From no trim beaux its name it boasts,
Grey statesmen or green wits;
But from this pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old "cats" and young "kits."
Pope.-SINCE my old friend is grown so great
As to be Minister of State,
I'm told, but 'tis not true, I hope,
That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope.
Craggs.-Alas! if I am such a creature
To grow the worse for growing greater;
Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,
'Tis Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.
ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES,
MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?
'Twas friendship warm as Phoebus, kind as love,
And strong as Hercules.
PROLOGUE DESIGNED FOR MR. D'URFEY'S
LAST PLAY.
FIRST PUBLISHED IN POPE AND SWIFT'S MISCELLANIES.
GROWN old in rhyme, 'twere barbarous to discard
Your persevering, unexhausted bard:
Damnation follows death in other men;
But your damned poet lives, and writes again.
The adventurous lover is successful still,
Who strives to please the fair against her will;
Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,
Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.*
He scorned to borrow from the wits of yore;
But ever writ, as none e'er writ before.
You modern wits, should each man bring his claim,
Have desperate debentures on your fame;
And little would be left you, I'm afraid,
If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.
From his deep fund our author largely draws;
Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.
Though plays for honour in old time he made,
"Tis now for better reasons-to be paid.
Believe him, he has known the world too long,
And seen the death of much immortal song.
He says, poor poets lost, while players won,
As pimps grow rich, while gallants are undone.
Though Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,
The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.
Fame is at best an unperforming cheat;
But 'tis substantial happiness to eat.
Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,
Nor force him to be damned to get his living.
TO A PLAY FOR MR. DENNIS'S BENEFIT IN 1733, WHEN HE WAS OLD, BLIND, AND IN GREAT DISTRESS, A LITTLE BEFORE HIS DEATH.1
As when that hero, who in each campaign,
Had braved the Goth, and many a vandal slain,
1 Dennis being much distressed very near the close of his life, it was proposed to act a play for his benefit: and Thomson, Mallet, Benjamin Martin, and Pope took the lead upon the occasion. The play, which was the Provoked Husband (by Vanbrugh and Cibber), was represented at the Haymarket, Dec. 18, 1733;
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!
Wept by each friend, forgiven by every foe:
Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,
But pitied Belisarius old and blind?
Was there a chief but melted at the sight?
A common soldier, but who clubbed his mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
When pressed by want and weakness Dennis lies;
Dennis, who long had warred with modern Huns,
Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns;
A desperate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce
Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse:
How changed from him who made the boxes groan,
And shook the stage with thunders all his own!
Stood up to dash each vain pretender's hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the Pope!
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn:
If there's a critic of distinguished rage;
If there's a senior, who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend,
And be the critic's, Briton's, old man's friend.
MACER: A CHARACTER.
WHEN Simple Macer, now of high renown,
First fought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all the ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
and Pope condescended so far as to lay aside his resentment against his former antagonist as to write a prologue, which was spoken by Theophilus Cibber the laureate's son)—Geneste, English Stage, vol. iii., p. 318.
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these he ventured on the town,
And with a borrowed play out-did poor Crown.
There he stopped short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little;
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.
So some coarse country wench, almost decayed,
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay;
She flatters her good lady twice a day;
Thought wondrous honest, though of mean degree,
And strangely liked for her simplicity:
In a translated suit, then tries the town,
With borrowed pins, and patches not her own:
But just endured the winter she began,
And in four months a battered Harridan.
Now nothing left, but withered, pale, and shrunk,
To bawd for others, and go shares with Punk.
CLOSE to the best known author Umbra sits,
The constant index to all Button's wits.
"Who's here?" cries Umbra: "only Johnson," "Oh!
Your slave," and exit; but returns with Rowe:
"Dear Rowe, let's sit and talk of tragedies :"
Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies.
Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel,
And in a moment fastens upon Steele ;
But cries as soon, "Dear Dick, I must be gone,
For, if I know his tread, here's Addison."
Says Addison to Steele, ""Tis time to go;"
Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.
Poor Umbra left in this abandoned pickle,
E'en sets him down, and writes to honest T▬▬
Fool! 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam;
Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.
TO MR. JOHN MOORE,
AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM POWDER.
From the Miscellanies.
How much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceived by shows and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All human-kind are worms.
Man is a very worm by birth,
Vile, reptile, weak, and vain!
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.
That woman is a worm, we find
E'er since our grandam's evil;
She first conversed with her own kind,
That ancient worm, the devil.
The learned themselves we book-worms name,
The blockhead is a slow-worm ;
The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
Is aptly termed a glow-worm :
The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;
First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.
The flatterer an ear-wig grows;
Thus worms suit all conditions ;
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