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, laftly, that the retains a dutiful admiration of her father's family; but divides her favours, and geperally lives with her mother's relations.
However, this is not neceffity, but choice: Were wifdom her governess, the might have much more of the father than the mother; efpecially in fuch an age as this, which fhews a due paffion for her charms.
Y verfe is Satire; DORSET, lend your ear,
And patronize a mufe you cannot fear.
To poets facred is a DORSET's name ;
Their wonted paffport 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 mifirefs we purfue;
Others are fond of Fame, but Fame of you.
Inftructive Satire, true to virtue's cause!
Thou fhining Supplement of public laws!
E 4
When fatter'd crimes of a licentious age
Reproach our filence, and demand our rage;
When purchas'd follies, from each diftant 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 and Ethiop white,
each fenfelefs wretch for nature's boast,
On whom praise fhines, as trophies on a post?
Shall fun'ral eloquence her colours fpread,
And scatter rofes on the wealthy dead?
Shall authors fmile on fuch illuftrious days,
And fatirife with nothing-but their praise?
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 fmiling at the goal, while others run,
He will not write; and (more provoking ftill!)
Ye Gods! he will not write, and Mævius will.
Doubly diftreft, what author fhall we find
Difcretely daring, and feverely kind,
The courtly* Roman's fhining path to tread,
And sharply smile prevailing folly dead ?
Will no fuperior genius fnatch the quill,
And save me, on the brink, from writing ill?
Tho' vain the ftrife, I'll ftrive my voice to raise.
What will not men attempt for facred praise?
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 fure.
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 S- —e's humour makes a bold pretence;
There, bolder, aims at Py`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 fleer,
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 wifhful 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.
If at his title Thad dropt his quill,
T- might have paft for a great genius ftill.
But Talas! (excufe him, if you can)
Is now a fcribbler, who was once a man.
Imperious fome a claffic fame demand,
For heaping up, with a laborious hand,
A waggon-load of meanings for one word,
While A's depos'd, and B with pomp reflor'd.
Some, for renown, on fcraps of learning doat,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
To patch-work learn'd quotations are ally'd;
Both strive to make our poverty our pride.
On glafs how witty is a noble peer?
Did ever diamond cost a man fo dear?
Polite difeafes make fome ideots vain;
Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.
Of folly, vice, difeafe, men proud we fee; And (ftranger ftill!) of blockheads' flattery; Whose praise defames; as if a fool should mean, By fpitting on your face, to make it clean.
|