Gallant and gay, in CHveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring

Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter left of all his store!

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends!

His grace's fate sage Cutler could foresee,
And well (he thought) advised him, 'Live like me!'
As well his grace replied, 'Like you, sir John?
That I can do when all I have is gone.'
Resolve me, reason, which of these is worse,
Want with a full, or with an empty purse?
Thy life more wretched, Cutler, was confess'd,
Arise, and tell me, was thy death more bless'd?
Cutler saw tenants break, and houses fall;
For very want he could not build a wall.
His only daughter in a stranger's power;
For very want he could not pay a dower.
A few gray hairs his reverend temples crown'd;
"Twas very want that sold them for two pound.
What! e'en denied a cordial at his end,
Banish'd the doctor, and expell'd the friend?
What but a want, which you perhaps think mad,
Yet numbers feel, the want of what he had!
Cutler and Brutus dying, both exclaim,

Virtue and wealth! what are ye but a name !' Say, for such worth are other worlds prepared? Or are they both, in this, their own reward?

A knotty point to which we now proceed,
But you are tired-I'll tell a tale-B. Agreed.

P. Where London's column, pointing at the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies,
There dwelt a citizen of sober fame,

A plain good man, and Balaam was his name;
Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth:

His word would pass for more than he was worth.
One solid dish his week-day meal affords,
An added pudding solemnized the Lord's:

320

330

340

Constant at church and 'change; his gains were sure; His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.

The Devil was piqued such saintship to behold,
And long'd to tempt him, like good Job of old;
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
Roused by the prince of air, the whirl-winds sweep
The surge, and plunge his father in the deep;
Then full against his Cornish lands they roar,
And two rich shipwrecks bless the lucky shore.
Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks,
He takes his chirping pint, and cracks his jokes:
'Live like yourself,' was soon my lady's word;
And, lo! two puddings smoked upon the board.
Asleep and naked as an Indian lay,
An honest factor stole a gem away:
He pledged it to the knight; the knight had wit,
So kept the diamond, and the rogue was bit.
Some scruple rose, but thus he eased his thought,
I'll now give sixpence where I gave a groat;
Where once I went to church, I'll now go twice-
And am so clear too of all other vice.'

The tempter saw his time: the work he plied;
Stocks and subscriptions pour on every side,
Till all the demon makes his full descent
In one abundant shower of cent per cent,
Sinks deep within him, and posesses whole,
'Then dubs director, and secures his soul.

Behold sir Balaam, now a man of spirit,
Ascribes his gettings to his parts and merit;
What late he call'd a blessing, now was wit,
And God's good providence, a lucky hit.
Things change their titles, as our manners turn:
His compting-house employ'd the Sunday morn:
Seldom at church ('twas such a busy life),
But duly sent his family and wife.
There (so the devil ordain'd) one Christmas tide
My good old lady catch'd a cold, and died.

A nymph of quality admires our knight;
He marries, bows at court, and grows polite;
Leaves the dull cits, and joins (to please the fair)
The well-bred cuckolds in St. James's air:
First, for his son a gay commission, buys,
Who drinks, whores, fights, and in a duel dies:
His daughter flaunts a viscount's tawdry wife;
She bears a coronet and p-x for life.
In Britain's senate he a seat obtains,
And one more pensioner St. Stephen gains.
My lady falls to play: so bad her chance,
He must repair it; takes a bribe from France;
The house impeach him, Coningsby harangues;
The court forsake him, and sir Balaam hangs:

350

360

370

EPISTLE IV.

TO RICHARD BOYLE,

EARL OF BURLINGTON.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Use of Riches.

400

The vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality. The abuse of the word Taste, ver. 13. That the first principle and foundation in this, as in every thing else, is good sense, ver. 40. The chief proof of it is to follow nature, even in works of mere luxury and elegance. Instanced in architecture and gardening, where all must be adapted to the genius and use of the place, and the beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it, ver. 50. How men are disappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all; and the best examples and rules will be but perverted into something burthensome and ridiculous, ver. 65 to 90. A description of the false taste of magnificence; the first grand error of which is, to imagine that greatness consists in the size and dimension, instead of the proportion and harmony. of the whole, ver. 97, and the second either in joining together parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the repetition of the same too frequently, ver. 105, &c. A word or two of false taste in books, in music, in painting, even in preaching and prayer, and lastly in entertainments, ver. 133, &c. Yet Providence is justified in giving wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the poor and laborious part of mankind, ver. 169. [recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii. and in the Epistle preceding this, ver. 159, &c.] What are the proper objects of magnificence, and a proper field for the expense of great men, ver. 177, &c. And finally the great and public works which become a prince, ver. 191, to the end.

The extremes of avarice and profusion being treated of in the foregoing Epistle; this takes up one particular branch of the latter, the vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality; and is therefore a corollary to the preceding, just as the Epistle on the Characters of Women is to that of the Knowledge and Characters of Men. It is equally remarkable for exactness of method with the rest.. But the nature of the subject, which is less philosophical, makes it capable of being analysed in a much narrower compass.

10

20

A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped;
If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace;
And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility; I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

This saving counsel, 'Keep your piece nine years.'
'Nine years' cries he, who, high in Drury-lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Obliged by hunger and request of friends:

The piece, you think, is incorrect: why take it,
I'm all submission; what you'd have it make it.'
Three things another's modest wishes bound,
My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.
Pitholeon sends to me; You know his grace;
I want a patron; ask him for a place.'
Pitholeon libell'd me- but here's a letter
Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him? Curl invites to dine,
He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine,'
Bless me! a packet. "Tis a stranger sues,
A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.'
If I dislike it, Furies, death, and rage!
If I approve, Commend it to the stage.'

There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The players and I are, luckily, no friends.

Fired that the house reject him, "Sdeath! I'll print it, And shame the fools-your interest, sir, with Lintot.' Lintot, dull ro gue! will think your price too much :' 'Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.' All my demurs but double his attacks: At last he whispers, Do; and we go snacks. Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door, 'Sir, let me see your works and you no more.' 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king), His very minister, who spied them first

(Some say his queen), was forced to speak, or burst.

And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,

When every coxcomb perks them in my face?

Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,
'Just so immortal Maro held his head ;'
And when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Dipp'd me in ink, my parents' or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came;
I left no calling for this idle trade,

No duty broke, no father disobey'd:

The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,
To help me through this long disease, my life;
To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserved to bear.

But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write,
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured, my lays ;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
E'en mitred Rochester would nod the head,
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
With open arms received one poet more.
Happy my studies, when by these approved!
Happier their author, when by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.

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 wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still: Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd, 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 kiss'd 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 Bently down to piddling Tibbalds:

I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings;

Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,

Tis nothing-P. Nothing? if they bite and kick?
Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he's an ass:

The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.

You think this cruel: take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.

Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gallery, in convulsions hurl'd,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribbler? Break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew:

Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again,
Throned on the centre of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arch'd eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colly still his lord and whore ?
His butchers Henly? his free-masons Moore?"
Does not one table Bavins still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?

Still Sappho.-A. Hold; for God's sake-you'll offend,
No names-be calm-learn prudence of a friend:
I too could write, and I am twice as tall;

But foes like these-P. One flatterer's worse than all.
Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right,

It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.

A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent.
One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes:
One from all Grub street will my fame defend,
And, more abusive, calls himself my friend.
This prints my letters, that expects a bribe,
And others roar aloud Subscribe, subscribe !'
There are, who to my person pay their court:
I cough like Horace, and, though lean, am short.
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,
Such Ovid's nose, and, Sir! you have an eye-.'
Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
AV that disgraced my betters met in me.

Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables,
E'en such small critics 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 gruhs, 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 pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown::
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 own'd that nine such poets made a Tate.
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;
Bless'd 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 e'en 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 were he?

What though my name stood rubric on the walls,
Or plaster'd posts, with claps, in capitals?
Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers's load,
On wings of winds came flying all abroad?

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 birth-day song.
I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd 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 mouth'd, and cried,
With handkerchief and orange at my side:
But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,
To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,
Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand and hand in song.
His library (where busts of poets dead,
And a true Pindar stood without a head)
Received of wits an undistinguish'd race,
Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a place;
Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his seat,
And flatter'd 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 assign'd,

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 help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.

May some choice patron bless each grey-goose quill!
May every Bavius 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.
Bless'd 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 Queensberry 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 ask'd 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

'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 or Bubo 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 shew 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,
And sees at Canons what was never there;

Who reads but with a lust to misapply,
Makes 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 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 express'd
A cherub's face, and 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 foo!,
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, e'en to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd 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:
Laugh'd 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 blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libell'd 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 e'en the last!

A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?
P. A knave's a knave's 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 knock'd at Tibbald's door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhymed for Moore Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply? Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie. To please a mistress one aspersed his life; He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife: Let Budgell 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?