ADDRESSED TO ABP. KING. 1718.
IRTUE conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best :
But never fhall the Mufe endure
To let your virtues lie obfcure,
Or fuffer Envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breaft all wifdom lies,
Either to govern or advife ;
Your fteady foul preferves her frame
In good and evil times the fame.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud
Stand in your facred prefence aw'd;
Your hand alone from gold abftains,
Which drags the flavifh world in chains.
Him for a happy man I own,
Whofe fortune is not overgrown;
And happy he, who wifely knows
To ufe the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the Powers Divine,
Can fuffer want, and not repine.
The man, who infamy to fhun
Into the arms of death would run,
That man is ready to defend
With life his country or his friend.
To Mr. DELANY, Nov. 10, 1718.
To you, whofe virtues, I muft own
With fhame, I have too lately known ;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have fought,
Had not ill Fate, perverse and blind,
Plac'd you in life too far behind;
Or, what I should repine at more,
Plac'd me in life too far before :
Το you the Mufe this verfe bestows,
Which might as well have been in profé;
No thought, no fancy, no fublime,
But fimple topicks told in rhyme.
Talents for converfation fit,
Are humour, breeding, fenfe, and wit:
The laft, as boundless as the wind,
Is well conceiv'd, though not defin'd:
For, fure, by wit is chiefly meant
Applying well what we invent.
What humour is, not all the tribe
Of logick-mongers can defcribe;
Here nature only acts her part,'
Unhelp'd by practice, books, or art:
For wit and humour differ quite;
That gives furprize, and this delight.
Humour is odd, grotesque, and wild,
Only by affectation spoil'd
'Tis never by invention got,
Men have it when they know it not.
Our converfation to refine,
Humour and wit muft both combine :
From both we learn to railly well,
Wherein fometimes the French excel.
Voiture, in various lights, displays
That irony which turns to praise :
His genius first found out the rule
For an obliging ridicule :
He flatters with peculiar air
The brave, the witty, and the fair ::
And fools would fancy he intends
A fatire, where he most commends.
But, as a poor pretending beau,
Because he fain would make a fhow,
Nor can arrive at filver lace,
Takes up with copper in the place :
So the pert dunces of mankind,
Whene'er they would be thought refin'd,
As if the difference lay abstruse
"Twixt raillery and grofs abuse;
To fhew their parts, will fcold and rail,
Like porters o'er a pot of ale.
Such is that clan of boisterous bears, 'qi
Always together by the ears;
Shrewd fellows and arch wags, a tribe
That meet for nothing but a gibe;
Who first run one another down,
And then fall foul on all the town;
Skill'd in the horse-laugh and dry rub,
And call'd by excellence The Club.
I mean your Butler, Dawson, Car,
All fpecial friends, and always jar.
The mettled and the vicious fteed
'Differ as little in their breed;
Nay, Voiture is as like Tom Leigh
As rudeness is to repartee.
If what you faid I wish unspoke,
'Twill not fuffice, it was a joke:
Reproach not, though in jeft, a friend
For those defects he cannot mend;
His lineage, calling, fhape, or fenfe,
If nam'd with fcorn, gives just offence.
What use in life to make men fret,
Part in worse humour than they met ?
Thus all fociety is loft,
Men laugh at one another's coft;
And half the company is teaz'd,
That came together to be pleas'd:
For all buffoons have most in view
To please themselves by vexing you..
You wonder now to fee me write
So gravely on a fubject light;
Some part of what I here defign
Regards a friend of your's and mine ;
Who, neither void of fenfe nor wit,
Yet feldom judges what is fit,
But fallies oft' beyond his bounds,
And takes unmeafurable rounds.
When jefts are carried on too far,
And the loud laugh begins the war,
You keep your countenance for fhame,
Yet ftill you think your friend to blame :
For, though men cry they love a jest,
"Tis but when others ftand the reft;
And (would you have their meaning known)
They love a jeft that is their own.
You must, although the point be nice,
Bestow your friend fome good advice :
One hint from you will fet him right,
And teach him how to be polite.
Bid him, like you, obferve with care,
Whom to be hard on, whom to fpare;
Nor indiftin&tly to suppose
All fubjects like Dan Jackson's nose *.
To ftudy the obliging jeft,
By reading those who teach it beft;
For profe I recommend Voiture's,
For verfe (I fpeak my judgement) yours.
He'll find the fecret out from thence,
To rhyme all day without offence;
And I no more fhall then accuse
The flirts of his ill-manner'd Mufe.
If he be guilty, you must mend him ;
If he be innocent, defend him.
* Which was afterwards the fubject of feveral poems
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