How hard for real worth to gain its price!
A man shall make his fortune in a trice,
If bleft with pliant, tho' but slender, sense,
Feign'd modefty, and real impudence:

A fupple knee, fmooth tongue, an eafy grace,
A curfe within, a smile upon his face;
A beauteous fifter, or convenient wife,
Are prizes in the lottery of life;

Genius and virtue they will foon defeat,
And lodge you in the bosom of the great.
To merit, is but to provide a pain

For men's refufing what you ought to gain.

May, DODINGTON, this maxim fail in you,
Whom my prefaging thoughts already view
By WALPOLE'S conduct fir'd, and friendship grac'd,
Still higher in your Prince's favour plac'd;
And lending, here, those awful councils aid,
Which you, abroad, with fuch fuccefs obey'd:

Bear this from one, who holds your friendship dear;
What most we wish, with ease we fancy near.

SATIRE

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

IV.

SIR SPENCER COMPTON.

R

OUND fome fair tree th' ambitious Woodbine

grows,

And breathes her sweets on the supporting boughs;

So fweet the verse, th' ambitious verse, should be,

(O! pardon mine) that hopes fupport from thee;
Thee, COMPTON, born o'er fenates to prefide,
Their dignity to raife, their councils guide;
Deep to difcern, and widely to furvey,
And kingdoms fates, without ambition, weigh;
Of diftant virtues nice extremes to blend,
The Crown's afferter, and the People's friend:
Nor doft thou scorn, amid sublimer views,
To listen to the labours of the muse;
Thy fmiles protect her, while thy talents fire,
And 'tis but half thy glory to infpire.
Vex'd at a public fame, fo juftly won,

The jealous CHREMES is with fpleen undone ;

CHREMES,

CHREMES, for airy penfions of renown,

Devotes his fervice to the State and Crown;

All schemes he knows, and, knowing, all improves,
Tho' Britain's thankless, ftill this patriot loves :
But patriots differ; fome may shed their blood,
He drinks his coffee, for the public good;
Confults the facred fteam, and there foresees
What ftorms, or fun-fhine, Providence decrees;
Knows, for each day, the weather of our fate;
A quid nunc is an almanack of State.

You fmile, and think this ftatesman void of use:
Why may not time his fecret worth produce?
Since apes can roaft the choice Caftanian Nut,
Since feeds of genius are expert at Put ;
Since half the Senate Not content can say,
Geese nations fave, and puppies plots betray.

What makes him model realms, and counsel kings?
An incapacity for smaller things:

Poor CHREMES can't conduct his own eftate,

And thence has undertaken Europe's fate.

GEHEN NO leaves the realm to CHREMES' fkill,

And boldly claims a province higher still:
To raise a name, th' ambitious boy has got,
At once, a Bible, and a shoulder-knot;
Deep in the secret, he looks thro' the whole,
And pities the dull rogue that faves his foul;
To talk with rev'rence you must take good heed,
Nor fhock his tender reason with the Creed:
Howe'er well bred, in public he complies,
Obliging friends alone with blafphemies.
Peerage is poifon, good eftates are bad
For this disease; poor rogues run seldom mad.
Have not attainders brought unhop'd relief,
And falling frocks quite cur'd an unbelief?

H 4

While

While the fun fhines, BLUNT talks with wondrous force;

But thunder mars small beer, and weak difcourfe.
Such useful inftruments the weather show,
Just as their Mercury is high or low:
Health chiefly keeps an Atheist in the dark;
A fever argues better than a Clarke:
Let but the logick in his pulse decay,
The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray;
While C mourns, with an unfeigned zeal,
Th' apoftate youth, who reafon'd once fo well.
C――, who makes fo merry with the Creed,
He almost thinks he disbelieves indeed;
But only thinks fo; to give both their due,
Satan, and he, believe, and tremble too..
Of fome for glory fuch the boundless rage,
That they're the blackest scandal of their age.
NARCISSUS the Tartarian club disclaims;
Nay, a Free-mafon, with fome terror, names;
Omits no duty; nor can envy say,

He miss'd, these many years, the Church, or Play :
He makes no noise in Parliament, 'tis true;

But

pays his debts, and visit, when 'tis due;

His character and gloves are ever clean,
And then, he can out-bow the bowing dean;
A fmile eternal on his lip he wears,
Which equally the wife and worthless shares.
In gay fatigues, this most undaunted chief,
Patient of idleness beyond belief,
Moft charitably lends the town his face,
For ornament, in ev'ry public place;
As fure as cards, he to th' affembly comes,
And is the furniture of drawing-rooms:
When Ombre calls, his hand and heart are free,
And, join'd to two, he fails not-to make three :

NARCISSUS

NARCISSUS is the glory of his race;
For who does nothing with a better grace ?
To deck my lift, by nature were defign'd
Such fhining expletives of human kind,

Who want, while thro' blank life they dream along,
Senfe to be right, and paffion to be wrong.

To counterpoife this hero of the mode,
Some for renown are fingular and odd ;
What other men diflike, is fure to please,
Of all mankind, these dear antipodes;

Thro' pride, not malice, they run counter still,
And birth-days are their days of dreffing ill.
ARET is a fool, and F

S-LY will fright you, E—

a fage,

engage;

By nature streams run backward, flame descends,
Stones mount, and S--x is the worst of friends;
They take their reft by day, and wake by night,
And blush, if you furprize them in the right;
If they by chance blurt out, ere well aware,
A fwan is white, or Q——y is fair.

Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt,
A fool in fashion, but a fool that's out,
His paffion for abfurdity's fo ftrong,
He cannot bear a rival in the wrong;
Tho' wrong the mode, comply; more fenfe is fhewn
In wearing others' follies, than your own.
If what is out of fashion moft you prize,
Methinks you fhould endeavour to be wise.
But what in oddnefs can be more fublime
Than S——, the foremost toyman of his time ?
His nice ambition lies in curious fancies,
His daughter's portion a rich hell inhances,
And ASH MOLE's baby-house, is, in his view,
Britannia's golden mine, a rich Peru!

How