Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And mifs the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accouter'd, are they feen,
And made the may-game of the public spleen?
Proceed, my friend, and rail; but hear me tell
A ftory, which is just thy parallel.
A fpark, like thee, of the man-killing trade,
Fell fick, and thus to his phyfician faid:
Methinks I am not right in every part;
I feel a kind of trembling at my heart :
My pulfe unequal, and my breath is ftrong;
Befides a filthy fur upon my tongue.
The doctor heard him, exercis'd his fkill:
And, after, bid him for four days be fill.
Three days he took good counfel, and began
To mend, and look like a recovering man:
The fourth, he could not hold from drink; but fends
His boy to one of his old trusty friends:
Adjuring him, by all the powers divine,
To pity his diftrefs, who could not dine
Without a flaggon of his healing wine.
He drinks a fwilling draught; and, lin'd within,
Will fupple in the bath his outward skin :
Whom should he find but his physician there,
Who, wifely, bade him once again beware.
Sir, you look wan, you hardly draw your breath;
Drinking is dangerous, and the bath is death.
'Tis nothing, fays the fool: but, fays the friend,
This nothing, Sir, will bring you to your end,
Do I not fee your dropsy belly swell?
Your yellow fkin ?—No more of that; I'm well.
I have already bury'd two or three
That stood betwixt a fair estate and me,
And, doctor, I may live to bury thee.
Thou tell'ft me, I look ill; and thou look’ft worse.
I've done, fays the physician; take your course.
The laughing fot, like all unthinking men,
Bathes and gets drunk; then bathes and drinks again:
His throat half throttled with corrupted phlegm,
And breathing through his jaws a belching steam:
Amidft his cups with fainting skivering seiz'd,
His limbs disjointed, and all o'er diseas'd,
His hand refuses to fuftain the bowl:
And his teeth chatter, and his eye-balls roH:
Till, with his meat, he vomits out his foul:
Then trumpets, torches, and a tedious crew
Of hireling mourners, for his funeral due.
Our dear departed brother lies in state,
His heels ftretch'd out, and pointing to the gate :
And flaves, now manumiz'd, on their dead master
They hoist him on the bier, and deal the dole:
And there's an end of a luxurious fool.
But what 's thy fulfome parable to me?
My body is from all diseases free :
My temperate pulse does regularly beat;
Feel, and be fatisfy'd, my hands and feet :
These are not cold, nor those opprest with heat.
Or lay thy hand upon my naked heart,
And thou shalt find me hale in every part.
grant this true: but, ftill, the deadly wound
Is in thy foul; 'tis there thou art not found.
Say, when thou seeft a heap of tempting gold,
Or a more tempting harlot dost behold;
Then, when the cafts on thee. a fide-long glance,
Then try thy heart, and tell me if it dance.
Some coarfe cold fallad is before thee fet;
Bread with the bran, perhaps, and broken meat;
Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat.
These are not difhes for thy dainty tooth:
What, haft thou got an ulcer in thy mouth?
Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy pallat fore?
That bete and radishes will make thee roar?
Such is th' unequal temper of thy mind;
Thy paffions in extremes, and unconfin'd:
Thy hair fo briftles with umanly fears,
As fields of corn, that rife in bearded ears.
And, when thy cheeks with flushing fury glow,
The rage of boiling caldrons is more flow;
When fed with fuel and with flames below.
With foam upon thy lips and sparkling eyes,
Thou fay'ft, and doft, in fuch outrageous wife;
That mad Oreftes, if he faw the show,
Would fwear thou wert the madder of the two.
ARGUMENT.
OUR author has made two satires concerning ftudy; the first and the third: the firft related to men; this to young ftudents, whom he defired to be educated in the ftoick philofophy: he himself sustains the perfon of the mafter, or præceptor, in this admirable fatire; where he upbraids the youth of floth, and negligence in learning. Yet he begins with one scholar reproaching his fellow-students with late rifing to their books. After which he takes upon him the other part of the teacher. And addreffing himself particularly to young noblemen, tells them, that by reason of their high birth, and the great poffeffions of their fathers, they are careless of adorning their minds with precepts of moral philofophy: and withal, inculcates to them the miferies which will attend them in the whole course of their life, if they do not apply themselves betimes to the knowledge of virtue, and the end of
their creation, which he pathetically infinuates to them. The title of this fatire, in fome ancient manuscripts, was. "The Reproach of Idleness ;"' though in others of the fcholiafts it is infcribed, "Against the Luxury and Vices of the Rich." In both of which the intention of the poet is pursued ; but principally in the former..
[I remember I tranflated this fatire, when I was a King's scholar at Westminster-school, for a Thurfday-night's exercife; and believe that it, and many other of my exercifes of this nature, in English verse, are ftill in the hands of my learned mafter, the reverend Doctor Busby.].
S this thy daily courfe? The glaring fun
Breaks in at every chink: the cattle run
To fhades, and noon-tide rays of fummer-fhun,
Yet plung'd in sloth we lie; and snore supine,
As fill'd with fumes of indigested wine.
This grave advice fome fober ftudent bears;
And loudly rings it in his fellow's ears.
The yawning youth', fcarce half awake, effays
His lazy limbs and dozy head to raise :
Then rubs his gummy eyes, and scrub's his pate;
And cries, I thought it had not been fo late:
My cloaths make hafte: why then! if none be near,
He mutters first, and then begins to fwear:
And brays aloud, with a more clamorous note,
Than an Arcadian afs can ftretch his throat.
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