His heart too great, though fortune little,
To lick a rascal statesman's spittle;
Appealing to the nation's taste,
Above the reach of want is plac'd:
By Homer dead was taught to thrive,
Which Homer never could alive;
And sits aloft on Pindus' head,
Despising slaves that cringe for bread.
True politicians only pay
For solid work, but not for play:
Nor ever choose to work with tools
Forg'd up in colleges and schools.
Consider how much more is due
To all their journeymen than you:
At table you can Horace quote;
They at a pinch can bribe a vote:
You show your skill in Grecian story;
But they can manage whig and tory:
You, as a critic, are so curious
To find a verse in Virgil spurious;
But they can smoke the deep designs,
When Bolingbroke with Pulteney dines.
Besides, your patron may upbraid ye,
That you have got a place already;
An office for your talents fit,
To flatter, carve, and show your wit;
To snuff the lights and stir the fire,
And get a dinner for your hire.
What claim have you to place or pension?
He overpays in condescension.
But, reverend doctor, you we know
Could never condescend so low;
The viceroy, whom you now attend,
Would, if he durst, be more your friend;
Nor will in you those gifts despise,
By which himself was taught to rise:
When he has virtue to retire,
He'll grieve he did not raise you higher,
And place you in a better station,
Although it might have pleas'd the nation.
This may be true-submitting still
To Walpole's more than royal will;
And what condition can be worse?
He comes to drain a beggar's purse;
He comes to tie our chains on faster,
And show us England is our master:
Caressing knaves, and dunces wooing,
To make them work their own undoing.
What has he else to bait his traps,
Or bring his vermin in, but scraps?
The offals of a church distrest;
A hungry vicarage at best;
Or some remote inferior post,
With forty pounds a year at most?
But here again you interpose-
Your favourite lord is none of those
Who owe their virtues to their stations,
And characters to dedications:
For, keep him in, or turn him out,
His learning none will call in doubt;
His learning, though a poet said it
Before a play, would lose no credit;
Nor Pope would dare deny him wit,
Although to praise it Philips writ.
I own, he hates an action base,
His virtues battling with his place;
Nor wants a nice discerning spirit
Betwixt a true and spurious merit;
Can sometimes drop a voter's claim,
And give up party to his fame.
I do the most that friendship can;
I hate the viceroy, love the man.
But you, who, till your fortune's made,
Must be a sweetener by your trade,
Should swear he never meant us ill;
We suffer sore against his will;
That, if we could but see his heart,
He would have chose a milder part:
We rather should lament his case,
Who must obey, or lose his place. '
Since this reflection slipt your pen,
Insert it when you write again;
And, to illustrate it, produce
This simile for his excuse:
"So to destroy a guilty land
An angel sent by Heaven's command,
While he obeys almighty will,
Perhaps may feel compassion still;
And wish the task had been assign'd
To spirits of less gentle kind."
But I, in politics grown old,
Whose thoughts are of a different mould,
Who from my soul sincerely hate
Both kings and ministers of state;
Who look on courts with stricter eyes
To see the seeds of vice arise;
Can lend you an allusion fitter,
Though flattering knaves may call it bitter; Which, if you durst but give it place, Would show you many a statesman's face:
"So when an angel by divine command," &c.
ADDISON'S Campaign.
Fresh
Fresh from the tripod of Apollo,
I had it in the words that follow;
Take notice, to avoid offence,
I here except his excellence:
"So, to effect his monarch's ends,
From Hell a viceroy devil ascends;
His budget with corruptions cramm'd,
The contributions of the damn'd;
Which with unsparing hand he strows
Through courts and senates as he goes;
And then at Beelzebub's black hall,
Complains his budget was too small.
Your simile may better shine
In verse, but there is truth in mine.
For no imaginable things
Can differ more than gods and kings:
And statesmen, by ten thousand odds,
Are angels, just as kings are gods.
ON THE LIBELS WRITTEN AGAINST HIM.
Tanti tibi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi." Juv.
As some raw youth in country bred,
To arms by thirst of honour led,
When at a skirmish first he hears
The bullets whistling round his ears,
Will duck his head aside, will start,
And feel a trembling at his heart,
Till 'scaping oft without a wound
Lessens the terror of the sound;
Fly bullets now as thick as hops,
He runs into a cannon's chops.
An author thus, who pants for fame,
Begins the world with fear and shame;
When first in print you see him dread
Each popgun levell'd at his head:
The lead yon critic's quill contains,
Is destin'd to beat out his brains:
As if he heard loud thunders roll,
Cries, Lord, have mercy on his soul!
Concluding, that another shot
Will strike him dead upon the spot.
But, when with squibbing, flashing, popping,
He cannot see one creature dropping;
That, missing fire, or missing aim,
His life is safe, I mean his fame;
The danger past, takes heart of grace,
And looks a critic in the face.
Though splendor gives the fairest mark
To poison'd arrows in the dark,
Yet, in yourself when smooth and round,
They glance aside without a wound.
'Tis said, the gods try'd all their art,
How pain they might from pleasure part:
But little could their strength avail;
Both still are fasten'd by the tail;
Thus fame and censure, with a tether
By fate are always link'd together.
Why will you aim to be preferr'd
In wit before the common herd;
And yet grow mortify'd and vex'd,
To pay the penalty annex'd?
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