Such writers have we! all, but fenfe, they print;
Ev'n GEORGE's praise is dated from the Mint.
In arms contemptible, in arts profane,
Such fwords, fuch pens, difgrace a monarch's reign.
Reform your lives before you thus afpire,
And steal (for you can steal) celestial fire.
O! the juft contraft! O the beauteous ftrife!
"Twixt their cool writings, and pindaric life:
They write with phlegm, but then they live with fire;
They cheat the lender, and their works the buyer.
I reverence misfortune, not deride;
I pity poverty, but laugh at pride:
For who fo fad, but must some mirth confefs
gay CASTRUCHIO's miscellaneous dress? Though there's but one of the dull works he wrote, There's ten editions of his old lac'd coat.
These, nature's commoners, who want a home,
Claim the wide world for their majestic dome;
They make a private ftudy of the street;
And looking full on every man they meet,
Run fouse against his chaps; who stands amaz'd
To find they did not fee, but only gaz'd.
How must these bards be rapt into the skies!
You need not read, you feel their ecftafies.
Will they perfift? "Tis madness; Lintot, run,
See them confin'd- "O that's already done."
Moft, as by leafes, by the works they print,
Have took, for life, poffeffion of the Mint.
If you mistake, and pity these poor men,
Eft Ulubris, they cry, and write again.
Such wits their nuifance manfully expofe,
And then pronounce juft judges learning's foes;
O frail conclufion; the reverse is true;
If foes to learning, they'd be friends to you:
Treat them, ye judges! with an honeft fcorn,
And weed the cockle from the generous corn:
There's true good-nature in your disrespect;
In juftice to the good, the bad neglect:
For immortality, if hardships plead,
It is not theirs who write, but ours who read.
But, O! what wisdom can convince a fool,
But that 'tis dulnefs to conceive him dull ?
"Tis fad experience takes the cenfor's part,
Conviction, not from reason, but from fmart.
A virgin-author, recent from the prefs,
The sheets yet wet, applauds his great
fuccefs;
Surveys them, reads them, takes their charms to bed, 'Thofe in his hand, and glory in his head;
"Tis joy too great; a fever of delight!
His heart beats thick, nor close his eyes all night:
But rifing the next morn to clasp his fame,
He finds that without fleeping he could dream:
So fparks, they say, take goddesses to bed,
And find next day the devil in their stead.
In vain advertisements the town o'erspread;
They're epitaphs, and fay the work is dead.
Who press for fame, but small recruits will raife;
'Tis volunteers alone can give the bays.
A famous author visits a great man,
Of his immortal work displays the plan,
And fays, "Sir, I'm your friend; all fears difmifs; "Your glory, and my own, shall live by this; "Your pow'r is fixt, your fame thro' time convey'd, "And Britain Europe's Queen-if I am paid.”
A Statesman has his answer in a trice; "Sir, fuch a genius is beyond all price; "What man can pay for this?"-Away he turns ; His work is folded, and his bofom burns:
His patron he will patronize no more;
But rushes like a tempeft out of door.
Loft is the patriot, and extinct his name!
Out comes the piece, another, and the fame;
For A, his magic pen evokes an O,
And turns the tide of Europe on the foe:
He rams his quill with scandal, and with scoff;
But 'tis fo very foul, it won't go off:
Dreadful his thunders, while unprinted, roar;
But when once publish'd, they are heard no more.
Thus diftant bugbears fright, but, nearer draw,
The block's a block, and turns to mirth your awe.
Can those oblige, whose heads and hearts are fuch?
No; every party's tainted by their touch.
Infected perfons fly each public place;
And none, or enemies alone, embrace :
To the foul fiend their every paffion's fold:
They love, and hate, extempore, for gold:
What image of their fury can we form?
Dulness and rage, a puddle in a storm.
Reft they in peace? If you are pleas'd to buy,
To fwell your fails, like Lapland winds, they fly:
Write they with rage? The tempeft quickly flags;
A State-Ulyffes tames 'em with his bags;
Let him be what he will, Turk, Pagan, Jew:
For Chriftian ministers of state are few.
Behind the curtain lurks the fountain head,
That pours his politics through pipes of lead,
Which far and near ejaculate, and spout
O'er tea and coffee, poison to the rout:
But when they have befpatter'd all they may,
The statesman throws his filthy fquirts away!
With golden forceps, thefe, another takes,
And ftate elixirs of the vipers makes.
The richest statesman wants wherewith to pay
A fervile fycophant, if well they weigh
How much it cofts the wretch to be fo base;
Nor can the greateft pow'rs enough difgrace,
Enough chaftife, fuch proftitute applause,
If well they weigh how much it stains their cause.
But are our writers ever in the wrong ?
Does virtue ne'er feduce the venal tongue ?
Yes; if well-brib'd, for virtue self they fight;
Still in the wrong, tho' champions for the right:
Whoe'er their crimes for intereft only quit,
Sin on in virtue, and good deeds commit.
Nought but inconftancy Britannia meets,
And broken faith in their abandon'd sheets;
From the fame hand how various is the page!
What civil war their brother pamphlets wage
Tracts battle tracts, self-contradictions glare;
Say, is this lunacy ?—I wish it were.
If such our writers, startled at the fight,
Felons may bless their stars they cannot write!
How justly PROTEUS' tranfmigrations fit
The monstrous changes of a modern wit ?
Now, fuch a gentle ftream of eloquence
As feldom rifes to the verge of sense;
Now, by mad rage, transform'd into a flame,
Which yet fit engines, well apply'd, can tamě;
Now, on immodeft trash, the wine obscene,
Invites the town to fup at Drury-lane ;
A dreadful lion, now he roars at pow'r,
Which fends him to his brothers at the Tow'r ;
He's now a ferpent, and his double tongue
Salutes, nay licks, the feet of those he ftung;
What knot can bind him, his evafion fuch?
One knot he well deferves, which might do much.
The flood, flame, fwine, the lion, and the fnake, Those fivefold monsters, modern authors make :
The Snake reigns moft; Snakes, PLINY fays, are bred,
When the brain's perish'd in a human head.
Ye grov❜ling, trodden, whipt, ftript, turncoat things,
Made up of venom, volumes, ftains, and stings!
Thrown from the Tree of Knowledge, like you, curft
To fcribble in the duft, was Snake the first.
What if the figure should in fact prove true!
It did in EL.KENAH, why not in you ?
Poor ELKENAH, all other changes paft,
For bread in Smithfield dragons hist at last,
Spit ftreams of fire to make the butchers gape,
And found his manners suited to his shape:
Such is the fate of talents mifapply'd;
So liv'd your Prototype; and fo he dy❜d.
Th' abandon'd manners of our writing train
May tempt mankind to think religion vain;
But in their fate, their habit, and their mien,
That gods there are is eminently feen:
Heav'n ftands abfolv'd by vengeance on their pen,
And marks the murderers of fame from men :
Through meagre jaws they draw their venal breath,
As ghaftly as their brothers in Macbeth:
Their feet through faithless leather meet the dirt,
And oftner chang'd their principles than fhirt.
The tranfient vestments of these frugal men,
Haftens to paper for our mirth again:
Too foon (O merry-melancholy fate!)
They beg in rhyme, and warble through a grate :
The man lampoon'd forgets it at the fight;
The friend through pity gives, the foe through fpite;
And though full confcious of his injur'd purse,
LINTOT relents, nor CURLL can wish them worse.
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