, 'tis agreed,
          Japhet writ not, and Chartres scarce could read.

          After VER. 227 in the MS.—

          Where's now the star that lighted Charles to rise?
          —With that which follow'd Julius to the skies
          Angels that watch'd the Royal Oak so well,
          How chanced ye nod, when luckless Sorel fell?
          Hence, lying miracles! reduced so low
          As to the regal-touch, and papal-toe;
          Hence haughty Edgar's title to the main,
          Britain's to France, and thine to India, Spain!

          VER. 255 in the MS.—

          Quit, quit these themes, and write 'Essays on Man.'