English Satires Part 20

'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 c.o.xcomb 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 l.u.s.t 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 a.s.s's milk?

Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?

Who breaks a b.u.t.terfly 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 s.m.u.t, 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 ant.i.thesis.

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 d.a.m.ning critic, half-approving wit, The c.o.xcomb 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 j.a.phet 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 wh.o.r.e: 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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.]

x.x.xVIII. 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_]. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print, And when it comes, the court see nothing in 't.

You grow correct, that once with rapture writ, And are, besides, too moral for a wit.

Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel-- Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?

'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye Said, "Tories called him Whig, and Whigs a Tory"; And taught his Romans, in much better metre, "To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter".

But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice; Bubo observes, he lashed no sort of vice: Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, Huggins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the s.e.x, In reverend bishops note some small neglects, And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king.

His sly, polite, insinuating style Could please at court, and make Augustus smile: An artful manager, that crept between His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.

But 'faith your very friends will soon be sore: Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more-- And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought The great man never offered you a groat.

Go see Sir Robert-- P[_ope_]. See Sir Robert!--hum-- And never laugh--for all my life to come?

Seen him I have, but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power; Seen him, unc.u.mbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe.

Would he oblige me? let me only find, He does not think me what he thinks mankind.

Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt; The only difference is, I dare laugh out.

_F_. Why yes: with Scripture still you may be free: A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty; A joke on Jekyl, or some odd old Whig Who never changed his principle or wig.

A patriot is a fool in every age, Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage: These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still, And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.

If any ask you, "Who's the man, so near His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?"

Why, answer, Lyttleton, and I'll engage The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage; But were his verses vile, his whisper base, You'd quickly find him in Lord f.a.n.n.y's case.

Seja.n.u.s, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury,[207]

But well may put some statesmen in a fury.

Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes; These you but anger, and you mend not those.

Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore, So much the better, you may laugh the more.

To vice and folly to confine the jest, Sets half the world, G.o.d knows, against the rest; Did not the sneer of more impartial men At sense and virtue, balance all again.

Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule, And charitably comfort knave and fool.

_P_. Dear sir, forgive the prejudice of youth: Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth!

Come, harmless characters, that no one hit; Come, Henley's oratory, Osborne's wit!

The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue, The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Yonge!

The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence, And all the well-whipped cream of courtly sense, That first was H----vy's, F----'s next, and then The S----te's and then H----vy's once again.[208]

O come, that easy Ciceronian style, So Latin, yet so English all the while, As, though the pride of Middleton[209] and Bland, All boys may read, and girls may understand!

Then might I sing, without the least offence, And all I sung shall be the nation's sense; Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn, Hang the sad verse on Carolina's[210] urn, And hail her pa.s.sage to the realms of rest, All parts performed, and all her children blest!

So--satire is no more--I feel it die-- No gazetteer more innocent than I-- And let, a' G.o.d's name, every fool and knave Be graced through life, and flattered in his grave.

_F_. Why so? if satire knows its time and place, You still may lash the greatest--in disgrace: For merit will by turns forsake them all; Would you know when? exactly when they fall.

But let all satire in all changes spare Immortal Selkirk[211], and grave De----re.

Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven, All ties dissolved and every sin forgiven, These may some gentle ministerial wing Receive, and place for ever near a king!

There, where no pa.s.sion, pride, or shame transport, Lulled with the sweet nepenthe of a court; There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace Once break their rest, or stir them from their place: But pa.s.sed the sense of human miseries, All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes; No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb, Save when they lose a question, or a job.

_P_. Good heaven forbid, that I should blast their glory, Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory, And, when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vext, Considering what a gracious prince was next.

Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings; And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret, Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt?[212]

Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?