Essay on Man by Alexander Pope (page 2)

By actions? those uncertainty divides: By passions? these dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range: Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

Search then the ruling passion: there, alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest, The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest. Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise: Born with whate’er could win it from the wise, Women and fools must like him or he dies; Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke, The club must hail him master of the joke. Shall parts so various aim at nothing new! He’ll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too.
Then turns repentant, and his God adores With the same spirit that he drinks and wh***s; Enough if all around him but admire,
And now the punk applaud, and now the friar. Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart; Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt; And most contemptible, to shun contempt: His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; A constant bounty which no friend has made; An angel tongue, which no man can persuade; A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, Too rash for thought, for action too refined: A tyrant to the wife his heart approves; A rebel to the very king he loves;
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great. Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule? ‘Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool. Nature well known, no prodigies remain, Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.
Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake, If second qualities for first they take. When Catiline by rapine swelled his store; When Caesar made a noble dame a wh***;
In this the lust, in that the avarice Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice. That very Caesar, born in Scipio’s days, Had aimed, like him, by chastity at praise. Lucullus, when frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm. In vain the observer eyes the builder’s toil, But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile. In this one passion man can strength enjoy, As fits give vigour, just when they destroy. Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest Nature ends as she begins. Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last; As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, As sober Lanesb’row dancing in the gout. Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed By his own son, that passes by unblessed: Still to his haunt he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees.
A salmon’s belly, Helluo, was thy fate; The doctor called, declares all help too late: “Mercy!” cries Helluo, “mercy on my soul! Is there no hope!–Alas!–then bring the jowl.” The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper’s end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. “Odious! in woollen! ‘twould a saint provoke” (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke); “No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face: One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s dead– And–Betty–give this cheek a little red.” The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined An humble servant to all human kind,
Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, “If–where I’m going–I could serve you, sir?” “I give and I devise” (old Euclio said,
And sighed) “my lands and tenements to Ned.” “Your money, sir?” “My money, sir? what, all? Why–if I must” (then wept)–“I give it Paul.” “The Manor, sir?”–“The Manor! hold,” he cried, “Not that,–I cannot part with that”–and died. And you! brave Cobham, to the latest breath Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death: Such in those moments as in all the past, “Oh, save my country, Heaven!” shall be your last.

EPISTLE II.

TO A LADY.

OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN.

Nothing so true as what you once let fall, “Most women have no characters at all.”
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair. How many pictures of one nymph we view, All how unlike each other, all how true! Arcadia’s countess, here, in ermined pride, Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side.
Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, And there, a naked Leda with a swan.
Let then the fair one beautifully cry, In Magdalen’s loose hair, and lifted eye, Or dressed in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine, With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine; Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Come then, the colours and the ground prepare! Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air; Choose a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Rufa, whose eye, quick-glancing o’er the park Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke,
As Sappho’s diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet’s greasy task,
With Sappho fragrant at an evening masque: So morning insects that in muck begun,
Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun.

How soft is Silia! fearful to offend; The frail one’s advocate, the weak one’s friend: To her, Calista proved her conduct nice; And good Simplicius asks of her advice.
Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the wink, But spare your censure; Silia does not drink. All eyes may see from what the change arose, All eyes may see–a pimple on her nose.

Papillia, wedded to her am’rous spark, Sighs for the shades–“How charming is a park!” A park is purchased, but the fair he sees All bathed in tears–“Oh, odious, odious trees!”

Ladies, like variegated tulips show; ‘Tis to their changes half their charms we owe; Fine by defect, and delicately weak,
Their happy spots the nice admirer take, ‘Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarmed, Awed without virtue, without beauty charmed; Her tongue bewitched as oddly as her eyes, Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise; Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had, Was just not ugly, and was just not mad; Yet ne’er so sure our passion to create, As when she touched the brink of all we hate.

Narcissa’s nature, tolerably mild,
To make a wash, would hardly stew a child; Has even been proved to grant a lover’s prayer, And paid a tradesman once to make him stare; Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim, And made a widow happy, for a whim.
Why then declare good-nature is her scorn, When ’tis by that alone she can be borne? Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name? A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame: Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs, Now drinking citron with his grace and Chartres: Now Conscience chills her, and now Passion burns; And Atheism and Religion take their turns; A very heathen in the carnal part,
Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart.

What then? let blood and body bear the fault, Her head’s untouched, that noble seat of thought: Such this day’s doctrine–in another fit She sins with poets through pure love of wit. What has not fired her bosom or her brain? Caesar and Tall-boy, Charles and Charlemagne. As Helluo, late dictator of the feast,
The nose of Hautgout, and the tip of taste, Critic’d your wine, and analysed your meat, Yet on plain pudding deigned at home to eat; So Philomede, lecturing all mankind
On the soft passion, and the taste refined, The address, the delicacy–stoops at once, And makes her hearty meal upon a dunce.
Flavia’s a wit, has too much sense to pray; To toast our wants and wishes, is her way; Nor asks of God, but of her stars, to give The mighty blessing, “while we live, to live.” Then all for death, that opiate of the soul! Lucretia’s dagger, Rosamonda’s bowl.
Say, what can cause such impotence of mind? A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind. Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please; With too much spirit to be e’er at ease; With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought: You purchase pain with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live.
Turn then from wits; and look on Simo’s mate, No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate.
Or her, that owns her faults, but never mends, Because she’s honest, and the best of friends. Or her, whose life the Church and scandal share, For ever in a passion, or a prayer.
Or her, who laughs at hell, but (like her Grace) Cries, “Ah! how charming, if there’s no such place!” Or who in sweet vicissitude appears
Of mirth and opium, ratafie and tears, The daily anodyne, and nightly draught,
To kill those foes to fair ones, time and thought. Woman and fool are two hard things to hit; For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit. But what are these to great Atossa’s mind? Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind! Who, with herself, or others, from her birth Finds all her life one warfare upon earth: Shines in exposing knaves, and painting fools, Yet is, whate’er she hates and ridicules. No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again. Full sixty years the world has been her trade, The wisest fool much time has ever made
From loveless youth to unrespected age, No passion gratified except her rage.
So much the fury still outran the wit, The pleasure missed her, and the scandal hit. Who breaks with her, provokes revenge from hell, But he’s a bolder man who dares be well. Her every turn with violence pursued,
Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude: To that each passion turns, or soon or late; Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate: Superiors? death! and equals? what a curse! But an inferior not dependent? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Oblige her, and she’ll hate you while you live: But die, and she’ll adore you–then the bust And temple rise–then fall again to dust. Last night, her lord was all that’s good and great; A knave this morning, and his will a cheat. Strange! by the means defeated of the ends, By spirit robbed of power, by warmth of friend By wealth of followers! without one distress Sick of herself through very selfishness! Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer, Childless with all her children, wants an heir. To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, Or wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor. Pictures like these, dear madam, to design, Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line; Some wandering touches, some reflected light, Some flying stroke alone can hit ’em right: For how should equal colours do the knack? Chameleons who can paint in white and black? “Yet Chloe sure was formed without a spot”– Nature in her then erred not, but forgot. “With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?”–She wants a heart. She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought; But never, never, reached one generous thought. Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies for ever.
So very reasonable, so unmoved,
As never yet to love, or to be loved. She, while her lover pants upon her breast, Can mark the figures on an Indian chest; And when she sees her friend in deep despair, Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. Forbid it, Heaven, a favour or a debt
She e’er should cancel–but she may forget. Safe is your secret still in Chloe’s ear; But none of Chloe’s shall you ever hear. Of all her dears she never slandered one, But cares not if a thousand are undone.
Would Chloe know if you’re alive or dead? She bids her footman put it in her head. Chloe is prudent–would you too be wise? Then never break your heart when Chloe dies. One certain portrait may (I grant) be seen, Which Heaven has varnished out, and made a QUEEN. The same for ever! and described by all
With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball. Poets heap virtues, painters gems at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill. ‘Tis well–but, artists! who can paint or write, To draw the naked is your true delight.
That robe of quality so struts and swells, None see what parts of nature it conceals: The exactest traits of body or of mind,
We owe to models of an humble kind. If Queensbury to strip there’s no compelling, ‘Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen, From peer or bishop ’tis no easy thing
To draw the man who loves his God or king: Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail)
From honest Mah’met, or plain Parson Hale. But grant in public men sometimes are shown, A woman’s seen in private life alone:
Our bolder talents in full light displayed; Your virtues open fairest in the shade.
Bred to disguise, in public ’tis you hide; There, none distinguish ‘twixt your shame or pride, Weakness or delicacy; all so nice,
That each may seem a virtue or a vice. In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind:
Those, only fixed they first or last obey– The love of pleasure, and the love of sway. That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault? Experience, this; by man’s oppression curst, They seek the second not to lose the first. Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake:
Men, some to quiet, some to public strife; But every lady would be queen for life.
Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens! Power all their end, but beauty all the means: In youth they conquer, with so wild a rage, As leaves them scarce a subject in their age: For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam; No thought of peace or happiness at home. But wisdom’s triumph is well-timed retreat, As hard a science to the fair as great!
Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown, Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone,
Worn out in public, weary every eye, Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. Pleasures the sex, as children birds, pursue, Still out of reach, yet never out of view; Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most, To covet flying, and regret when lost:
At last, to follies youth could scarce defend, It grows their age’s prudence to pretend; Ashamed to own they gave delight before, Reduced to feign it, when they give no more: As hags hold Sabbaths, less for joy than spite, So these their merry, miserable night;
Still round and round the ghosts of beauty glide, And haunt the places where their honour died. See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolics, an old age of cards; Fair to no purpose, artful to no end;
Young without lovers, old without a friend; A fop their passion, but their prize a sot; Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot!
Ah! friend! to dazzle let the vain design; To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring, Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing: So when the sun’s broad beam has tired the sight, All mild ascends the moon’s more sober light; Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserved the glaring orb declines. Oh! blest with temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day,
She, who can love a sister’s charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She, who ne’er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will; Disdains all loss of tickets, or Codille: Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself, though China fall. And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman’s at best a contradiction still.
Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can Its last best work, but forms a softer man; Picks from each sex, to make the fav’rite blest, Your love of pleasure, or desire of rest: Blends, in exception to all general rules, Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools: Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied, Courage with softness, modesty with pride; Fixed principles, with fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces–You. Be this a woman’s fame: with this unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest. This Phoebus promised (I forget the year) When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere; Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care, Averted half your parents’ simple prayer, And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf That buys your sex a tyrant o’er itself. The gen’rous god, who wit and gold refines, And ripens spirits as he ripens mines,
Kept dross for duchesses–the world shall know it– To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.

EPISTLE III.

TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE USE OF RICHES.

That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profusion, v.1, etc. The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to Mankind, v.21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, scarcely Necessaries, v.89-160. That Avarice is an absolute Frenzy, without an end or purpose, v.113, etc., 152. Conjectures about the motives of Avaricious men, v.121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the Order of Providence, which works the general good out of extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, v.161 to 178. How a Miser acts upon Principles which appear to him reasonable, v.179. How a Prodigal does the same, v.199. The due Medium and true use of Riches, v.219. The Man of Ross, v.250. The fate of the Profuse and the Covetous, in two examples; both miserable in Life and in Death, v.300, etc. The Story of Sir Balaam, v.339 to the end.

P. Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me? You hold the word, from Jove to Momus given, That man was made the standing jest of Heaven; And gold but sent to keep the fools in play, For some to heap, and some to throw away. But I, who think more highly of our kind, (And surely, Heaven and I are of a mind) Opine, that Nature, as in duty bound,
Deep hid the shining mischief under ground: But when by man’s audacious labour won,
Flamed forth this rival to its sire, the sun, Then careful Heaven supplied two sorts of men, To squander these, and those to hide again. Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past, We find our tenets just the same at last. Both fairly owning Riches, in effect,
No grace of Heaven or token of th’ elect; Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil, To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the devil. B. What Nature wants, commodious gold bestows, ‘Tis thus we eat the bread another sows. P. But how unequal it bestows, observe; ‘Tis thus we riot, while, who sow it, starve: What Nature wants (a phrase I much distrust) Extends to luxury, extends to lust:
Useful, I grant, it serves what life requires, But, dreadful too, the dark assassin hires. B. Trade it may help, society extend.
P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend. B. It raises armies in a nation’s aid.
P. But bribes a senate, and the land’s betrayed. In vain may heroes fight, and patriots rave; If secret gold sap on from knave to knave. Once, we confess, beneath the patriot’s cloak, From the cracked bag the dropping guinea spoke, And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew, “Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.”
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! Gold imped by thee can compass hardest things, Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings; A single leaf shall waft an army o’er,
Or ship off senates to a distant shore; A leaf, like Sibyl’s, scatter to and fro Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen, And silent sells a king, or buys a queen. Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see, Still, as of old, encumbered villainy!
Could France or Rome divert our brave designs, With all their brandies or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the Quorum ten miles round? A statesman’s slumbers how this speech would spoil! “Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar.”
Poor Avarice one torment more would find; Nor could Profusion squander all in kind. Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet; And Worldly crying coals from street to street, Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed, Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed. Had Colepepper’s whole wealth been hops and hogs, Could he himself have sent it to the dogs? His Grace will game: to White’s a bull be led, With spurning heels and with a butting head. To White’s be carried, as to ancient games, Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames. Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep, Bear home six w****s, and make his lady weep? Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine,
Drive to St. James’s a whole herd of swine? Oh, filthy cheek on all industrious skill, To spoil the nation’s last great trade, Quadrille! Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall, What say you? B. Say? Why, take it, gold and all. P. What Riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little? would you more than live? Alas! ’tis more than Turner finds they give. Alas! ’tis more than (all his visions past) Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!
What can they give? to dying Hopkins, heirs; To Chartres, vigour; Japhet, nose and ears? Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow, In Fulvia’s buckle ease the throbs below; Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,
With all th’ embroid’ry plastered at thy tail? They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend) Give Harpax’ self the blessing of a friend; Or find some doctor that would save the life Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock’s wife: But thousands die, without or this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat.
To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, T’ enrich a bastard, or a son they hate. Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule, That “every man in want is knave or fool:” “God cannot love,” says Blunt, with tearless eyes, “The wretch He starves”–and piously denies: But the good bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them–Providence’s care. Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides. B. Who suffer thus, mere charity should own, Must act on motives powerful, though unknown. P. Some war, some plague, or famine they foresee, Some revelation hid from you and me.
Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found– He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound. What made directors cheat in South-Sea year? To live on venison when it sold so dear. Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys? Phryne foresees a general excise.
Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum? Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.
Wise Peter sees the world’s respect for gold, And therefore hopes this nation may be sold: Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store, And be what Rome’s great Didius was before. The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage. But nobler scenes Maria’s dreams unfold, Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold.
Congenial souls! whose life one av’rice joins, And one fate buries in th’ Asturian mines. Much injured Blunt! why bears he Britain’s hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate: “At length corruption, like a gen’ral flood (So long by watchful Ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and av’rice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun; Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box,
And judges job, and bishops bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards for half-a-crown. See Britain sunk in Lucre’s sordid charms, And France revenged of Anne’s and Edward’s arms!” ‘Twas no Court-badge, great Scriv’ner! fired thy brain, Nor lordly luxury, nor City gain:
No, ’twas thy righteous end, ashamed to see Senates degen’rate, patriots disagree,
And, nobly wishing party-rage to cease, To buy both sides, and give thy country peace. “All this is madness,” cries a sober sage: But who, my friend, has reason in his rage? “The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still.” Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame, Than even that passion, if it has no aim; For though such motives folly you may call, The folly’s greater to have none at all. Hear then the truth: “‘Tis Heaven each passion sends, And different men directs to different ends. Extremes in nature equal good produce,
Extremes in man concur to gen’ral use.” Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow? That POWER who bids the ocean ebb and flow, Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain, Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain, Builds life on death, on change duration founds, And gives th’ eternal wheels to know their rounds. Riches, like insects, when concealed they lie, Wait but for wings, and in their season fly. Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor; This year a reservoir, to keep and spare; The next, a fountain, spouting through his heir, In lavish streams to quench a country’s thirst, And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst. Old Cotta shamed his fortune and his birth, Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth:
What though (the use of barbarous spits forgot) His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot? His court with nettles, moats with cresses stored, With soups unbought and salads blessed his board? If Cotta lived on pulse, it was no more
Than Brahmins, saints, and sages did before; To cram the rich was prodigal expense,
And who would take the poor from Providence? Like some lone Chartreux stands the good old hall, Silence without, and fasts within the wall; No raftered roofs with dance and tabor sound, No noontide bell invites the country round; Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey, And turn th’ unwilling steeds another way; Benighted wanderers, the forest o’er,
Curse the saved candle and unopening door; While the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate, Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat. Not so his son; he marked this oversight, And then mistook reverse of wrong for right. (For what to shun will no great knowledge need; But what to follow is a task indeed.)
Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise, More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise. What slaughtered hecatombs, what floods of wine, Fill the capacious squire, and deep divine! Yet no mean motive this profusion draws; His oxen perish in his country’s cause;
‘Tis George and Liberty that crowns the cup, And zeal for that great house which eats him up. The woods recede around the naked seat;
The sylvans groan–no matter–for the fleet; Next goes his wool–to clothe our valiant bands; Last, for his country’s love, he sells his lands. To town he comes, completes the nation’s hope, And heads the bold train-bands, and burns a Pope. And shall not Britain now reward his toils, Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils? In vain at Court the bankrupt pleads his cause, His thankless country leaves him to her laws. The sense to value riches, with the art T’ enjoy them, and the virtue to impart, Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued,
Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude; To balance fortune by a just expense,
Join with economy, magnificence;
With splendour, charity; with plenty, health; O teach us, Bathurst! yet unspoiled by wealth! That secret rare, between the extremes to move Of mad good-nature, and of mean self-love. B. To worth or want well weighed, be bounty given, And ease, or emulate, the care of Heaven (Whose measure full o’erflows on human race); Mend Fortune’s fault, and justify her grace. Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffused; As poison heals, in just proportion used: In heaps, like ambergrise, a stink it lies, But well dispersed, is incense to the skies. P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats. Is there a lord who knows a cheerful noon Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon? Whose table, wit or modest merit share,
Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or play’r? Who copies yours or Oxford’s better part, To ease the oppressed, and raise the sinking heart? Where’er he shines, O Fortune, gild the scene, And angels guard him in the golden mean! There, English bounty yet awhile may stand, And Honour linger ere it leaves the land. But all our praises why should lords engross? Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross: Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. Who hung with woods you mountain’s sultry brow? From the dry rock who bade the waters flow? Not to the skies in useless columns tost, Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless, pouring through the plain Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? “The Man of Ross,” each lisping babe replies. Behold the market-place with poor o’erspread! The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread; He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, Where age and want sit smiling at the gate; Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blest, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. Is there a variance? enter but his door, Baulked are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attorneys, now a useless race.
B. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue What all so wish, but want the power to do! Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply? What mines, to swell that boundless charity? P. Of debts, and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possest–five hundred pounds a year. Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze! Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays! B. And what? no monument, inscription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost unknown? P. Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name; Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough, that virtue filled the space between; Proved, by the ends of being, to have been. When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch, who living saved a candle’s end: Shouldering God’s altar a vile image stands, Belies his features, nay, extends his hands; That livelong wig, which Gorgon’s self might own, Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.
Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend! And see what comfort it affords our end. In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half-hung, The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies–alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!– Gallant and gay, in Cliveden’s proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; Or just as gay, at council, in a ring
Of mimic’d statesmen and their merry king. No wit to flatter left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends. His grace’s fate sage Cutler could foresee, And well (he thought) advised him, “Live like me.” As well his grace replied, “Like you, Sir John? That I can do, when all I have is gone.” Resolve me, Reason, which of these is worse, Want with a full, or with an empty purse? Thy life more wretched, Cutler, was confessed, Arise, and tell me, was thy death more blessed? Cutler saw tenants break, and houses fall, For very want; he could not build a wall. His only daughter in a stranger’s power, For very want; he could not pay a dower. A few grey hairs his reverend temples crowned, ‘Twas very want that sold them for two pound. What even denied a cordial at his end,
Banished the doctor, and expelled the friend? What but a want, which you perhaps think mad, Yet numbers feel the want of what he had! Cutler and Brutus, dying, both exclaim,
“Virtue! and wealth! what are ye but a name!” Say, for such worth are other worlds prepared? Or are they both in this their own reward? A knotty point! to which we now proceed. But you are tired–I’ll tell a tale. B. Agreed. P. Where London’s column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies; There dwelt a citizen of sober fame,
A plain good man, and Balaam was his name; Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth; His word would pass for more than he was worth. One solid dish his week-day meal affords, An added pudding solemnised the Lord’s;
Constant at church, and Change; his gains were sure, His givings rare, save farthings to the poor. The devil was piqued such saintship to behold, And longed to tempt him like good Job of old: But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor. Roused by the prince of Air, the whirlwinds sweep The surge, and plunge his father in the deep; Then full against his Cornish lands they roar, And two rich shipwrecks bless the lucky shore. Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks, He takes his chirping pint, and cracks his jokes; “Live like yourself,” was soon my lady’s word; And lo! two puddings smoked upon the board. Asleep and naked as an Indian lay,
An honest factor stole a gem away:
He pledged it to the knight; the knight had wit, So kept the diamond, and the rogue was bit. Some scruple rose, but thus he eased his thought, “I’ll now give sixpence where I gave a groat; Where once I went to church, I’ll now go twice– And am so clear, too, of all other vice.” The Tempter saw his time; the work he plied; Stocks and subscriptions pour on every side, ‘Till all the demon makes his full descent In one abundant shower of cent. per cent., Sinks deep within him, and possesses whole, Then dubs director, and secures his soul. Behold Sir Balaam, now a man of spirit, Ascribes his gettings to his parts and merit; What late he called a blessing, now was wit, And God’s good Providence, a lucky hit.
Things change their titles, as our manners turn; His counting-house employed the Sunday morn; Seldom at church (’twas such a busy life), But duly sent his family and wife.
There (so the devil ordained) one Christmas tide My good old lady catched a cold and died. A nymph of quality admires our knight;
He marries, bows at court, and grows polite: Leaves the dull cits, and joins (to please the fair) The well bred c*ck**ds in St. James’s air; First, for his son a gay commission buys, Who drinks and fights, and in a duel dies; His daughter flaunts a viscount’s tawdry wife; She bears a coronet and —- for life.
In Britain’s senate he a seat obtains, And one more pensioner St. Stephen gains. My lady falls to play; so bad her chance, He must repair it; takes a bribe from France; The House impeach him; Coningsby harangues; The Court forsake him, and Sir Balaam hangs; Wife, son, and daughter, Satan! are thine own, His wealth, yet dearer, forfeit to the Crown: The Devil and the King divide the prize, And sad Sir Balaam curses God and dies.

EPISTLE IV.

TO RICHARD BOYLE, EARL OF BURLINGTON.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE USE OF RICHES.

The Vanity of Expense in people of Wealth and Quality. The abuse of the word Taste, v.13. That the first Principle and foundation, in this as in everything else, is Good Sense, v.40. The chief Proof of it is to follow Nature even in works of mere Luxury and Elegance. Instanced in Architecture and Gardening, where all must be adapted to the Genius and Use of the Place, and the Beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it, v.50. How men are disappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true Foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all: and the best Examples and Rules will but be perverted into something burdensome or ridiculous, v.65, etc., to 92. A description of the false Taste of Magnificence; the first grand Error of which is to imagine that Greatness consists in the size and dimension, instead of the Proportion and Harmony of the whole, v.97, and the second, either in joining together Parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the Repetition of the same too frequently, v.105, etc. A word or two of false Taste in Books, in Music, in Painting, even in Preaching and Prayer, and lastly in Entertainments, v.133, etc. Yet Providence is justified in giving Wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the poor and laborious part of mankind, v.169 (recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii., and in the Epistle preceding this, v.159, etc.). What are the proper objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expense of Great Men, v.177, etc., and finally, the Great and Public Works which become a Prince, v.191 to the end.

‘Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ To gain those riches he can ne’er enjoy: Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste His wealth, to purchase what he ne’er can taste? Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats; Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats: He buys for Topham, drawings and designs, For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins; Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone, And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane. Think we all these are for himself? no more Than his fine wife, alas! or finer w***e. For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show, how many tastes he wanted. What brought Sir Visto’s ill-got wealth to waste? Some demon whispered, “Visto! have a taste.” Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule. See! sportive Fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide. A standing sermon, at each year’s expense, That never coxcomb reached magnificence! You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use. Yet shall, my lord, your just, your noble rules Fill half the land with imitating fools; Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state, Turn arcs of triumph to a garden-gate;
Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all On some patched dog-hole eked with ends of wall; Then clap four slices of pilaster on ‘t, That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar, Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part, And, if they starve, they starve by rules of art. Oft have you hinted to your brother peer A certain truth, which many buy too dear: Something there is more needful than expense, And something previous even to taste–’tis sense. Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven: A light, which in yourself you must perceive: Jones and Le Notre have it not to give.
To build, to plant, whatever you intend, To rear the column, or the arch to bend, To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; In all, let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair, Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare; Let not each beauty everywhere be spied, Where half the skill is decently to hide. He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds. Consult the genius of the place in all; That tells the waters or to rise or fall, Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale, Or scoops in circling theatres the vale; Calls in the country, catches opening glades, Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades; Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines; Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs. Still follow sense, of every art the soul, Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole, Spontaneous beauties all around advance, Start even from difficulty, strike from chance; Nature shall join you; Time shall make it grow A work to wonder at–perhaps a Stowe.
Without it, proud Versailles, thy glory falls; And Nero’s terraces desert their walls:
The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make; Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake: Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain, You’ll wish your hill or sheltered seat again. Even in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in a hermitage set Dr. Clarke.
Behold Villario’s ten years’ toil complete: His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet; The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, And strength of shade contends with strength of light; A waving glow the bloomy beds display,
Blushing in bright diversities of day, With silver-quivering rills meandered o’er– Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more;
Tired of the scene parterres and fountains yield, He finds at last he better likes a field. Through his young woods how pleased Sabinus strayed, Or sat delighted in the thickening shade, With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet, Or see the stretching branches long to meet! His son’s fine taste an opener vista loves, Foe to the Dryads of his father’s groves; One boundless green, or flourished carpet views, With all the mournful family of yews;
The thriving plants, ignoble broomsticks made, Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade. At Timon’s villa let us pass a day,
Where all cry out, “What sums are thrown away!” So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air, Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought. To compass this, his building is a town, His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees, A puny insect, shivering at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around! The whole, a laboured quarry above ground; Two Cupids squirt before; a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind. His gardens next your admiration call,
On every side you look, behold the wall! No pleasing intricacies intervene,
No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other. The suffering eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees With here a fountain, never to be played; And there a summer-house, that knows no shade; Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers; There gladiators fight or die in flowers; Unwatered see the drooping sea-horse mourn, And swallows roost in Nilus’ dusty urn.
My lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen: But soft–by regular approach–not yet– First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat; And when up ten steep slopes you’ve dragged your thighs, Just at his study door he’ll bless your eyes. His study! with what authors is it stored? In books, not authors, curious is my lord; To all their dated backs he turns you round: These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound, Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good For all his lordship knows, but they are wood. For Locke or Milton ’tis in vain to look; These shelves admit not any modern book. And now the chapel’s silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of prayer; Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all Paradise before your eye. To rest, the cushion and soft Dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall: The rich buffet well-coloured serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
No, ’tis a temple, and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice, performed in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. So quick retires each flying course, you’d swear Sancho’s dread doctor and his wand were there. Between each act the trembling salvers ring, From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King. In plenty starving, tantalised in state, And complaisantly helped to all I hate,
Treated, caressed, and tired, I take my leave, Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve; I curse such lavish cost and little skill, And swear no day was ever past so ill.
Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his infants bread The labourer bears; what his hard heart denies His charitable vanity supplies.
Another age shall see the golden ear Embrown the slope, and nod on the parterre, Deep harvests bury all his pride has planned, And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle. ‘Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,
And splendour borrows all her rays from sense. His father’s acres who enjoys in peace, Or makes his neighbours glad, if he increase: Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil, Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil; Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show, But future buildings, future navies, grow: Let his plantations stretch from down to down, First shade a country, and then raise a town. You too proceed! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate’er Vitruvius was before:
‘Till kings call forth the ideas of your mind (Proud to accomplish what such hands denied) Bid harbours open, public ways extend,
Bid temples, worthier of the god, ascend; Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main; Back to his bounds their subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land: These honours peace to happy Britain brings, These are imperial works, and worthy kings.

EPISTLE V.

TO MR. ADDISON.

OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS.

See the wild waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very tombs now vanished like their dead! Imperial wonders raised on nations spoiled, Where mixed with slaves the groaning martyr toiled: Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods, Now drained a distant country of her floods: Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey, Statues of men, scarce less alive than they! Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age, Some hostile fury, some religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire, And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.
Perhaps, by its own ruins saved from flame, Some buried marble half preserves a name; That name the learned with fierce disputes pursue, And give to Titus old Vespasian’s due.
Ambition sighed: she found it vain to trust The faithless column and the crumbling bust: Huge moles, whose shadow stretched from shore to shore, Their ruins perished, and their place no more; Convinced, she now contracts her vast design, And all her triumphs shrink into a coin. A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps; Beneath her palm here sad Judea weeps;
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine; A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled, And little eagles wave their wings in gold. The medal, faithful to its charge of fame, Through climes and ages bears each form and name: In one short view subjected to our eye
Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie. With sharpened sight pale antiquaries pore, The inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears, The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years! To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes, One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams. Poor Vadius, long with learn-ed spleen devoured, Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scoured; And Curio, restless by the fair one’s side, Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride. Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine: Touched by thy hand, again Rome’s glories shine; Her gods and god-like heroes rise to view, And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage; These pleased the fathers of poetic rage; The verse and sculpture bore an equal part, And art reflected images to art.
Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living medals see her wars enrolled, And vanquished realms supply recording gold? Here, rising bold, the patriot’s honest face; There warriors frowning in historic brass? Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato’s, Bacon’s, Newton’s looks agree; Or in fair series laurelled bards be shown, A Virgil there, and here an Addison.
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine) On the cast ore, another Pollio shine;
With aspect open, shall erect his head, And round the orb in lasting notes be read, “Statesmen, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, served no private end, Who gained no title and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
And praised, unenvied, by the muse he loved.”

SATIRES.

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THIS EPISTLE.

This Paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the authors of “Verses to the Imitator of Horace,” and of an “Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court”) to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge), but my person, morals, and family, whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this Epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please.

I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.– P.

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT,

BEING THE

PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

P. Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead. The dog-star rages! nay ’tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide; By land, by water, they renew the charge; They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. No place is sacred, not the Church is free; Even Sunday shines no Sabbath Day to me; Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me just at dinner-time.
Is there a parson, much bemused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoomed his father’s soul to cross, Who pens a stanza when he should engross? Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls? All fly to Twitenham, and in humble strain Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damned works the cause: Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? Or which must end me, a fool’s wrath or love? A dire dilemma! either way I’m sped,
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead. Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I! Who can’t be silent, and who will not lie. To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace, And to be grave, exceeds all power of face. I sit with sad civility, I read
With honest anguish, and an aching head; And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, This saving counsel, “Keep your piece nine years.” “Nine years!” cries he, who high in Drury Lane, Lulled by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends, Obliged by hunger, and request of friends: “The piece, you think, is incorrect? why, take it, I’m all submission, what you’d have it, make it.” Three things another’s modest wishes bound, My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound. Pitholeon sends to me: “You know his Grace, I want a patron; ask him for a place.”
‘Pitholeon libelled me’–“but here’s a letter Informs you, sir, ’twas when he knew no better. Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine, He’ll write a journal, or he’ll turn divine.” Bless me! a packet.–“‘Tis a stranger sues, A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.”
If I dislike it, “Furies, death and rage!” If I approve, “Commend it to the stage.” There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends, The players and I are, luckily, no friends, Fired that the house reject him, “`Sdeath I’ll print it, And shame the fools–Your interest, sir, with Lintot!” ‘Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much:’ “Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.” All my demurs but double his attacks;
At last he whispers, “Do; and we go snacks.” Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door, Sir, let me see your works and you no more. ‘Tis sung, when Midas’ ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king),
His very minister who spied them first (Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dangerous things. I’d never name queens, ministers, or kings; Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick; ‘Tis nothing– P. Nothing? if they bite and kick? Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass, That secret to each fool, that he’s an ass: The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?) The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? take it for a rule, No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break, Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurled, Thou stand’st unshook amidst a bursting world. Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature’s at his dirty work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer, Lost the arched eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer? And has not Colley still his lord, and w***e? His butchers Henley, his free-masons Moore? Does not one table Bavius still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit? Still Sappho– A. Hold! for God’s sake–you’ll offend, No names!–be calm!–learn prudence of a friend! I too could write, and I am twice as tall; But foes like these– P. One flatterer’s worse than all. Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right, It is the slaver kills, and not the bite. A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
Alas! ’tis ten times worse when they repent. One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes: One from all Grubstreet will my fame defend, And more abusive, calls himself my friend. This prints my letters, that expects a bribe, And others roar aloud, “Subscribe, subscribe.” There are, who to my person pay their court: I cough like Horace, and, though lean, am short, Ammon’s great son one shoulder had too high, Such Ovid’s nose, and “Sir! you have an eye”– Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
All that disgraced my betters, met in me. Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,
“Just so immortal Maro held his head:” And when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago. Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipped me in ink, my parents’, or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. I left no calling for this idle trade,
No duty broke, no father disobeyed. The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife, To help me through this long disease, my life, To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserved, to bear. But why then publish? Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise; And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays; The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield, read; Even mitred Rochester would nod the head, And St. John’s self (great Dryden’s friends before) With open arms received one poet more.
Happy my studies, when by these approved! Happier their author, when by these beloved! From these the world will judge of men and books, Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cookes. Soft were my numbers; who could take offence, While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny’s was my flowery theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;– I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered–I was not in debt.
If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.
Did some more sober critic come abroad; If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And ’twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne’er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to p—g Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton’s or in Shakespeare’s name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. Were others angry: I excused them too;
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. A man’s true merit ’tis not hard to find; But each man’s secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess? The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year; He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left: And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: And he, whose fustian’s so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bade translate, And owned that nine such poets made a Tate. How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe And swear not Addison himself was safe.
Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blessed with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne’er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:– Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?
What though my name stood rubric on the walls, Or plaistered posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers’ load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad? I sought no homage from the race that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded (now be-rhymed so long)
No more than thou, great George! a birthday song. I ne’er with wits or witlings passed my days, To spread about the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouthed, and cried, With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.
Proud as Apollo on his fork-ed hill, Sat full-blown Bufo puffed by every quill; Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song. His library (where busts of poets dead
And a true Pindar stood without a head) Received of wits an undistinguished race, Who first his judgment asked, and then a place: Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat, And flattered every day, and some days eat: Till grown more frugal in his riper days, He paid some bards with port, and some with praise; To some a dry rehearsal was assigned,
And others (harder still) he paid in kind. Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh, Dryden alone escaped this judging eye:
But still the great have kindness in reserve, He helped to bury whom he helped to starve. May some choice patron bless each grey goose quill! May every Bavius have his Bufo still!
So, when a statesman wants a day’s defence, Or envy holds a whole week’s war with sense, Or simple pride for flattery makes demands, May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands! Blessed be the great! for those they take away, And those they left me; for they left me gay; Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb: Of all thy blameless life the soul return My verse, and Queensbury weeping o’er thy urn! Oh let me live my own, and die so too!
(To live and die is all I have to do:) Maintain a poet’s dignity and ease,
And see what friends, and read what books I please; Above a patron, though I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my friend. I was not born for courts or great affairs; I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; Can sleep without a poem in my head;
Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. Why am I asked what next shall see the light? Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me! or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? “I found him close with Swift.”–‘Indeed? no doubt,’ (Cries prating Balbus) ‘something will come out.’ ‘Tis all in vain, deny it as I will.
‘No, such a genius never can lie still;’ And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The first lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes. Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile When every coxcomb knows me by my style? Cursed be the verse, how well soe’er it flow That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmless neighbour’s peace, Insults fallen 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, injured, 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, And sees at Canons what was never there; 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 babbling blockheads in his stead. 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; 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,
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, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between that and this, ) Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, ) And he himself one vile antithesis. ) Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve’s tempter thus the rabbins have expressed, 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 fortunes 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 pleased, he pleased by manly ways: That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same. That not in fancy’s maze he wandered long: But stooped to truth, and moralised 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; Laughed 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 revived, the lie so oft o’erthrown, The imputed trash, and dulness not his own; The morals blackened when the writings scape, The libelled person, and the pictured shape; Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread, A friend in exile, or a father, dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near, Perhaps, yet vibrates, on his sovereign’s ear:– Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past; For thee, fair virtue! welcome even the last! A. But why insult the poor, affront the great? P. A knave’s a knave, to me in every 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,
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 satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress: So humble, he has knocked at Tibbald’s door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhymed for Moore. Full ten years slandered, did he once reply? Three thousand sons went down on Welsted’s lie. To please a mistress one aspersed his life; He lashed him not, but let her be his wife. Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill, And write whate’er he pleased, 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: That harmless mother thought no wife a w***e: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! 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 walked innoxious through his age. Nor courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearned he knew no schoolman’s subtle art, No language, but the language of the heart. By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance, and by exercise; His life, though long, to sickness past unknown, His death was instant, and without a groan. O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I. O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine! Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother’s breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep a while one parent from the sky! On cares like these if length of days attend, May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend, Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene, And just as rich as when he served a queen. A. Whether that blessing be denied or given, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State, neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

UNI AEQUUS VIRTUTI ATQUE EJUS AMICIS. P.

THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

SATIRE I.

TO MR. FORTESCUE.

P. There are (I scarce can think it, but am told), There are, to whom my satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough, And something said of Chartres much too rough. The lines are weak another’s pleased to say, Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe, I come to counsel learned in the law:
You’ll give me, like a friend both sage and free, Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.
F. I’d write no more. P. Not write? but then I think, And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.
I nod in company, I wake at night,
Fools rush into my head, and so I write. F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Why, if the nights seem tedious–take a wife: Or rather truly, if your point be rest,
Lettuce and cowslip wine: Probatum est. But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes. Or, if you needs must write, write Caesar’s praise, You’ll gain at least a knighthood, or the bays. P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse, Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder, With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder? Or nobly wild, with Budgel’s fire and force, Paint angels trembling round his falling horse? F. Then all your muse’s softer art display, Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay,
Lull with Amelia’s liquid name the nine, And sweetly flow through all the royal line. P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; They scarce can bear their laureate twice a year; And justly Caesar scorns the poet’s lays: It is to history he trusts for praise.
F. Better be Cibber, I’ll maintain it still, Than ridicule all taste, blaspheme quadrille, Abuse the city’s best good men in metre, And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter. Even those you touch not, hate you. P. What should ail ’em? F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam: The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.
P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his ham-pie; Ridotta sips and dances, till she see
The doubling lustres dance as fast as she; F—- loves the senate, Hockley-hole his brother, Like in all else, as one egg to another. I love to pour out all myself, as plain
As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne: In them, as certain to be loved as seen, The soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within; In me what spots (for spots I have) appear, Will prove at least the medium must be clear. In this impartial glass, my muse intends Fair to expose myself, my foes, my friends; Publish the present age; but where my text Is vice too high, reserve it for the next: My foes shall wish my life a longer date, And every friend the less lament my fate. My head and heart thus flowing through my quill, Verse-man or prose-man, term me which you will, Papist or Protestant, or both between,
Like good Erasmus in an honest mean, In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory. Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet;
I only wear it in a land of Hectors, Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors. Save but our army! and let Jove encrust
Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust! Peace is my dear delight–not Fleury’s more: But touch me, and no minister so sore.
Whoe’er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song. Slander or poison dread from Delia’s rage Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page. From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate, Plagued by her love, or libelled by her hate. Its proper power to hurt, each creature feels; Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels; ‘Tis a bear’s talent not to kick, but hug; And no man wonders he’s not stung by pug. So drink with Walters, or with Chartres eat, They’ll never poison you, they’ll only cheat. Then, learned sir! (to cut the matter short) Whate’er my fate, or well or ill at Court, Whether old age, with faint but cheerful ray, Attends to gild the evening of my day,
Or death’s black wing already be displayed, To wrap me in the universal shade;
Whether the darkened room to muse invite, Or whitened wall provoke the skewer to write: In durance, exile, Bedlam or the Mint–
Like Lee or Budgel, I will rhyme and print. F. Alas, young man! your days can ne’er be long, In flower of age you perish for a song!
Plums and directors, Shylock and his wife, Will club their testers, now, to take your life! P. What? armed for virtue when I point the pen, Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men; Dash the proud gamester in his gilded car; Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star; Can there be wanting, to defend her cause, Lights of the Church, or guardians of the laws? Could pensioned Boileau lash in honest strain Flatterers and bigots even in Louis’ reign? Could Laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage, Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage? And I not strip the gilding off a knave, Unplaced, unpensioned, no man’s heir, or slave? I will, or perish in the generous cause: Hear this, and tremble! you, who ‘scape the laws. Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave Shall walk the world, in credit, to his grave. To Virtue only and her friends a friend, The world beside may murmur, or commend. Know, all the distant din that world can keep Rolls o’er my grotto, and but soothes my sleep. There, my retreat the best companions grace, Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place. There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul: And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. Envy must own, I live among the great,
No pimp of pleasure, and no spy of state. With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne’er repeats, Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats; To help who want, to forward who excel;
This, all who know me, know; who love me, tell; And who unknown defame me, let them be
Scribblers or peers, alike are mob to me. This is my plea, on this I rest my cause– What saith my counsel, learned in the laws? F. Your plea is good; but still I say, beware! Laws are explained by men–so have a care. It stands on record, that in Richard’s times A man was hanged for very honest rhymes. Consult the Statute: quart. I think it is, Edwardi sext. or prim. et quint. Eliz.
See libels, satires–here you have it–read. P. Libels and satires! lawless things indeed! But grave epistles, bringing vice to light, Such as a king might read, a bishop write; Such as Sir Robert would approve– F. Indeed? The case is altered–you may then proceed; In such a cause the plaintiff would be hissed; My lords the judges laugh, and you’re dismissed.

THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

SATIRE II.

TO MR. BETHEL.

What, and how great, the virtue and the art To live on little with a cheerful heart
(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine), Let’s talk, my friends, but talk before we dine. Not when a gilt buffet’s reflected pride Turns you from sound philosophy aside;
Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll, And the brain dances to the mantling bowl. Hear Bethel’s sermon, one not versed in schools, But strong in sense, and wise without the rules. Go work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began) Then scorn a homely dinner, if you can.
Your wine locked up, your butler strolled abroad, Or fish denied (the river yet unthawed), If then plain bread and milk will do the feat, The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat. Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men Will choose a pheasant still before a hen; Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold,
Except you eat the feathers green and gold. Of carps and mullets why prefer the great (Though cut in pieces ere my lord can eat), Yet for small turbots such esteem profess? Because God made these large, the other less. Oldfield with more than harpy throat endued, Cries “Send me, gods! a whole hog barbecued! Oh, b—- it, south-winds! till a stench exhale Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit’s tail. By what criterion do ye eat, d’ye think, If this is prized for sweetness, that for stink?” When the tired glutton labours through a treat, He finds no relish in the sweetest meat, He calls for something bitter, something sour, And the rich feast concludes extremely poor: Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we see; Thus much is left of old simplicity!
The robin-redbreast till of late had rest, And children sacred held a martin’s nest, Till becca-ficos sold so devilish dear
To one that was, or would have been a peer. Let me extol a cat, on oysters fed,
I’ll have a party at the Bedford-head; Or even to crack live crawfish recommend; I’d never doubt at Court to make a friend. ‘Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother About one vice, and fall into the other: Between excess and famine lies a mean;
Plain, but not sordid; though not splendid, clean. Avidien, or his wife (no matter which,
For him you’ll call a dog, and her a bitch) Sell their presented partridges, and fruits, And humbly live on rabbits and on roots: One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine, And is at once their vinegar and wine.
But on some lucky day (as when they found A lost bank-bill, or heard their son was drowned) At such a feast, old vinegar to spare,
Is what two souls so generous cannot bear: Oil, though it stink, they drop by drop impart, But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart. He knows to live, who keeps the middle state, And neither leans on this side, nor on that; Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler’s pay, Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away; Nor lets, like Naevius, every error pass, The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass. Now hear what blessings temperance can bring: (Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing,) First health: The stomach (crammed from every dish, A tomb of boiled and roast, and flesh and fish, Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar, And all the man is one intestine war)
Remembers oft the schoolboy’s simple fare, The temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air. How pale, each worshipful and reverend guest Rise from a clergy, or a city feast!
What life in all that ample body, say? What heavenly particle inspires the clay? The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines To seem but mortal, even in sound divines. On morning wings how active springs the mind That leaves the load of yesterday behind! How easy every labour it pursues!
How coming to the poet every muse!
Not but we may exceed, some holy time, Or tired in search of truth, or search of rhyme; Ill health some just indulgence may engage, And more the sickness of long life, old age; For fainting age what cordial drop remains, If our intemperate youth the vessel drains? Our fathers praised rank venison. You suppose, Perhaps, young men! our fathers had no nose. Not so: a buck was then a week’s repast, And ’twas their point, I ween, to make it last; More pleased to keep it till their friends could come, Than eat the sweetest by themselves at home. Why had not I in those good times my birth, Ere coxcomb pies or coxcombs were on earth? Unworthy he, the voice of fame to hear, That sweetest music to an honest ear;
(For ‘faith, Lord Fanny! you are in the wrong The world’s good word is better than a song) Who has not learned fresh sturgeon and ham-pie Are no rewards for want, and infamy?
When luxury has licked up all thy pelf, Cursed by thy neighbours, thy trustees, thyself, To friends, to fortune, to mankind a shame, Think how posterity will treat thy name; And buy a rope, that future times may tell, Thou hast at least bestowed one penny well. “Right,” cries his lordship, “for a rogue in need To have a taste is insolence indeed:
In me ’tis noble, suits my birth and state, My wealth unwieldy, and my heap too great.” Then, like the sun, let bounty spread her ray, And shine that superfluity away.
Oh, impudence of wealth! with all thy store, How dar’st thou let one worthy man be poor? Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall? Make quays, build bridges, or repair Whitehall: Or to thy country let that heap be lent, As M**o’s was, but not at five per cent. Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her mind, Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind. And who stands safest? tell me, is it he That spreads and swells in puffed posterity, Or blest with little, whose preventing care In peace provides fit arms against a war? Thus Bethel spoke, who always speaks his thought, And always thinks the very thing he ought: His equal mind I copy what I can,
And, as I love, would imitate the man. In South-Sea days not happier, when surmised The lord of thousands, than if now excised; In forest planted by a father’s hand,
Than in five acres now of rented land. Content with little, I can p—-e here
On broccoli and mutton, round the year; But ancient friends (though poor, or out of play) That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
‘Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords: To Hounslow Heath I point and Banstead Down, Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own: From yon old walnut-tree a shower shall fall; And grapes, long lingering on my only wall, And figs from standard and espalier join; The devil is in you if you cannot dine:
Then cheerful healths (your mistress shall have place), And, what’s more rare, a poet shall say grace. Fortune not much of humbling me can boast; Though double taxed, how little have I lost? My life’s amusements have been just the same, Before, and after, standing armies came. My lands are sold, my father’s house is gone; I’ll hire another’s; is not that my own, And yours, my friends? through whose free-opening gate None comes too early, none departs too late; (For I, who hold sage Homer’s rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest). “Pray Heaven it last!” (cries Swift!) “as you go on; I wish to God this house had been your own: Pity! to build without a son or wife:
Why, you’ll enjoy it only all your life.” Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one, Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon? What’s property? dear Swift! you see it alter From you to me, from me to Peter Walter; Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer’s share; Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir; Or in pure equity (the case not clear)
The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year: At best, it falls to some ungracious son, Who cries, “My father’s damned, and all’s my own.” Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford, Become the portion of a booby lord;
And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham’s delight, Slides to a scrivener or a city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will, Let us be fixed, and our own masters still.

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.