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,
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like Law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from goals to execution go;
For hung with deadly sins I see the wall,
And lin❜d with giants deadlier than all :
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.
He meant to cry; and tho' 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 goals to execution go;
Go thro' the great chamber, (why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?) being among
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 and flagons of wine,
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.
I shook like a spy'd spy. Preachers! which are
Seas of wit and arts, you can, then dare
Drown the sins of this place; for, for me,
Which am but a scant brook, it enough shall be
To wash the stains away. Altho' I yet
(With Machabee modesty) the known merit
Of my work lessen, yet some wise man shall,
I hope, esteem my writs canonical,
[Written in the Year 1738.]
F. Not 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 feelWhy 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 buss'ness, 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.
VOL. II.
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 screen.
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
The great man never offer'd you a groat.
Go, see Sir Robert-
P. See Sir Robert! hum
And never laugh—for all my life to come?
See him I have; but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchang'd for pow'r;
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 free;
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 passion still,
And wear their strange old virtue as they will.
|