fatire is particularly fhown, in common-places; and drawing in as many vices, as could naturally fall into the compafs of it.
GRIEV'D though I am an ancient friend to lose,
I like the folitary feat he chofe:
In quiet Cumæ fixing his repofe:
Where far from noisy Rome secure he lives,
And one more citizen to Sibyl gives.
The road to Bajæ, and that soft recess
Which all the gods with all their bounty bless.
Though I in Prochyta with greater ease
Could live, than in a street of palaces.
What fcenes fo defert, or fo full of fright,
As towering houfes tumbling in the night,
And Rome on fire beheld by its own blazing light?
But worse than all the clattering tiles, and worse
Than thousand padders, is the poet's curse.
Rogues that in dog-days cannot rhime forbear:
But without mercy read, and make you hear.
Now while my friend, just ready to depart,
Was packing all his goods in one poor cart;
He ftop'd a little at the Conduit-gate,
Where Numa model'd once the Roman-state,
In mighty councils with his nymph retir'd
Though now the facred fhades and founts are hir'd
By banish'd Jews, who their whole wealth can lay
In a small basket, on a wifp of hay;
Yet fuch our avarice is, that every tree
vs for his head; nor fleep itself is free;
Nor place, nor perfons, now are facred held,
From their own grove the Muses are expell'd.
Into this lonely vale our fteps we bend,
I and my fullen difcontented friend:
The marble caves, and aquæducts, we view;
But how adulterate now, and different from the true!
How much more beauteous had the fountain been
Embellish'd with her first created green,
Where crystal streams through living turf had run,
Contented with an urn of native ftone!
Then thus Umbritius (with an angry frown,
And looking back on this degenerate town,)
Since noble arts in Rome have no support,
And ragged virtue not a friend at court,
No profit rifes from th' ungrateful stage,
My poverty encreafing with my age,
'Tis time to give my just disdain a vent,
And, curfing, leave fo bafe a government.
Where Dedalus his borrow'd wings laid by,
To that obfcure retreat I chufe to fly :
While yet few furrows on my face are seen,
While I walk upright, an old age is green,
And Lachefis has somewhat left to spin.
Now, now, 'tis time to quit this curfed place,
And hide from villains my too honest face :
Here let Arturius live, and fuch as he :
Such manners will with fuch a town agree.
Knaves, who in full aflemblies have the knack
Of turning truth to lies, and white to black;
Can hire large houfes, and opprefs the poor
By farm'd excife; can cleanse the common-fhore ;
And rent the fishery; can bear the dead;
And teach their eyes diffembled tears to fhed,
All this for gain; for gain they fell their very head.
These fellows (fee what fortune's power can do)
Were once the minstrels of a country fhow:
Follow'd the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet-cheeks and bloated faces known.
But now, grown rich, on drunken holidays,
At their own cofts exhibit public plays :
Where, influenc'd by the rabble's bloody will,
With thumbs bent back, they popularly kill.
From thence return'd, their fordid avarice rakes
In excrements again, and hires the jakes.
Why hire they not the town, not every thing,
Since fuch as they have fortune in a string?
Who, for her pleasure, can her fools advance;
And tofs them topmoft on the wheel of chance.
What 's Rome to me, what business have I there,
I who can neither lie, nor falfely fwear?
Nor praise my patron's undeferving rhymes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times;
"Unfkill'd in schemes by planets to foreshow,
Like canting rascals, how the wars will go :
I neither will, nor can prognofticate
To the young gaping heir, his father's fate :
Nor in the intrails of a toad have pry'd,
Nor carry'd bawdy presents to a bride :
For want of these town-virtues, thus, alone,
I go conducted on my way by none;
Like a dead member from the body rent;
Maim'd, and unufeful to the government.
Who now is lov'd, but he who loves the times,
Conscious of close intrigues, and dipt in crimes;
Labouring with fecrets which his bofom burn,
Yet never must to public light return?
They get reward alone who can betray:
For keeping honeft counfels none will pay.
He who can Verres, when he will, accuse,
The purse of Verres may at pleasure use:
But let not all the gold which Tagus hides,
And pays the fea in tributary tides,
Be bribe fufficient to corrupt the breaft;
Or violate with dreams thy peaceful rest.
Great men with jealous eyes the friend behold,
Whofe fecrecy they purchase with their gold.
I hafte to tell thee, nor fhall fhame oppofe
What confidence our wealthy Romans chofe :
And whom I, most abhor: to speak my mind,
I hate, in Rome, a Grecian town to find:
To fee the fcum of Greece transplanted here,
Receiv'd like gods, is what I cannot bear.
Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound,
Obscene Orontes, diving under ground,
Conveys his wealth to Tyber's hungry fhores,
And fattens Italy with foreign whores :
Hither their crooked harps and customs come:
All find receipt in hofpitable Rome.
The barbarous harlots crowd the public place :
Go, fools, and purchase an unclean embrace :
The painted mitre court, and the more painted face.
Old Romulus, and father Mars, look down,
Your herdfman primitive, your homely clown,
Is turn'd a beau in a loose tawdry gown.
His once unkem'd and horrid locks behold
Stilling fweet oil: his neck inchain'd with gold:
Aping the foreigners in every drefs;
Which, bought at greater coft, becomes him lefs.
Meantime they wifely leave their native land,
From Sycion, Samos, and from Alaband,
And Amydon, to Rome they fwarm in shoals:
So fweet and easy is the gain from fools.
Poor refugees at first, they purchase here:
And, foon as denizen'd, they domineer.
Grow to the great, a flattering fervile rout:
Work themselves inward, and their patrons out.
Quick-witted, brazen-fac'd, with fluent tongues,
Patient of labours, and diffembling wrongs.
Riddle me this, and guefs him if you can,
Who bears a nation in a single man ?
A cook, a conjurer, a rhetorician,
A painter, pedant, a geometrician,
A dancer on the ropes, and a physician.
All things the hungry Greek exactly knows :
And bid him go to heaven, to heaven he goes.
In short, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But in that town which arms and arts adorn,
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