the queak, in fome Baotia, which was the land of oracles; for the wife will hold them in contempt. Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities; but not with equal fuccefs: For though ambiguities are the firft excellence of an impoftor, they are the last of a wit.

Some fatirical wits and humourifts, like their father Lucian, laugh at every thing indifcriminately; which betrays fuch a poverty of wit, as cannot afford to part with any thing; and such a want of virtue, as to postpone it to a jeft. Such writers encourage vice and folly, which they pretend to combat, by setting them on an equal foot with better things: And while they labour to bring every thing into contempt, how can they expect their own parts should escape? Some French writers particularly, are guilty of this in matters of the last confequence; and some of our own. They that are for leffening the true dignity of mankind, are not sure of being fuccessful, but with regard to one individual in it. It is this conduct that justly makes a Wit a term of reproach.

Which puts me in mind of Plato's fable of the birth of Love; one of the prettieft fables of all antiquity; which will hold likewife with regard to modern Poetry. Love, fays he, is the fon of the goddess Poverty, and the god of Riches: He has from his father his daring genius; his elevation of thought;

his building caftles in the air; his prodigality; his neglect of things ferious and useful; his vain opinion of his own merit; and his affectation of preference and diftinction: From his mother he inherits his indigence, which makes him a conftant beggar of favours; that importunity with which he begs; his flattery; his fervility; his fear of being despised, which is infeparable from him. This addition may be made; viz. That Poetry, like Love, is a little fubject to blindness, which makes her mistake her way to preferments and honours; that fhe has her fatirical quiver; and, lastly, that she retains a dutiful admiration of her father's family; but divides her favours, and generally lives with her mother's relations.

However, this is not neceffity, but choice: Were Wisdom her governess, she might have much more of the father than the mother; especially in fuch an age as this, which fhews a due paffion for her charms.

M

Y verfe is Satire; DORSET, lend your ear,
And patronize a muse you cannot fear.

To poets facred is a DORSET's name :

Their wonted passport through the gates of fame:
It bribes the partial reader into praise,

And throws a glory round the shelter'd lays:
The dazzled judgment fewer faults can fee,
And gives applaufe to Be, or to me.
But you decline the mistress we pursue;
Others are fond of Fame, but Fame of you.
Inftructive Satire, true to virtue's cause!
Thou fhining Supplement of public laws !
When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age
Reproach our filence, and demand our rage;

When

When purchas'd follies, from each distant land,
Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand;
When the Law fhews her teeth, but dares not bite,
And South-fea treasures are not brought to light;
When Churchmen Scripture for the Claffics quit,
Polite apoftates from God's Grace to Wit;
When men grow great from their revenue spent,
And fly from bailiffs into parliament;

When dying finners, to blot out their score,
Bequeath the church the leavings of a whore;
To chafe our fpleen, when themes like these increase,
Shall Panegyric reign, and Cenfure cease?

Shall Poefy, like Law, turn wrong to right,
And dedications wash an Æthiop white,
Set up each senseless wretch for nature's boast,
On whom praise fhines, as trophies on a post?
Shall fun'ral eloquence her colours spread,
And scatter roses on the wealthy dead?
Shall authors fmile on such illuftrious days,
And fatirife with nothing-but their praife?

Why flumbers POPE, who leads the tuneful train, Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain? DONNE, DORSET, DRYDEN, ROCHESTER, are dead, And guilt's chief foe, in ADDISON, is fled; CONGREVE, who, crown'd with laurels, fairly won, Sits smiling at the goal, while others run,

He will not write; and (more provoking still!)
Ye gods! he will not write, and MAVIUS will,
Doubly distrest, what author fhall we find
Discreetly daring, and feverely kind,
The courtly Roman's fhining path to tread,
And sharply Smile prevailing folly dead?

*HORACE.

Will no fuperior genius fnatch the quill,
And save me, on the brink, from writing ill?
Tho' vain the ftrife, I'll strive my voice to raise,
What will not men attempt for facred praife?

The Love of Praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns, more or lefs, and glows, in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modeft fhun it, but to make it sure.

O'er globes, and fceptres, now on thrones it fwells;
Now, trims the midnight lamp in college cells:
'Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, ́ pleads,
Harangues in Senates, fqueaks in Masquerades.
Here, to Se's humour makes a bold pretence;
There, bolder, aims at P-y's eloquence.

It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead;
Nor ends with life; but nods in fable plumes,
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs.

What is not proud? The pimp is proud to fee
So many like himself in high degree:

The whore is proud her beauties are the dread
Of peevish virtue, and the marriage-bed;
And the brib'd cuckold, like crown'd victims born
To flaughter, glories in his gilded horn.

Some go to church, proud humbly to repent, And come back much more guilty than they went: One way they look, another way they fteer, Pray to the gods, but would have mortals hear; And when their fins they fet fincerely down, They'll find that their religion has been one. Others with wishful eyes on glory look,

When they have got their picture tow'rds a book; Or pompous title, like a gaudy fign,

Meant to betray dull fots to wretched wine.