But here's the captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries-arm! whose very look's an oath
The captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough,
Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
Like batt'ring-rams, beats open ev'ry door; 265
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hang-dogs in old tapestry,
Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe, 270
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like Law.
Frighted I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from gaols to execution go:
For hung with deadly sins I see the wall,
And lin❜d with giants deadlier than 'em all: 275
But here comes Glorious, that will plague them both,
Who, in the other extreme, only doth
Call a rough carelessness, good fashion;
Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him; he rushes in, as if-arm, arm!
He meant to cry; and though his face be as ill
As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe;
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like Law.
Tir'd now, I leave this place, and but pleas'd so
As men from gaols to execution go,
Go through the great chamber, (why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins ?) being among
Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss
For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.
Scar'd at the grisly forms, I sweat, I fly,
And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.
Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine: Charge them with Heav'n's artill'ry, bold divine! From such alone, the great rebukes endure, Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure : 'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears. Howe'er, what's now apocrypha, my wit, In time to come, may pass for holy writ.
Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw
Charing-cross for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth, but Queen's man, and fine
Living; barrels of beef, flaggons of wine.
I shook like a spied spy. Preachers! which are
Seas of wit and arts, you can, then dare,
Drown the sins of this place; but as for me,
Which am but a scant brook, enough shall be
To wash the stains away. Although I yet
(With Maccabee's modesty) the known merit
Of my work lessen, yet some wise men shall,
I hope, esteem my writs canonical.
[Written in the year 1738.]
F. Nor twice a twelvemonth you appear in print, And when it comes, the court see nothing in't. You grow correct, that once with rapture writ, And are, besides, too moral for a wit.
Decay of parts, alas ! we all must feel-
Why now,
this moment, don't I see you steal ?
'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;'
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.' 10
But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice,
Bubo observes-he lash'd no sort of vice.
Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the Crown,
Blunt could do business, Higgins knew the Town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
In rev'rend bishops note some small neglects,
And own the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
Who cropt our ears, and sent them to the King.
His sly, polite, insinuating style
Could please at Court, and make Augustus smile: An artful manager, that crept between
His friend and shame, and was a kind of screens
But, 'faith, your very friends will soon be sore; Patriots there are who wish you'd jest no more And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought 25 The great men never offer'd you a groat.
Go see Sir Robert
P. See Sir Robert !-hum
And never laugh for all my life to come?
Seen him I have; but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchang'd for power;
Seen him, uncumber'd with a venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only diff'rence is-I dare laugh out.
F. Why, yes: with Scripture still you may be
A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty ;
A joke on Jekyll, or some odd old Whig,
Who never chang'd his principle or wig.
A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age,
Whom all lord chamberlains allow the stage: These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still, And wear their strange old virtue as they will.
If any ask you, Who's the man so near
His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear ?' ¡ Why answer, Lyttleton, and I'll engage The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage; But were his verses vile, his whisper base, You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case. 50
Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury,
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more. 56
To vice and folly to confine the jest
Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest,
Did not the sneer of more impartial men
At sense and virtue, balance all agen.
Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.
P. Dear Sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:
Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth!
Come, harmless characters that no one hit;
Come, Henley's oratory, Osborne's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,
The flow'rs of Bubo, and the flow of Young!
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipt cream of courtly sense! 70
The first was H-vy's, F-'s next, and then
The Ste's, and then H-vy's once agen,
O come' that easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,
As, though the pride of Middleton and Bland, 75
All boys may read, and girls may understand !
Then might I sing without the least offence,
And all I sung should be the nation's sense;
Or teach the melancholy Muse to mourn,
Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn,
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