By which himself was taught to rise:
When he has virtue to retire,
He'll grieve he did not raise you higher,
And place you in a better station,
Although it might have pleased the nation.
This may be true-submitting still
To Walpole's more than royal will;
And what condition can be worse?
He comes to drain a beggar's purse;
He comes to tie our chains on faster,
And show us England is our master:
Caressing knaves, and dunces wooing,
To make them work their own undoing.
What has he else to bait his traps,
Or bring his vermin in, but scraps?
The offals of a church distrest;
A hungry vicarage at best;
Or some remote inferior post,
With forty pounds a-year at most?
But here again you interpose-
Your favourite lord is none of those
Who owe their virtues to their stations,
And characters to dedications:
For, keep him in, or turn him out,
His learning none will call in doubt;
His learning, though a poet said it
Before a play, would lose no credit;
Nor Pope would dare deny him wit,
Although to praise it Philips writ.
I own he hates an action base,
His virtues battling with his place:
Nor wants a nice discerning spirit
Betwixt a true and spurious merit;
Can sometimes drop a voter's claim,
And give up party to his fame.
I do the most that friendship can;
I hate the viceroy, love the man.
But you, who, till your fortune's made,
Must be a sweetener by your trade,
Should swear he never meant us ill;
We suffer sore against his will;
That, if we could but see his heart,
He would have chose a milder part:
We rather should lament his case,
Who must obey, or lose his place.
Since this reflection slipt your pen,
Insert it when you write again;
And, to illustrate it, produce
This simile for his excuse:
So, to destroy a guilty land
An angel sent by Heaven's command,
While he obeys Almighty will,
Perhaps may feel compassion still;
And wish the task had been assign'd
To spirits of less gentle kind."
But I, in politics grown old,
Whose thoughts are of a different mould,
Who from my soul sincerely hate
Both kings and ministers of state;
Who look on courts with stricter eyes
To see the seeds of vice arise;
Can lend you an allusion fitter,
Though flattering knaves may call it bitter;
Which, if you durst but give it place,
Would show you many a statesman's face:
Fresh from the tripod of Apollo,
I had it in the words that follow:
Take notice to avoid offence,
I here except his excellence:
"So, to effect his monarch's ends,
From hell a viceroy devil ascends;
His budget with corruptions cramm'd,
The contributions of the damn'd;
Which with unsparing hand he strews
Through courts and senates as he goes;
And then at Beelzebub's black hall,
Complains his budget was too small."
Your simile may better shine
In verse, but there is truth in mine.
1 "So when an angel by divine command," etc.
For no imaginable things
Can differ more than gods and kings:
And statesmen, by ten thousand odds,
Are angels just as kings are gods.
ON THE LIBELS WRITTEN AGAINST HIM. 1729
-Tanti tibi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi quodque in mare volvitur aurum.—Juv. iii, 54.
S some raw youth in country bred,
To arms by thirst of honour led,
When at a skirmish first he hears
The bullets whistling round his ears,
Will duck his head aside, will start,
And feel a trembling at his heart,
Till 'scaping oft without a wound
Lessens the terror of the sound;
Fly bullets now as thick as hops,
He runs into a cannon's chops.
An author thus, who pants for fame,
Begins the world with fear and shame;
When first in print you see him dread
Each pop-gun levell'd at his head:
The lead yon critic's quill contains,
Is destined to beat out his brains:
As if he heard loud thunders roll,
Cries, Lord have mercy on his soul!
Concluding that another shot
Will strike him dead upon the spot.
But, when with squibbing, flashing, popping,
He cannot see one creature dropping;
That, missing fire, or missing aim,
His life is safe, I mean his fame;
The danger past, takes heart of grace,
And looks a critic in the face.
Though splendour gives the fairest mark
To poison'd arrows in the dark,
Yet, in yourself when smooth and round,
They glance aside without a wound.
'Tis said, the gods tried all their art,
How pain they might from pleasure part:
But little could their strength avail;
Both still are fasten'd by the tail;
Thus fame and censure with a tether
By fate are always link'd together.
Why will you aim to be preferr'd
In wit before the common herd;
And yet grow mortified and vex'd,
To pay the penalty annex'd?
'Tis eminence makes envy rise;
As fairest fruits attract the flies.
Should stupid libels grieve your mind,
You soon a remedy may find;
Lie down obscure like other folks
Below the lash of snarlers' jokes.
Their faction is five hundred odds,
For every coxcomb lends them rods,
And sneers as learnedly as they,
Like females o'er their morning tea.
You say the Muse will not contain
And write you must, or break a vein.
Then, if you find the terms too hard,
No longer my advice regard:
But raise your fancy on the wing;
The Irish senate's praises sing;
How jealous of the nation's freedom,
And for corruptions how they weed 'em;
How each the public good pursues,
How far their hearts from private views;
Make all true patriots, up to shoe-boys,
Huzza their brethren at the Blue-boys;'
Thus grown a member of the club,
No longer dread the rage of Grub.
How oft am I for rhyme to seek!
The Irish Parliament met at the Blue-Boys Hospital, while the new Parliament-house was building.-Swift.
To dress a thought I toil a week:
And then how thankful to the town,
If all my pains will earn a crown!
While every critic can devour
My work and me in half an hour.
Would men of genius cease to write,
The rogues must die for want and spite;
Must die for want of food and raiment,
If scandal did not find them payment.
How cheerfully the hawkers cry
A satire, and the gentry buy!
While my hard-labour'd poem pines
Unsold upon the printer's lines.
A genius in the reverend gown
Must ever keep its owner down;
'Tis an unnatural conjunction,
And spoils the credit of the function.
Round all your brethren cast your eyes,
Point out the surest men to rise;
That club of candidates in black,
The least deserving of the pack,
Aspiring, factious, fierce, and loud,
With grace and learning unendow'd,
Can turn their hands to every job,
The fittest tools to work for Bob;'
Will sooner coin a thousand lies,
Than suffer men of parts to rise;
They crowd about preferment's gate,
And press you down with all their weight;
For as of old mathematicians
Were by the vulgar thought magicians;
So academic dull ale-drinkers
Pronounce all men of wit free-thinkers.
Wit, as the chief of virtue's friends,
Disdains to serve ignoble ends.
Observe what loads of stupid rhymes
Oppress us in corrupted times;
What pamphlets in a court's defence
Show reason, grammar, truth, or sense?
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