Why risk the world's great empire for a Punk?1
Cæsar perhaps might answer he was drunk.
But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove
One action conduct; one, heroic love.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn ;
A saint in crape 2 is twice a saint in lawn;
A judge is just, a chancellor juster still;
A gownman, learned; a bishop, what you will;
Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
More wise, more learned, more just, more everything. 140
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heaven's iufluence scarce can penetrate:
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Though the same sun with all-diffusive rays
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his power,
And justly set the gem above the flower.
'Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire;
The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar;
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave;
Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave:
Is he a churchman? then he's fond of power:
A Quaker? sly: a Presbyterian? sour:
A smart free-thinker? all things in an hour.
Ask men's opinions: Scoto 3 now shall tell
2 I.e. in the gown of an ordinary clergyman.
3 In the first edition: "J- -n now shall tell;" meaning perhaps Johnston, the Scottish secretary,
at Twickenham.-Carruthers.
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his pension, by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
That gay free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid silent dunce?
Some god, or spirit he has lately found:
Or chanced to meet a minister that frowned.
Judge we by nature? habit can efface,
Interest o'ercome, or policy take place:
By actions? those uncertainty divides:
By passions? these dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range :
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
Search then the ruling passion: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clue once found, unravels all the rest,
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest.1
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise:
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him or he dies;
Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke.
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new?
1 Philip, Duke of Wharton, after a life of dissipation and adventure, died in the year 1731 in a Spanish convent, in the habit of the
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too.1
Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the same spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough if all around him but admire,
And now the punk applaud, and now the friar.
Thus with each gift of nature and of art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart;
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt;
And most contemptible, to shun contempt:
His passion still, to covet general praise,
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A constant bounty which no friend has made;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;
A fool, with more of wit than half mankind,
Too rash for thought, for action too refined:
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves ;
A rebel to the very king he loves;
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule?
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.
Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.
Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake,
If second qualities for first they take.
When Catiline by rapine swelled his store;
When Cæsar made a noble dame 2 a whore;
In this the lust, in that the avarice
Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice.
1 John Wilmot, E. of Rochester, famous for his wit and extra
vagancies in the time of Charles the Second.
Servilia, the sister of Cato, and the mother of Brutus.
That very Cæsar, born in Scipio's days,
Had aimed, like him, by chastity at praise.
Lucullus, when frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm.
In vain the observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.
In this one passion man can strength enjoy,
As fits give vigour, just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest nature ends as she begins.
Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earnest; and as gravely out,
As sober Lanesborough1 dancing in the gout.
Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed
By his own son, that passes by unblessed:
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he sees.
A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor called, declares all help too late :
"Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul!
Is there no hope?—Alas !—then bring the jowl."
The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,
1 An ancient nobleman, who continued this practice long after his legs were disabled by the gout. Upon the death of Prince George of Denmark, he demanded an audience of the Queen, to advise her to preserve her health, and dispel her grief by dancing.
For one puff more, and in that puff expires.1
"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke," (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke) 2 "No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face: One would not, sure, be frightful when one's deadAnd-Betty-give this cheek a little red."
The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined
An humble servant to all human kind,
Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, "If-where I'm going-I could serve you, sir?"
"I give and I devise" (old Euclio said, And sighed) "my lands and tenements to Ned.” "Your money, sir;" "My money, sir, what, all? Why,—if I must-(then wept) I give it Paul." "The manor, sir?"-" The manor! hold," he cried, "Not that, I cannot part with that "—and died. 261 And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death:
Such in those moments as in all the past,
Oh, save my country, heaven! shall be your last.
1 A fact told him by Lady Bolingbroke, of an old countess at Paris. Warburton.
2 This story, as well as the others, is founded on fact, though the author had the goodness not to mention the names. Several attribute this in particular to a very celebrated actress, who, in detestation of the thought of being buried in woollen, gave these her last orders with her dying breath. According to Warton, the actress in question was the famous Mrs, Oldfield,
|