You know that the Lord Strutts have for many years been possessed of a very great landed estate, well-conditioned, wooded, watered, with coal, salt, tin, copper, iron, &c., all within themselves; that it has been the misfortune of that family to be the property of their stewards, tradesmen, and inferior servants, which has brought great incumbrances upon them; at the same time, their not abating of their expensive way of living has forced them to mortgage their best manors. It is credibly reported that the butcher's and baker's bill of a Lord Strutt that lived two hundred years ago are not yet paid.

When Philip Baboon came first to the possession of the Lord Strutt's estate, his tradesmen,[173] as is usual upon such occasion, waited upon him to wish him joy and bespeak his custom. The two chief were John Bull,[174] the clothier, and Nic. Frog,[175] the linen-draper. They told him that the Bulls and Frogs had served the Lord Strutts with drapery-ware for many years; that they were honest and fair dealers; that their bills had never been questioned, that the Lord Strutts lived generously, and never used to dirty their fingers with pen, ink, and counters; that his lordship might depend upon their honesty that they would use him as kindly as they had done his predecessors. The young lord seemed to take all in good part, and dismissed them with a deal of seeming content, assuring them he did not intend to change any of the honourable maxims of his predecessors.



How Bull and Frog grew jealous that the Lord Strutt intended to give all his custom to his grandfather, Lewis Baboon.

It happened unfortunately for the peace of our neighbourhood that this young lord had an old cunning rogue, or, as the Scots call it, a false loon of a grandfather, that one might justly call a Jack-of-all-Trades.[176] Sometimes you would see him behind his counter selling broadcloth, sometimes measuring linen; next day he would be dealing in mercery-ware. High heads, ribbons, gloves, fans, and lace he understood to a nicety. Charles Mather could not bubble a young beau better with a toy; nay, he would descend even to the selling of tape, garters, and shoe-buckles. When shop was shut up he would go about the neighbourhood and earn half-a-crown by teaching the young men and maids to dance. By these methods he had acquired immense riches, which he used to squander[177] away at back-sword, quarter-staff, and cudgel-play, in which he took great pleasure, and challenged all the country. You will say it is no wonder if Bull and Frog should be jealous of this fellow. "It is not impossible," says Frog to Bull, "but this old rogue will take the management of the young lord's business into his hands; besides, the rascal has good ware, and will serve him as cheap as anybody. In that case, I leave you to judge what must become of us and our families; we must starve, or turn journeyman to old Lewis Baboon. Therefore, neighbour, I hold it advisable that we write to young Lord Strutt to know the bottom of this matter."



A Copy of Bull and Frog's Letter to Lord Strutt.

My Lord,—I suppose your lordship knows that the Bulls and the Frogs have served the Lord Strutts with all sorts of drapery-ware time out of mind. And whereas we are jealous, not without reason, that your lordship intends henceforth to buy of your grandsire old Lewis Baboon, this is to inform your lordship that this proceeding does not suit with the circumstances of our families, who have lived and made a good figure in the world by the generosity of the Lord Strutts. Therefore we think fit to acquaint your lordship that you must find sufficient security to us, our heirs, and assigns that you will not employ Lewis Baboon, or else we will take our remedy at law, clap an action upon you of L20,000 for old debts, seize and distrain your goods and chattels, which, considering your lordship's circumstances, will plunge you into difficulties, from which it will not be easy to extricate yourself. Therefore we hope, when your lordship has better considered on it, you will comply with the desire of

Your loving friends,

JOHN BULL. NIC. FROG.

Some of Bull's friends advised him to take gentler methods with the young lord, but John naturally loved rough play. It is impossible to express the surprise of the Lord Strutt upon the receipt of this letter. He was not flush in ready money either to go to law or clear old debts, neither could he find good bail. He offered to bring matters to a friendly accommodation, and promised, upon his word of honour, that he would not change his drapers; but all to no purpose, for Bull and Frog saw clearly that old Lewis would have the cheating of him.



How Bull and Frog went to law with Lord Strutt about the premises, and were joined by the rest of the tradesmen.

All endeavours of accommodation between Lord Strutt and his drapers proved vain. Jealousies increased, and, indeed, it was rumoured abroad that Lord Strutt had bespoke his new liveries of old Lewis Baboon. This coming to Mrs. Bull's ears, when John Bull came home, he found all his family in an uproar. Mrs. Bull, you must know, was very apt to be choleric. "You sot," says she, "you loiter about ale-houses and taverns, spend your time at billiards, ninepins, or puppet-shows, or flaunt about the streets in your new gilt chariot, never minding me nor your numerous family. Don't you hear how Lord Strutt has bespoke his liveries at Lewis Baboon's shop? Don't you see how that old fox steals away your customers, and turns you out of your business every day, and you sit like an idle drone, with your hands in your pockets? Fie upon it. Up, man, rouse thyself; I'll sell to my shift before I'll be so used by that knave."[178] You must think Mrs. Bull had been pretty well tuned up by Frog, who chimed in with her learned harangue. No further delay now, but to counsel learned in the law they go, who unanimously assured them both of justice and infallible success of their lawsuit.

I told you before that old Lewis Baboon was a sort of a Jack-of-all-trades, which made the rest of the tradesmen jealous, as well as Bull and Frog; they, hearing of the quarrel, were glad of an opportunity of joining against old Lewis Baboon, provided that Bull and Frog would bear the charges of the suit. Even lying Ned, the chimney-sweeper of Savoy, and Tom, the Portugal dustman, put in their claims, and the cause was put into the hands of Humphry Hocus, the attorney.

A declaration was drawn up to show "That Bull and Frog had undoubted right by prescription to be drapers to the Lord Strutts; that there were several old contracts to that purpose; that Lewis Baboon had taken up the trade of clothier and draper without serving his time or purchasing his freedom; that he sold goods that were not marketable without the stamp; that he himself was more fit for a bully than a tradesman, and went about through all the country fairs challenging people to fight prizes, wrestling and cudgel-play, and abundance more to this purpose".



The true characters of John Bull, Nic. Frog, and Hocus.[179]

For the better understanding the following history the reader ought to know that Bull, in the main, was an honest, plain-dealing fellow, choleric, bold, and of a very unconstant temper; he dreaded not old Lewis either at back-sword, single falchion, or cudgel-play; but then he was very apt to quarrel with his best friends, especially if they pretended to govern him. If you flattered him you might lead him like a child. John's temper depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose and fell with the weather-glass. John was quick, and understood his business very well, but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accounts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants. This was occasioned by his being a boon companion, loving his bottle and his diversion; for, to say truth, no man kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing John had acquired some plums, and might have kept them had it not been for his unhappy lawsuit.

Nic. Frog was a cunning, sly fellow, quite the reverse of John in many particulars; covetous, frugal, minded domestic affairs, would pinch his belly to save his pocket, never lost a farthing by careless servants or bad debtors. He did not care much for any sort of diversion, except tricks of high German artists and legerdemain. No man exceeded Nic. in these; yet it must be owned that Nic. was a fair dealer, and in that way acquired immense riches.

Hocus was an old cunning attorney, and though this was the first considerable suit that ever he was engaged in, he showed himself superior in address to most of his profession. He kept always good clerks, he loved money, was smooth-tongued, gave good words, and seldom lost his temper. He was not worse than an infidel, for he provided plentifully for his family, but he loved himself better than them all. The neighbours reported that he was henpecked, which was impossible, by such a mild-spirited woman as his wife was.

[Footnote 171: late King of Spain.]

[Footnote 172: Cardinal Portocarero.]

[Footnote 173: The first letters of congratulation from King William and the States of Holland upon King Philip's accession to the crown of Spain.]

[Footnote 174: The English.]

[Footnote 175: The Dutch.]

[Footnote 176: The character and trade of the French nation.]

[Footnote 177: The King's disposition to war.]

[Footnote 178: The sentiments and addresses of the Parliament at that time.]

[Footnote 179: Characters of the English and Dutch, and the General, Duke of Marlborough.]



XXV. EPITAPH UPON COLONEL CHARTRES.

Swift was reported to have had a hand in this piece, and indeed for some time it was ascribed to him. But there is now no doubt that it was entirely the work of Arbuthnot.

Here continueth to rot the body of Francis Chartres; who, with an inflexible constancy and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite of age and infirmities, in the practice of every human vice excepting prodigality and hypocrisy: his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence from the second.

Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his manners, than successful in accumulating wealth.

For, without trade or profession, without trust of public money, and without bribe-worthy service, he acquired, or more properly created, a ministerial estate.

He was the only person of his time who could cheat without the mask of honesty, retain his primeval meanness when possessed of ten thousand a year; and, having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did, was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.

O indignant reader, think not his life useless to mankind, providence connived at his execrable designs, to give to after-ages a conspicuous proof and example of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by his bestowing it on the most unworthy of all mortals.

Joannes jacet hic Mirandula—caetera norunt Et Tagus et Ganges forsan et Antipodes.

Applied to F. C.

Here Francis Chartres lies—be civil! The rest God knows—perhaps the devil.



JONATHAN SWIFT.

(1667-1745.)

XXVI. MRS. FRANCES HARRIS' PETITION.

Written in the year 1701. The Lord Justices addressed were the Earls of Berkeley and of Galway. The "Lady Betty" mentioned in the piece was the Lady Betty Berkeley. "Lord Dromedary", the Earl of Drogheda, and "The Chaplain", Swift himself. The author was at the time smarting under a sense of disappointment over the failure of his request to Lord Berkeley for preferment to the rich deanery of Derry.

TO THEIR EXCELLENCIES THE LORD JUSTICES OF IRELAND. THE HUMBLE PETITION OF FRANCES HARRIS, WHO MUST STARVE, AND DIE A MAID, IF IT MISCARRIES. HUMBLY SHOWETH,

That I went to warm myself in Lady Betty's chamber, because I was cold, And I had in a purse seven pounds, four shillings, and sixpence, besides farthings, in money and gold: So, because I had been buying things for my lady last night, I was resolved to tell my money, and see if it was right. Now you must know, because my trunk has a very bad lock, Therefore all the money I have, which God knows, is a very small stock, I keep in my pocket, tied about my middle, next my smock. So, when I went to put up my purse, as luck would have it, my smock was unript, And instead of putting it into my pocket, down it slipt: Then the bell rung, and I went down to put my lady to bed; And, God knows, I thought my money was as safe as my stupid head! So, when I came up again, I found my pocket feel very light: But when I search'd and miss'd my purse, law! I thought I should have sunk outright. "Lawk, madam," says Mary, "how d'ye do?" "Indeed," says I, "never worse: But pray, Mary, can you tell what I've done with my purse?" "Lawk, help me!" said Mary; "I never stirred out of this place:" "Nay," said I, "I had it in Lady Betty's chamber, that's a plain case." So Mary got me to bed, and cover'd me up warm: However, she stole away my garters, that I might do myself no harm. So I tumbled and toss'd all night, as you may very well think, But hardly ever set my eyes together, or slept a wink. So I was a-dream'd, methought, that I went and search'd the folks round, And in a corner of Mrs. Dukes's box, tied in a rag the money was found. So next morning we told Whittle, and he fell a-swearing: Then my dame Wadger came: and she, you know, is thick of hearing: "Dame," said I, as loud as I could bawl, "do you know what a loss I have had?" "Nay," said she, "my Lord Colway's folks are all very sad; For my Lord Dromedary comes a Tuesday without fail." "Pugh!" said I, "but that's not the business that I ail." Says Cary, says he, "I've been a servant this five-and-twenty years come spring, And in all the places I lived I never heard of such a thing." "Yes," says the Steward, "I remember, when I was at my Lady Shrewsbury's, Such a thing as this happen'd, just about the time of gooseberries." So I went to the party suspected, and I found her full of grief, (Now, you must know, of all things in the world I hate a thief,) However, I was resolved to bring the discourse slily about: "Mrs. Dukes," said I, "here's an ugly accident has happen'd out: 'Tis not that I value the money three skips of a mouse; But the thing I stand upon is the credit of the house. 'Tis true, seven pounds, four shillings, and sixpence, makes a great hole in my wages: Besides, as they say, service is no inheritance in these ages. Now, Mrs. Dukes, you know, and everybody understands, That tho' 'tis hard to judge, yet money can't go without hands." "The devil take me," said she (blessing herself), "if ever I saw't!" So she roar'd like a Bedlam, as tho' I had called her all to nought. So you know, what could I say to her any more? I e'en left her, and came away as wise as I was before. Well; but then they would have had me gone to the cunning man: "No," said I, "'tis the same thing, the chaplain will be here anon." So the chaplain came in. Now the servants say he is my sweetheart, Because he's always in my chamber, and I always take his part. So, as the devil would have it, before I was aware, out I blunder'd, "Parson," said I, "can you cast a nativity when a body's plunder'd?" (Now you must know, he hates to be called parson, like the devil.) "Truly," says he, "Mrs. Nab, it might become you to be more civil; If your money be gone, as a learned divine says, d'ye see: You are no text for my handling; so take that from me: I was never taken for a conjuror before, I'd have you to know." "Law!" said I, "don't be angry, I am sure I never thought you so; You know I honour the cloth; I design to be a parson's wife, I never took one in your coat for a conjuror in all my life." With that, he twisted his girdle at me like a rope, as who should say, "Now you may go hang yourself for me!" and so went away. Well: I thought I should have swoon'd, "Law!" said I, "what shall I do? I have lost my money, and shall lose my true love too!" Then my Lord called me: "Harry," said my Lord, "don't cry, I'll give you something towards your loss;" and, says my Lady, "so will I." "O, but," said I, "what if, after all, the chaplain won't come to?" For that, he said, (an't please your Excellencies), I must petition you. The premises tenderly consider'd, I desire your Excellencies' protection, And that I may have a share in next Sunday's collection: And, over and above, that I may have your Excellencies' letter, With an order for the chaplain aforesaid, or, instead of him, a better: And then your poor petitioner both night and day, Or the chaplain (for 'tis his trade), as in duty bound, shall ever pray.



XXVII. ELEGY ON PARTRIDGE.

This was written to satirize the superstitious faith placed in the predictions of the almanac-makers of the period. Partridge was the name of one of them—a cobbler by profession. Fielding also satirized the folly in Tom Jones. The elegy is upon "his supposed death", which drew from Partridge an indignant denial.

Well; 'tis as Bickerstaff has guess'd, Though we all took it for a jest: Partridge is dead; nay more, he died Ere he could prove the good 'squire lied. Strange, an astrologer should die Without one wonder in the sky! Not one of his crony stars To pay their duty at his hearse! No meteor, no eclipse appear'd! No comet with a flaming beard! The sun has rose, and gone to bed, Just as if Partridge were not dead; Nor hid himself behind the moon To make a dreadful night at noon. He at fit periods walks through Aries, Howe'er our earthly motion varies; And twice a year he'll cut the equator, As if there had been no such matter. Some wits have wonder'd what analogy There is 'twixt cobbling and astrology; How Partridge made his optics rise From a shoe-sole to reach the skies. A list the cobbler's temples ties, To keep the hair out of his eyes; From whence 'tis plain, the diadem That princes wear derives from them: And therefore crowns are nowadays Adorn'd with golden stars and rays: Which plainly shows the near alliance 'Twixt cobbling and the planets science. Besides, that slow-pac'd sign Bootes, As 'tis miscall'd, we know not who 'tis: But Partridge ended all disputes; He knew his trade, and call'd it boots. The horned moon, which heretofore Upon their shoes the Romans wore, Whose wideness kept their toes from corns, And whence we claim our shoeing-horns, Shows how the art of cobbling bears A near resemblance to the spheres. A scrap of parchment hung by geometry (A great refinement in barometry) Can, like the stars, foretell the weather; And what is parchment else but leather? Which an astrologer might use Either for almanacs or shoes. Thus Partridge by his wit and parts At once did practise both these arts: And as the boding owl (or rather The bat, because her wings are leather) Steals from her private cell by night, And flies about the candle-light; So learned Partridge could as well Creep in the dark from leathern cell, And in his fancy fly as far To peep upon a twinkling star. Besides, he could confound the spheres, And set the planets by the ears; To show his skill, he Mars could join To Venus in aspect malign; Then call in Mercury for aid, And cure the wounds that Venus made. Great scholars have in Lucian read, When Philip king of Greece was dead, His soul and spirit did divide, And each part took a different side: One rose a star; the other fell Beneath, and mended shoes in hell. Thus Partridge still shines in each art, The cobbling and star-gazing part, And is install'd as good a star As any of the Caesars are. Triumphant star! some pity show On cobblers militant below, Whom roguish boys in stormy nights Torment by pissing out their lights, Or thro' a chink convey their smoke Inclos'd artificers to choke. Thou, high exalted in thy sphere, May'st follow still thy calling there. To thee the Bull will lend his hide, By Phoebus newly tann'd and dry'd: For thee they Argo's hulk will tax, And scrape her pitchy sides for wax; Then Ariadne kindly lends Her braided hair to make thee ends; The point of Sagittarius' dart Turns to an awl by heav'nly art; And Vulcan, wheedled by his wife, Will forge for thee a paring-knife. For want of room by Virgo's side, She'll strain a point, and sit astride, To take thee kindly in between; And then the signs will be thirteen.

THE EPITAPH.

Here, five foot deep, lies on his back A cobbler, star-monger, and quack; Who to the stars in pure good-will Does to his best look upward still. Weep, all you customers that use His pills, his almanacs, or shoes: And you that did your fortunes seek, Step to his grave but once a week: This earth, which bears his body's print, You'll find has so much virtue in't, That I durst pawn my ears 't will tell Whate'er concerns you full as well, In physic, stolen goods, or love, As he himself could, when above.



XXVIII. A MEDITATION UPON A BROOM-STICK.

The remainder of the title is "According to the Style and Manner of the Honourable Robert Boyle's Meditations", and is intended as a satire on the style of that philosopher's lucubrations.

This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a nourishing state in a forest: it was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs: but now, in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk. 'Tis now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air: 'tis now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself. At length, worn to the stumps in the service of the maids, 'tis either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a fire. When I beheld this, I sighed and said within myself, surely mortal man is a broom-stick; nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, till the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk. He then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head. But now should this our broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other men's defaults!

But a broom-stick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is man, but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be, grovelling on the earth! And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be an universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every sluts' corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; till, worn to the stumps, like his brother bezom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames, for others to warm themselves by.



XXIX. THE RELATIONS OF BOOKSELLERS AND AUTHORS.

This piece constitutes Section X. of The Tale of a Tub.

It is an unanswerable argument of a very refined age the wonderful civilities that have passed of late years between the nation of authors and that of readers. There can hardly pop out a play, a pamphlet, or a poem, without a preface full of acknowledgments to the world for the general reception and applause they have given it, which the Lord knows where, or when, or how, or from whom it received. In due deference to so laudable a custom, I do here return my humble thanks to His Majesty and both Houses of Parliament, to the Lords of the King's most honourable Privy Council, to the reverend the Judges, to the Clergy, and Gentry, and Yeomanry of this land: but in a more especial manner to my worthy brethren and friends at Will's Coffee-house, and Gresham College, and Warwick Lane, and Moorfields, and Scotland Yard, and Westminster Hall, and Guildhall; in short, to all inhabitants and retainers whatsoever, either in court, or church, or camp, or city, or country, for their generosity and universal acceptance of this divine treatise. I accept their approbation and good opinion with extreme gratitude, and to the utmost of my poor capacity shall take hold of all opportunities to return the obligation.

I am also happy that fate has flung me into so blessed an age for the mutual felicity of booksellers and authors, whom I may safely affirm to be at this day the two only satisfied parties in England. Ask an author how his last piece has succeeded, "Why, truly he thanks his stars the world has been very favourable, and he has not the least reason to complain". And yet he wrote it in a week at bits and starts, when he could steal an hour from his urgent affairs, as it is a hundred to one you may see further in the preface, to which he refers you, and for the rest to the bookseller. There you go as a customer, and make the same question, "He blesses his God the thing takes wonderful; he is just printing a second edition, and has but three left in his shop". You beat down the price; "Sir, we shall not differ", and in hopes of your custom another time, lets you have it as reasonable as you please; "And pray send as many of your acquaintance as you will; I shall upon your account furnish them all at the same rate".

Now it is not well enough considered to what accidents and occasions the world is indebted for the greatest part of those noble writings which hourly start up to entertain it. If it were not for a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, a sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt of learning,—but for these events, I say, and some others too long to recite (especially a prudent neglect of taking brimstone inwardly), I doubt the number of authors and of writings would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold. To confirm this opinion, hear the words of the famous troglodyte philosopher. "It is certain," said he, "some grains of folly are of course annexed as part in the composition of human nature; only the choice is left us whether we please to wear them inlaid or embossed, and we need not go very far to seek how that is usually determined, when we remember it is with human faculties as with liquors, the lightest will be ever at the top."

There is in this famous island of Britain a certain paltry scribbler, very voluminous, whose character the reader cannot wholly be a stranger to. He deals in a pernicious kind of writings called "Second Parts", and usually passes under the name of "The Author of the First". I easily foresee that as soon as I lay down my pen this nimble operator will have stole it, and treat me as inhumanly as he has already done Dr. Blackmore, Lestrange, and many others who shall here be nameless. I therefore fly for justice and relief into the hands of that great rectifier of saddles and lover of mankind, Dr. Bentley, begging he will take this enormous grievance into his most modern consideration; and if it should so happen that the furniture of an ass in the shape of a second part must for my sins be clapped, by mistake, upon my back, that he will immediately please, in the presence of the world, to lighten me of the burden, and take it home to his own house till the true beast thinks fit to call for it.

In the meantime, I do here give this public notice that my resolutions are to circumscribe within this discourse the whole stock of matter I have been so many years providing. Since my vein is once opened, I am content to exhaust it all at a running, for the peculiar advantage of my dear country, and for the universal benefit of mankind. Therefore, hospitably considering the number of my guests, they shall have my whole entertainment at a meal, and I scorn to set up the leavings in the cupboard. What the guests cannot eat may be given to the poor, and the dogs under the table may gnaw the bones.[180] This I understand for a more generous proceeding than to turn the company's stomachs by inviting them again to-morrow to a scurvy meal of scraps.

If the reader fairly considers the strength of what I have advanced in the foregoing section, I am convinced it will produce a wonderful revolution in his notions and opinions, and he will be abundantly better prepared to receive and to relish the concluding part of this miraculous treatise. Readers may be divided into three classes, the superficial, the ignorant, and the learned, and I have with much felicity fitted my pen to the genius and advantage of each. The superficial reader will be strangely provoked to laughter, which clears the breast and the lungs, is sovereign against the spleen, and the most innocent of all diuretics. The ignorant reader (between whom and the former the distinction is extremely nice) will find himself disposed to stare, which is an admirable remedy for ill eyes, serves to raise and enliven the spirits, and wonderfully helps perspiration. But the reader truly learned, chiefly for whose benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others wake, will here find sufficient matter to employ his speculations for the rest of his life. It were much to be wished, and I do here humbly propose for an experiment, that every prince in Christendom will take seven of the deepest scholars in his dominions and shut them up close for seven years in seven chambers, with a command to write seven ample commentaries on this comprehensive discourse. I shall venture to affirm that, whatever difference may be found in their several conjectures, they will be all, without the least distortion, manifestly deducible from the text. Meantime it is my earnest request that so useful an undertaking may be entered upon (if their Majesties please) with all convenient speed, because I have a strong inclination before I leave the world to taste a blessing which we mysterious writers can seldom reach till we have got into our graves, whether it is that fame being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow and much less ripen till the stock is in the earth, or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest to pursue after the scent of a carcass, or whether she conceives her trumpet sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb, by the advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a hollow vault.

It is true, indeed, the republic of dark authors, after they once found out this excellent expedient of dying, have been peculiarly happy in the variety as well as extent of their reputation. For night being the universal mother of things, wise philosophers hold all writings to be fruitful in the proportion they are dark, and therefore the true illuminated (that is to say, the darkest of all) have met with such numberless commentators, whose scholiastic midwifery hath delivered them of meanings that the authors themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may very justly be allowed the lawful parents of them, the words of such writers being like seed, which, however scattered at random, when they light upon a fruitful ground, will multiply far beyond either the hopes or imagination of the sower.

And therefore, in order to promote so useful a work, I will here take leave to glance a few innuendos that may be of great assistance to those sublime spirits who shall be appointed to labour in a universal comment upon this wonderful discourse. And first, I have couched a very profound mystery in the number of o's multiplied by seven and divided by nine. Also, if a devout brother of the Rosy Cross will pray fervently for sixty-three mornings with a lively faith, and then transpose certain letters and syllables according to prescription, in the second and fifth section they will certainly reveal into a full receipt of the opus magnum. Lastly, whoever will be at the pains to calculate the whole number of each letter in this treatise, and sum up the difference exactly between the several numbers, assigning the true natural cause for every such difference, the discoveries in the product will plentifully reward his labour. But then he must beware of Bythus and Sige, and be sure not to forget the qualities of Acamoth; a cujus lacrymis humecta prodit substantia, a risu lucida, a tristitia solida, et a timore mobilis, wherein Eugenius Philalethes[181] hath committed an unpardonable mistake.

[Footnote 180: The bad critics.]

[Footnote 181: A name under which Thomas Vaughan wrote.]



XXX. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE POSTERITY.

The following is the famous dedication of The Tale of a Tub. The description of "the tyranny of Time" was regarded by Goethe as one of the finest passages in Swift's works.

SIR,

I here present your Highness with the fruits of a very few leisure hours, stolen from the short intervals of a world of business, and of an employment quite alien from such amusements as this; the poor production of that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon my hands during a long prorogation of Parliament, a great dearth of foreign news, and a tedious fit of rainy weather. For which, and other reasons, it cannot choose extremely to deserve such a patronage as that of your Highness, whose numberless virtues in so few years, make the world look upon you as the future example to all princes. For although your Highness is hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the universal learned world already resolved upon appealing to your future dictates with the lowest and most resigned submission, fate having decreed you sole arbiter of the productions of human wit in this polite and most accomplished age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough to shock and startle any judge of a genius less unlimited than yours; but in order to prevent such glorious trials, the person, it seems, to whose care the education of your Highness is committed, has resolved, as I am told, to keep you in almost an universal ignorance of our studies, which it is your inherent birthright to inspect.

It is amazing to me that this person should have assurance, in the face of the sun, to go about persuading your Highness that our age is almost wholly illiterate and has hardly produced one writer upon any subject. I know very well that when your Highness shall come to riper years, and have gone through the learning of antiquity, you will be too curious to neglect inquiring into the authors of the very age before you; and to think that this insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, designs to reduce them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed to mention; it moves my zeal and my spleen for the honour and interest of our vast flourishing body, as well as of myself, for whom I know by long experience he has professed, and still continues, a peculiar malice.

It is not unlikely that, when your Highness will one day peruse what I am now writing, you may be ready to expostulate with your governor upon the credit of what I here affirm, and command him to show you some of our productions. To which he will answer—for I am well informed of his designs—by asking your Highness where they are, and what is become of them? and pretend it a demonstration that there never were any, because they are not then to be found. Not to be found! Who has mislaid them? Are they sunk in the abyss of things? It is certain that in their own nature they were light enough to swim upon the surface for all eternity; therefore, the fault is in him who tied weights so heavy to their heels as to depress them to the centre. Is their very essence destroyed? Who has annihilated them? Were they drowned by purges or martyred by pipes? Who administered them to the posteriors of ——. But that it may no longer be a doubt with your Highness who is to be the author of this universal ruin, I beseech you to observe that large and terrible scythe which your governor affects to bear continually about him. Be pleased to remark the length and strength, the sharpness and hardness, of his nails and teeth; consider his baneful, abominable breath, enemy to life and matter, infectious and corrupting, and then reflect whether it be possible for any mortal ink and paper of this generation to make a suitable resistance. Oh, that your Highness would one day resolve to disarm this usurping maitre de palais of his furious engines, and bring your empire hors du page!

It were endless to recount the several methods of tyranny and destruction which your governor is pleased to practise upon this occasion. His inveterate malice is such to the writings of our age, that, of several thousands produced yearly from this renowned city, before the next revolution of the sun there is not one to be heard of. Unhappy infants! many of them barbarously destroyed before they have so much as learnt their mother-tongue to beg for pity. Some he stifles in their cradles, others he frights into convulsions, whereof they suddenly die, some he flays alive, others he tears limb from limb, great numbers are offered to Moloch, and the rest, tainted by his breath, die of a languishing consumption.

But the concern I have most at heart is for our Corporation of Poets, from whom I am preparing a petition to your Highness, to be subscribed with the names of one hundred and thirty-six of the first race, but whose immortal productions are never likely to reach your eyes, though each of them is now an humble and an earnest appellant for the laurel, and has large comely volumes ready to show for a support to his pretensions. The never-dying works of these illustrious persons your governor, sir, has devoted to unavoidable death, and your Highness is to be made believe that our age has never arrived at the honour to produce one single poet.

We confess immortality to be a great and powerful goddess, but in vain we offer up to her our devotions and our sacrifices if your Highness's governor, who has usurped the priesthood, must, by an unparalled ambition and avarice, wholly intercept and devour them.

To affirm that our age is altogether unlearned and devoid of writers in any kind, seems to be an assertion so bold and so false, that I have been sometimes thinking the contrary may almost be proved by uncontrollable demonstration. It is true, indeed, that although their numbers be vast and their productions numerous in proportion, yet are they hurried so hastily off the scene that they escape our memory and delude our sight. When I first thought of this address, I had prepared a copious list of titles to present your Highness as an undisputed argument for what I affirm. The originals were posted fresh upon all gates and corners of streets; but returning in a very few hours to take a review, they were all torn down and fresh ones in their places. I inquired after them among readers and booksellers, but I inquired in vain; the memorial of them was lost among men, their place was no more to be found; and I was laughed to scorn for a clown and a pedant, devoid of all taste and refinement, little versed in the course of present affairs, and that knew nothing of what had passed in the best companies of court and town. So that I can only avow in general to your Highness that we do abound in learning and wit, but to fix upon particulars is a task too slippery for my slender abilities. If I should venture, in a windy day, to affirm to your Highness that there is a large cloud near the horizon in the form of a bear, another in the zenith with the head of an ass, a third to the westward with claws like a dragon; and your Highness should in a few minutes think fit to examine the truth, it is certain they would be all changed in figure and position, new ones would arise, and all we could agree upon would be, that clouds there were, but that I was grossly mistaken in the zoography and topography of them.

But your governor, perhaps, may still insist, and put the question, What is then become of those immense bales of paper which must needs have been employed in such numbers of books? Can these also be wholly annihilated, and so of a sudden, as I pretend? What shall I say in return of so invidious an objection? It ill befits the distance between your Highness and me to send you for ocular conviction to a jakes or an oven, to the windows of a bawdyhouse, or to a sordid lantern. Books, like men their authors, have no more than one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it and return no more.

I profess to your Highness, in the integrity of my heart, that what I am going to say is literally true this minute I am writing; what revolutions may happen before it shall be ready for your perusal I can by no means warrant; however, I beg you to accept it as a specimen of our learning, our politeness, and our wit. I do therefore affirm, upon the word of a sincere man, that there is now actually in being a certain poet called John Dryden, whose translation of Virgil was lately printed in large folio, well bound, and if diligent search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be seen. There is another called Nahum Tate, who is ready to make oath that he has caused many reams of verse to be published, whereof both himself and his bookseller, if lawfully required, can still produce authentic copies, and therefore wonders why the world is pleased to make such a secret of it. There is a third, known by the name of Tom Durfey, a poet of a vast comprehension, an universal genius, and most profound learning. There are also one Mr. Rymer and one Mr. Dennis, most profound critics. There is a person styled Dr. Bentley, who has wrote near a thousand pages of immense erudition, giving a full and true account of a certain squabble of wonderful importance between himself and a bookseller; he is a writer of infinite wit and humour, no man rallies with a better grace and in more sprightly turns. Further, I avow to your Highness that with these eyes I have beheld the person of William Wotton, B.D., who has written a good-sized volume against a friend of your governor, from whom, alas! he must therefore look for little favour, in a most gentlemanly style, adorned with utmost politeness and civility, replete with discoveries equally valuable for their novelty and use, and embellished with traits of wit so poignant and so apposite, that he is a worthy yoke-mate to his fore-mentioned friend.

Why should I go upon farther particulars, which might fill a volume with the just eulogies of my contemporary brethren? I shall bequeath this piece of justice to a larger work, wherein I intend to write a character of the present set of wits in our nation; their persons I shall describe particularly and at length, their genius and understandings in miniature.

In the meantime, I do here make bold to present your Highness with a faithful abstract drawn from the universal body of all arts and sciences, intended wholly for your service and instruction. Nor do I doubt in the least, but your Highness will peruse it as carefully and make as considerable improvements as other young princes have already done by the many volumes of late years written for a help to their studies.

That your Highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, as well as years, and at last outshine all your royal ancestors, shall be the daily prayer of,

Sir, Your Highness's most devoted, &c. Decem. 1697.



SIR RICHARD STEELE.

(1672-1729.)

XXXI. THE COMMONWEALTH OF LUNATICS.

This paper forms No. 125 of The Tatler, January 26th, 1709.

From my own apartment, January 25.

There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue are madmen. Everyone who governs himself by these rules is allowed the title of wise, and reputed to be in his senses: and everyone, in proportion as he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero, having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured his banishment. A city, says he, is an assembly distinguished into bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts obedient to the rules of law and equity. He then represents the government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul, senate, and laws had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of lunatics. For this reason he regards his expulsion from Rome as a man would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community. We are therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour; or if he swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we shall not excuse him for its being epidemical; it being our present design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who are now permitted to go about the streets for no other reason but because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves. And is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should have the same care taken of him as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a prince? Or why should a man who starves in the midst of plenty be trusted with himself more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts who set so exorbitant a value upon themselves that I have often most heartily pitied them, and wished them for their recovery under the same discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in ancient authors that when the Romans were in the height of power and luxury they assigned out of their vast dominions an island called Anticyra as an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman empire, whither all persons who had lost their wits used to resort from all parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors were advised to repair to this island: but most of them, instead of listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, until the people knocked them on the head as despairing of their cure. In short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage to Anticyra in those days as it is in ours for persons who have a disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.

The prodigious crops of hellebore with which this whole island abounded did not only furnish them with incomparable tea, snuff, and Hungary water, but impregnated the air of the country with such sober and salutiferous steams as very much comforted the heads and refreshed the senses of all that breathed in it. A discarded statesman that, at his first landing, appeared stark, staring mad, would become calm in a week's time, and upon his return home live easy and satisfied in his retirement. A moping lover would grow a pleasant fellow by that time he had rid thrice about the island: and a hair-brained rake, after a short stay in the country, go home again a composed, grave, worthy gentleman.

I have premised these particulars before I enter on the main design of this paper, because I would not be thought altogether notional in what I have to say, and pass only for a projector in morality. I could quote Horace and Seneca and some other ancient writers of good repute upon the same occasion, and make out by their testimony that our streets are filled with distracted persons; that our shops and taverns, private and public houses, swarm with them; and that it is very hard to make up a tolerable assembly without a majority of them. But what I have already said is, I hope, sufficient to justify the ensuing project, which I shall therefore give some account of without any further preface.

1. It is humbly proposed, That a proper receptacle or habitation be forthwith erected for all such persons as, upon due trial and examination, shall appear to be out of their wits.

2. That, to serve the present exigency, the college in Moorfields be very much extended at both ends; and that it be converted into a square, by adding three other sides to it.

3. That nobody be admitted into these three additional sides but such whose frenzy can lay no claim to any apartment in that row of building which is already erected.

4. That the architect, physician, apothecary, surgeon, keepers, nurses, and porters be all and each of them cracked, provided that their frenzy does not lie in the profession or employment to which they shall severally and respectively be assigned.

N.B. It is thought fit to give the foregoing notice, that none may present himself here for any post of honour or profit who is not duly qualified.

5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings there be figures placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the edifice already erected, provided they represent such distractions only as are proper for those additional buildings; as of an envious man gnawing his own flesh; a gamester pulling himself by the ears and knocking his head against a marble pillar; a covetous man warming himself over a heap of gold; a coward flying from his own shadow, and the like.

Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project to bring in their contributions as soon as possible; and to apprehend forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a coffee-house, or any free-thinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed imagination. And I do at the same time give this public notice to all the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses with all imaginable expedition, lest, if they should come into my hands, I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour I will make him in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter was.



JOSEPH ADDISON.

(1672-1719.)

XXXII. SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY'S SUNDAY.

This piece represents the complete paper, No. 112 of The Spectator, July 9th, 1711.

I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated time in which the whole village meet together with their best faces and in their cleanliest habits to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the churchyard as a citizen does upon the Change, the whole parish politics being generally discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings.

My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing; he has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion table at his own expense. He has often told me that at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular; and that in order to make them kneel and join in the responses he gave every one of them a hassock and a common-prayer book: and at the same time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms, upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the country churches that I have ever heard.

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees anybody else nodding either wakes them himself or sends his servants to them. Several other of the old knight's particularities break out upon these occasions: sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing-psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it: sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their knees, to count the congregation or see if any of his tenants are missing.

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews it seems is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends observe these little singularities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good qualities.

As soon as the sermon is finished nobody presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side; and every now and then inquires how such an one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church, which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent.

The chaplain has often told me that upon a catechizing day, when Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement; and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church service, has promised upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit.

The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that rise between the parson and the squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the squire, and the squire to be revenged on the parson never comes to church. The squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers; while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates to them in almost every sermon that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters are come to such an extremity that the squire has not said his prayers either in public or private this half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole congregation.

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to the ordinary people, who are so used to be dazzled with riches that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate as of a man of learning, and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not believe it.



EDWARD YOUNG.

(1681-1765.)

XXXIII. TO THE RIGHT HON. MR. DODINGTON.

This is justly regarded as one of the finest satires in the English language. It is taken from Dr. Young's Series of Satires published in collected form in 1750. Dodington was the famous "Bubb Dodington", satirized as Bubo by Pope in the "Prologue to the Satires".

Long, Dodington, in debt, I long have sought To ease the burden of my graceful thought: And now a poet's gratitude you see: Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three: For whose the present glory, or the gain? You give protection, I a worthless strain. You love and feel the poet's sacred flame, And know the basis of a solid fame; Though prone to like, yet cautious to commend, You read with all the malice of a friend; Nor favour my attempts that way alone, But, more to raise my verse, conceal your own. An ill-tim'd modesty! turn ages o'er, When wanted Britain bright examples more? Her learning, and her genius too, decays; And dark and cold are her declining days; As if men now were of another cast, They meanly live on alms of ages past, Men still are men; and they who boldly dare, Shall triumph o'er the sons of cold despair; Or, if they fail, they justly still take place Of such who run in debt for their disgrace; Who borrow much, then fairly make it known, And damn it with improvements of their own. We bring some new materials, and what's old New cast with care, and in no borrow'd mould; Late times the verse may read, if these refuse; And from sour critics vindicate the Muse. "Your work is long", the critics cry. 'Tis true, And lengthens still, to take in fools like you: Shorten my labour, if its length you blame: For, grow but wise, you rob me of my game; As haunted hags, who, while the dogs pursue, Renounce their four legs, and start up on two.

Like the bold bird upon the banks of Nile That picks the teeth of the dire crocodile, Will I enjoy (dread feast!) the critic's rage, And with the fell destroyer feed my page. For what ambitious fools are more to blame, Than those who thunder in the critic's name? Good authors damn'd, have their revenge in this, To see what wretches gain the praise they miss.

Balbutius, muffled in his sable cloak, Like an old Druid from his hollow oak, As ravens solemn, and as boding, cries, "Ten thousand worlds for the three unities!" Ye doctors sage, who through Parnassus teach, Or quit the tub, or practise what you preach.

One judges as the weather dictates; right The poem is at noon, and wrong at night: Another judges by a surer gage, An author's principles, or parentage; Since his great ancestors in Flanders fell, The poem doubtless must be written well. Another judges by the writer's look; Another judges, for he bought the book: Some judge, their knack of judging wrong to keep; Some judge, because it is too soon to sleep. Thus all will judge, and with one single aim, To gain themselves, not give the writer, fame. The very best ambitiously advise, Half to serve you, and half to pass for wise.

Critics on verse, as squibs on triumphs wait, Proclaim the glory, and augment the state; Hot, envious, noisy, proud, the scribbling fry Burn, hiss, and bounce, waste paper, stink, and die. Rail on, my friends! what more my verse can crown Than Compton's smile, and your obliging frown?

Not all on books their criticism waste: The genius of a dish some justly taste, And eat their way to fame; with anxious thought The salmon is refus'd, the turbot bought. Impatient art rebukes the sun's delay And bids December yield the fruits of May; Their various cares in one great point combine The business of their lives, that is—to dine. Half of their precious day they give the feast; And to a kind digestion spare the rest. Apicius, here, the taster of the town, Feeds twice a week, to settle their renown.

These worthies of the palate guard with care The sacred annals of their bills of fare; In those choice books their panegyrics read, And scorn the creatures that for hunger feed. If man by feeding well commences great, Much more the worm to whom that man is meat.

To glory some advance a lying claim, Thieves of renown, and pilferers of fame: Their front supplies what their ambition lacks; They know a thousand lords, behind their backs. Cottil is apt to wink upon a peer, When turn'd away, with a familiar leer; And Harvey's eyes, unmercifully keen, Have murdered fops, by whom she ne'er was seen. Niger adopts stray libels; wisely prone, To cover shame still greater than his own. Bathyllus, in the winter of threescore, Belies his innocence, and keeps a ——. Absence of mind Brabantio turns to fame, Learns to mistake, nor knows his brother's name; Has words and thoughts in nice disorder set, And takes a memorandum to forget. Thus vain, not knowing what adorns or blots Men forge the patents that create them sots.

As love of pleasure into pain betrays, So most grow infamous through love of praise. But whence for praise can such an ardour rise, When those, who bring that incense, we despise? For such the vanity of great and small, Contempt goes round, and all men laugh at all. Nor can even satire blame them; for 'tis true, They have most ample cause for what they do O fruitful Britain! doubtless thou wast meant A nurse of fools, to stock the continent. Though Phoebus and the Nine for ever mow, Rank folly underneath the scythe will grow The plenteous harvest calls me forward still, Till I surpass in length my lawyer's bill; A Welsh descent, which well-paid heralds damn; Or, longer still, a Dutchman's epigram. When, cloy'd, in fury I throw down my pen, In comes a coxcomb, and I write again.

See Tityrus, with merriment possest, Is burst with laughter, ere he hears the jest: What need he stay? for when the jest is o'er, His teeth will be no whiter than before. Is there of thee, ye fair! so great a dearth, That you need purchase monkeys for your mirth!

Some, vain of paintings, bid the world admire; Of houses some; nay, houses that they hire: Some (perfect wisdom!) of a beauteous wife; And boast, like Cordeliers, a scourge for life.

Sometimes, through pride, the sexes change their airs; My lord has vapours, and my lady swears; Then, stranger still! on turning of the wind, My lord wears breeches, and my lady's kind.

To show the strength, and infamy of pride, By all 'tis follow'd, and by all denied. What numbers are there, which at once pursue, Praise, and the glory to contemn it, too? Vincenna knows self-praise betrays to shame, And therefore lays a stratagem for fame; Makes his approach in modesty's disguise, To win applause; and takes it by surprise. "To err," says he, "in small things, is my fate." You know your answer, "he's exact in great". "My style", says he, "is rude and full of faults." "But oh! what sense! what energy of thoughts!" That he wants algebra, he must confess; "But not a soul to give our arms success". "Ah! that's an hit indeed," Vincenna cries; "But who in heat of blood was ever wise? I own 'twas wrong, when thousands called me back To make that hopeless, ill-advised attack; All say, 'twas madness; nor dare I deny; Sure never fool so well deserved to die." Could this deceive in others to be free, It ne'er, Vincenna, could deceive in thee! Whose conduct is a comment to thy tongue, So clear, the dullest cannot take thee wrong. Thou on one sleeve wilt thy revenues wear; And haunt the court, without a prospect there. Are these expedients for renown? Confess Thy little self, that I may scorn thee less.

Be wise, Vincenna, and the court forsake; Our fortunes there, nor thou, nor I, shall make. Even men of merit, ere their point they gain, In hardy service make a long campaign; Most manfully besiege the patron's gate, And oft repulsed, as oft attack the great With painful art, and application warm. And take, at last, some little place by storm; Enough to keep two shoes on Sunday clean, And starve upon discreetly, in Sheer-Lane. Already this thy fortune can afford; Then starve without the favour of my lord. 'Tis true, great fortunes some great men confer, But often, even in doing right, they err: From caprice, not from choice, their favours come: They give, but think it toil to know to whom: The man that's nearest, yawning, they advance: 'Tis inhumanity to bless by chance. If merit sues, and greatness is so loth To break its downy trance, I pity both.

Behold the masquerade's fantastic scene! The Legislature join'd with Drury-Lane! When Britain calls, th' embroider'd patriots run, And serve their country—if the dance is done. "Are we not then allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right. Worth, of politeness is the needful ground; Where that is wanting, this can ne'er be found. Triflers not even in trifles can excel; 'Tis solid bodies only polish well.

Great, chosen prophet! for these latter days, To turn a willing world from righteous ways! Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve; Well has he seen his servant should not starve, Thou to his name hast splendid temples raised In various forms of worship seen him prais'd, Gaudy devotion, like a Roman, shown, And sung sweet anthems in a tongue unknown. Inferior offerings to thy god of vice Are duly paid, in fiddles, cards, and dice; Thy sacrifice supreme, an hundred maids! That solemn rite of midnight masquerades!

Though bold these truths, thou, Muse, with truths like these, Wilt none offend, whom 'tis a praise to please; Let others flatter to be flatter'd, thou Like just tribunals, bend an awful brow. How terrible it were to common-sense, To write a satire, which gave none offence! And, since from life I take the draughts you see. If men dislike them, do they censure me? The fool, and knave, 'tis glorious to offend, And Godlike an attempt the world to mend, The world, where lucky throws to blockheads fall, Knaves know the game, and honest men pay all. How hard for real worth to gain its price! A man shall make his fortune in a trice, If blest with pliant, though but slender, sense, Feign'd modesty, and real impudence: A supple knee, smooth tongue, an easy grace. A curse within, a smile upon his face; A beauteous sister, or convenient wife, Are prizes in the lottery of life; Genius and Virtue they will soon defeat, And lodge you in the bosom of the great. To merit, is but to provide a pain For men's refusing what you ought to gain.

May, Dodington, this maxim fail in you, Whom my presaging thoughts already view By Walpole's conduct fired, and friendship grac'd, Still higher in your Prince's favour plac'd: And lending, here, those awful councils aid, Which you, abroad, with such success obey'd! Bear this from one, who holds your friendship dear; What most we wish, with ease we fancy near.



JOHN GAY.

(1685-1732.)

XXXIV. THE QUIDNUNCKIS.

The following piece was originally claimed for Swift in the edition of his works published in 1749. But it was undoubtedly written by Gay, being only sent to Swift for perusal. This explains the fact of its being found amongst the papers of the latter. The poem is suggested by the death of the Duke Regent of France.

How vain are mortal man's endeavours? (Said, at dame Elleot's,[182] master Travers) Good Orleans dead! in truth 'tis hard: Oh! may all statesmen die prepar'd! I do foresee (and for foreseeing He equals any man in being) The army ne'er can be disbanded. —I with the king was safely landed. Ah friends! great changes threat the land! All France and England at a stand! There's Meroweis—mark! strange work! And there's the Czar, and there's the Turk— The Pope—An India-merchant by Cut short the speech with this reply: All at a stand? you see great changes? Ah, sir! you never saw the Ganges: There dwells the nation of Quidnunckis (So Monomotapa calls monkeys:) On either bank from bough to bough, They meet and chat (as we may now): Whispers go round, they grin, they shrug, They bow, they snarl, they scratch, they hug; And, just as chance or whim provoke them, They either bite their friends, or stroke them. There have I seen some active prig, To show his parts, bestride a twig: Lord! how the chatt'ring tribe admire! Not that he's wiser, but he's higher: All long to try the vent'rous thing, (For power is but to have one's swing). From side to side he springs, he spurns, And bangs his foes and friends by turns. Thus as in giddy freaks he bounces, Crack goes the twig, and in he flounces! Down the swift stream the wretch is borne; Never, ah never, to return! Zounds! what a fall had our dear brother! Morbleu! cries one; and damme, t'other. The nation gives a general screech; None cocks his tail, none claws his breech; Each trembles for the public weal, And for a while forgets to steal. Awhile all eyes intent and steady Pursue him whirling down the eddy: But, out of mind when out of view, Some other mounts the twig anew; And business on each monkey shore Runs the same track it ran before.

[Footnote 182: Coffee-house near St. James's.]



ALEXANDER POPE.

(1688-1744.)

XXXV. THE DUNCIAD—THE DESCRIPTION OF DULNESS.

One of the most scathing satires in the history of literature. Pope in the latest editions of it rather spoilt its point by substituting Colley Gibber for Theobald as the "hero" of it. Our text is from the edition of 1743. The satire first appeared in 1728, and other editions, greatly altered, were issued in 1729, 1742, 1743.

The mighty mother, and her son, who brings The Smithfield muses[183] to the ear of kings, I sing. Say you, her instruments the great! Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and fate: You by whose care, in vain decried and curst, Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first; Say, how the goddess bade Britannia sleep, And poured her spirit o'er the land and deep. In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head, Dulness o'er all possessed her ancient right, Daughter of chaos and eternal night: Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave, Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind, She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind. Still her old empire to restore she tries, For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies. O thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair, Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,[184] Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind; From thy Boeotia though her power retires, Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our realm acquires, Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead. Close to those walls where folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monroe would take her down, Where o'er the gates, by his famed father's hand,[185] Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand; One cell there is, concealed from vulgar eye, The cave of poverty and poetry, Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, Emblem of music caused by emptiness. Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down, Escape in monsters, and amaze the town. Hence miscellanies spring, the weekly boast Of Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:[186] Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,[187] Hence journals, medleys, mercuries, magazines; Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace, And new-year odes,[188] and all the Grub Street race. In clouded majesty here Dulness shone; Four guardian virtues, round, support her throne: Fierce champion fortitude, that knows no fears Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears: Calm temperance, whose blessings those partake Who hunger, and who thirst for scribbling sake: Prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail: Poetic justice, with her lifted scale, Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep, Till genial Jacob,[189] or a warm third day, Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play: How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie, How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry, Maggots half-formed in rhyme exactly meet, And learn to crawl upon poetic feet. Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes, And ductile dulness new meanders takes There motley images her fancy strike, Figures ill paired, and similes unlike. She sees a mob of metaphors advance, Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance; How tragedy and comedy embrace; How farce and epic get a jumbled race; How Time himself[190] stands still at her command, Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land. Here gay description Egypt glads with showers, Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers; Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen, There painted valleys of eternal green; In cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow. All these and more the cloud-compelling queen Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene. She, tinselled o'er in robes of varying hues, With self-applause her wild creation views; Sees momentary monsters rise and fall, And with her own fools-colours gilds them all. 'Twas on the day when Thorold rich and grave,[191] Like Cimon, triumphed both on land and wave: (Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces, Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces) Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er, But lived in Settle's numbers one day more.[192] Now mayors and shrieves all hushed and satiate lay, Yet ate, in dreams, the custard of the day; While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep. Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls What city swans once sung within the walls; Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise, And sure succession down from Heywood's[193] days. She saw, with joy, the line immortal run, Each sire impressed, and glaring in his son: So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care, Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear. She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel[194] shine, And Eusden eke out[195] Blackmore's endless line; She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page, And all the mighty mad[196] in Dennis rage. In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief in Bays's monster-breeding breast, Bays, formed by nature stage and town to bless, And act, and be, a coxcomb with success. Dulness, with transport eyes the lively dunce, Remembering she herself was pertness once. Now (shame to fortune!) an ill run at play Blanked his bold visage, and a thin third day: Swearing and supperless the hero sate, Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damned his fate; Then gnawed his pen, then dashed it on the ground, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there; Yet wrote and floundered on in mere despair. Round him much embryo, much abortion lay, Much future ode, and abdicated play; Nonsense precipitate, like running lead, That slipped through cracks and zigzags of the head; All that on folly frenzy could beget, Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit, Next, o'er his books his eyes began to roll, In pleasing memory of all he stole, How here he sipped, how there he plundered snug, And sucked all o'er, like an industrious bug. Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes, and here The frippery of crucified Moliere; There hapless Shakespeare, yet of Tibbald sore, Wished he had blotted for himself before. The rest on outside merit but presume, Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room; Such with their shelves as due proportion hold, Or their fond parents dressed in red and gold; Or where the pictures for the page atone, And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own. Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great; There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines complete: Here all his suffering brotherhood retire, And 'scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire: A Gothic library! of Greece and Rome Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.

[Footnote 183: Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose shows and dramatical entertainments were, by the hero of this poem and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent Garden, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of King George I. and II.]

[Footnote 184: Ironice, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both.—The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the people, his majesty was graciously pleased to recall.]

[Footnote 185: Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet laureate. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam Hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist.]

[Footnote 186: Two booksellers. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters.]

[Footnote 187: It was an ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at the same time or before.]

[Footnote 188: Made by the poet laureate for the time being, to be sung at court on every New Year's Day.]

[Footnote 189: Jacob Tonson the bookseller.]

[Footnote 190: Alluding to the transgressions of the unities in the plays of such poets.]

[Footnote 191: Sir George Thorold, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1720. The procession of a Lord Mayor was made partly by land, and partly by water.—Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea, and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians and barbarians.]

[Footnote 192: Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the Lord Mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants: but that part of the shows being at length abolished, the employment of the city poet ceased; so that upon Settle's death there was no successor appointed to that place.]

[Footnote 193: John Heywood, whose "Interludes" were printed in the time of Henry VIII.]

[Footnote 194: The first edition had it,—

"She saw in Norton all his father shine":

Daniel Defoe was a genius, but Norton Defoe was a wretched writer, and never attempted poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself made successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as politics. And both these authors had a semblance in their fates as well as writings, having been alike sentenced to the pillory.]

[Footnote 195: Laurence Eusden, poet laureate before Gibber. We have the names of only a few of his works, which were very numerous.

Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a poor writer, of no invention; but who sometimes translated tolerably when assisted by Dryden. In the second part of Absalom and Achitophel there are about two hundred lines in all by Dryden which contrast strongly with the insipidity of the rest.]

[Footnote 196: John Dennis was the son of a saddler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Wycherley and Congreve he immediately made public their letters.]



XXXVI. SANDYS' GHOST; OR, A PROPER NEW BALLAD OF THE NEW OVID'S METAMORPHOSES, AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY PERSONS OF QUALITY.

This satire owed its origin to the fact that Sir Samuel Garth was about to publish a new translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. George Sandys—the old translator—died in 1643.

Ye Lords and Commons, men of wit, And pleasure about town; Read this ere you translate one bit Of books of high renown.

Beware of Latin authors all! Nor think your verses sterling, Though with a golden pen you scrawl, And scribble in a Berlin:

For not the desk with silver nails, Nor bureau of expense, Nor standish well japanned avails To writing of good sense.

Hear how a ghost in dead of night, With saucer eyes of fire, In woeful wise did sore affright A wit and courtly squire.

Rare Imp of Phoebus, hopeful youth, Like puppy tame that uses To fetch and carry, in his mouth, The works of all the Muses.

Ah! why did he write poetry That hereto was so civil; And sell his soul for vanity, To rhyming and the devil?

A desk he had of curious work, With glittering studs about; Within the same did Sandys lurk, Though Ovid lay without.

Now as he scratched to fetch up thought, Forth popped the sprite so thin; And from the key-hole bolted out, All upright as a pin.

With whiskers, band, and pantaloon, And ruff composed most duly; The squire he dropped his pen full soon, While as the light burnt bluely.

"Ho! Master Sam," quoth Sandys' sprite, "Write on, nor let me scare ye; Forsooth, if rhymes fall in not right, To Budgell seek, or Carey.

"I hear the beat of Jacob's drums, Poor Ovid finds no quarter! See first the merry P—— comes[197] In haste, without his garter.

"Then lords and lordlings, squires and knights, Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers! Garth at St. James's, and at White's, Beats up for volunteers.

"What Fenton will not do, nor Gay, Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan, Tom Burnett or Tom D'Urfey may, John Dunton, Steele, or anyone.

"If Justice Philips' costive head Some frigid rhymes disburses; They shall like Persian tales be read, And glad both babes and nurses.

"Let Warwick's muse with Ashurst join, And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's: Tickell and Addison combine, And Pope translate with Jervas.

"Lansdowne himself, that lively lord, Who bows to every lady, Shall join with Frowde in one accord, And be like Tate and Brady.

"Ye ladies too draw forth your pen, I pray where can the hurt lie? Since you have brains as well as men, As witness Lady Wortley.

"Now, Tonson, 'list thy forces all, Review them, and tell noses; For to poor Ovid shall befall A strange metamorphosis.

"A metamorphosis more strange Than all his books can vapour;" "To what" (quoth squire) "shall Ovid change?" Quoth Sandys: "To waste paper".

[Footnote 197: The Earl of Pembroke, probably.—Roscoe.]



XXXVII. SATIRE ON THE WHIG POETS.

This is practically the whole of Pope's famous Epistle to Arbuthnot, otherwise the Prologue to the Satires. The only portion I have omitted, in order to include in this collection one of the greatest of his satires, is the introductory lines, which are frequently dropped, as the poem really begins with the line wherewith it is represented as opening here.

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence, While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;— I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered,—I was not in debt. If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint. Did some more sober critic come abroad; If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critic some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. Were others angry: I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess? The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown,[198] Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a-year; He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left: And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest satire bade translate, And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.[199] How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe! And swear, not Addison himself was safe. Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:— Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus[200] were he? Who though my name stood rubric on the walls, Or plaistered posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers' load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad?[201] I sought no homage from the race that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded (now be-rhymed so long) No more than thou, great George! a birthday song. I ne'er with wits or witlings passed my days, To spread about the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouthed, and cried, With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole Castillan state. Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo, puffed by every quill;[202] Fed with soft dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand in song. His library (where busts of poets dead And a true Pindar stood without a head), Received of wits an undistinguished race, Who first his judgment asked, and then a place: Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat, And flattered every day, and some days eat: Till grown more frugal in his riper days, He paid some bards with port, and some with praise To some a dry rehearsal was assigned, And others (harder still) he paid in kind, Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh, Dryden alone escaped this judging eye: But still the great have kindness in reserve, He helped to bury whom he helped to starve. May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill! May every Bavias have his Bufo still! So, when a statesman wants a day's defence, Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense, Or simple pride for flattery makes demands, May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands! Blest be the great! for those they take away, And those they left me; for they left me Gay; Left me to see neglected genius bloom, Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb: Of all thy blameless life the sole return My verse, and Queensbury weeping o'er thy urn! Oh, let me live my own, and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do:) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please; Above a patron, though I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend. I was not born for courts or great affairs; I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; Can sleep without a poem in my head; Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. Why am I asked what next shall see the light? Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? "I found him close with Swift"—"Indeed? no doubt," (Cries prating Balbus) "something will come out." 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. No, such a genius never can lie still; And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first lampoon Sir Will,[203] or Bubo[204] makes. Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile, When every coxcomb knows me by my style? Cursed be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress, Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a libel, or who copies out: That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame: Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, And, if he lie not, must at least betray: Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swear,[205] And sees at canons what was never there; Who reads, but with a lust to misapply, Make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie. A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead. Let Sporus[206] tremble— A. What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool, Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool, Not proud, nor servile;—be one poet's praise, That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways: That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same. That not in fancy's maze he wandered long, But stooped to truth, and moralized his song: That not for fame, but virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half-approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laughed at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad; The distant threats of vengeance on his head, The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed; The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown, The imputed trash, and dulness not his own; The morals blackened when the writings scape, The libelled person, and the pictured shape; Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread, A friend in exile, or a father, dead; The whisper, that to greatness still too near, Perhaps, yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear:— Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past; For thee, fair virtue! welcome even the last! A. But why insult the poor, affront the great? P. A knave's a knave, to me, in every state: Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail, A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire; If on a pillory, or near a throne, He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own. Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit; This dreaded satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress; So humble, he has knocked at Tibbald's door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhymed for Moore. Full ten years slandered, did he once reply? Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie. To please a mistress one aspersed his life; He lashed him not, but let her be his wife. Let Budgel charge low Grub Street on his quill, And write whate'er he pleased, except his will. Let the two Curlls of town and court, abuse His father, mother, body, soul, and muse Yet why? that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool: That harmless mother thought no wife a whore: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! Unspotted names, and memorable long! If there be force in virtue, or in song. Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause, While yet in Britain honour had applause) Each parent sprung— A. What fortune, pray?— P. Their own, And better got, than Bestia's from the throne. Born to no pride, inheriting no strife, Nor marrying discord in a noble wife, Stranger to civil and religious rage, The good man walked innoxious through his age, No courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie. Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language, but the language of the heart. By nature honest, by experience wise, Healthy by temperance, and by exercise; His life, though long, to sickness passed unknown, His death was instant, and without a groan. O, grant me, thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I. O, friend! may each domestic bliss be thine! Be no unpleasing melancholy mine: Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky! On cares like these if length of days attend, May heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend, Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene, And just as rich as when he served a queen. A. Whether that blessing be denied or given, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to heaven.

[Footnote 198: Ambrose Philips translated a book called the Persian Tales.]

[Footnote 199: Nahum Tate, the joint-author with Brady of the version of the Psalms.]

[Footnote 200: Addison.]

[Footnote 201: Hopkins, in the 104th Psalm.]

[Footnote 202: Lord Halifax.]

[Footnote 203: Sir William Yonge.]

[Footnote 204: Bubb Dodington.]

[Footnote 205: Meaning the man who would have persuaded the Duke of Chandos that Pope meant to ridicule him in the Epistle on Taste.]

[Footnote 206: Lord Hervey.]



XXXVIII. EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

The following piece represents the first dialogue in the Epilogue to the Satires. Huggins mentioned in the poem was the jailer of the Fleet Prison, who had enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled. Jekyl was Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a man of great probity, who, though a Whig, frequently voted against the Court, which drew on him the laugh here described. Lyttleton was George Lyttleton, Secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished for his writings in the cause of liberty. Written in 1738, and first published in the following year.

Fr[iend].