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 cry'd,
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,
Sate full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
His library (where busts of poets dead,
And a true Pindar stood without a head)
Receiv'd 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 escap'd 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!
Blest 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,

That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame:
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, 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 Cannons what was never there;
Who reads but with a lust to misapply,
Make 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.

And see what friends, and read what books I please: Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,

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 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?
Curst 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-ey'd virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Insults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out:

A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,
Nor lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile, be one poet's praise;
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways:
That flattery, ev'n 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 moraliz'd 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 reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and duliness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libel'd person, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;

The whisper, that to greatness still too near,

By what criterion do you eat, d'ye think,
If this is priz'd for sweetness, that for stink?
When the tir'd glutton labours through a treat,
He finds no relish in the sweetest meat,
He calls for something bitter, something sour,
And the rich feast concludes extremely poor:
Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives, still we see ;
Thus much is left of old simplicity!
The robin red-breast till of late had rest,
And children sacred held a martin's nest,
Till becaficos sold so dev'lish dear

To one that was, or would have been, a peer.
Let me extol a cat on oysters fed,
I'll have a party at the Bedford-head;
Or ev'n to crack live crawfish recommend,
I'd never doubt at court to make a friend.

'Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother
About one vice, and fall into the other:
Between excess and famine lies a mean;
Plain, but not sordid; though not splendid, clean.
Avidien, or his wife (no matter which,
For him you'll call a dog, and her a bitch)
Sell their presented partridges, and fruits,
And humbly live on rabbits and on roots:
One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine,
And is at once their vinegar and wine.
But on some lucky day (as when they found
A lost bank-bill, or heard their son was drown'd)
At such a feast, old vinegar to spare,
Is what two souls so generous cannot bear :
Oil, though it stink, they drop by drop impart,
But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart.

He knows to live, who keeps the middle state,
And neither leans on this side nor on that;
Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay,
Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away;
Nor lets, like Nævius, every error pass,
The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass.

Now hear what blessings temperance can bring:
(Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing)
First health: the stomach (cramm'd from every dish,
A tomb of boil'd and roast, and flesh and fish,
Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar,
And all the man is one intestine war)
Remembers oft the school-boy's simple fare,
The temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air.
How pale each worshipful and reverend guest
Rise from a clergy, or a city feast!
What life in all that ample body, say?
What heavenly particle inspires the clay?
The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines
To seem but mortal, ev'n in sound divines.
On morning wings how active springs the mind
That leaves the load of yesterday behind!
How easy every labour it pursues!
How coming to the poet every Muse!
Not but we may exceed, some holy time,
Or tir'd in search of truth, or search of rhyme :
Ill health some just indulgence may engage;
And more the sickness of long life, old age;
For fainting age what cordial drop remains,
If our intemperate youth the vessel drains?

Our fathers prais'd rank ven'son. You suppose,
Perhaps, young men! our fathers had no nose.
Not so: a buck was then a week's repast,
And 'twas their point, I ween, to make it last;

More pleas'd to keep it till their friends could come,
Than eat the sweetest by themselves at home.
Why had not I in those good times my birth,
Ere coxcomb-pies or coxcombs were on earth?
Unworthy he the voice of fame to hear,
That sweetest music to an honest ear,
(For 'faith, Lord Fanny! you are in the wrong,
The world's good word is better than a song)
Who has not learn'd fresh sturgeon and ham-pie
Are no rewards for want and infamy!
When luxury has lick'd up all thy pelf,
Curs'd by thy neighbours, thy trustees, thyself,
To friends, to fortune, to mankind a shame,
Think how posterity will treat thy name;
And buy a rope, that future times may tell
Thou hast at least bestow'd one penny well.

"Right," cries his lordship, "for a rogue in need To have a taste, is insolence indeed:

In me 'tis noble, suits my birth and state,
My wealth unwieldy, and my heap too great."
Then, like the sun, let bounty spread her ray,
And shine that superfluity away.

O impudence of wealth! with all thy store,
How dar'st thou let one worthy man be poor?
Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall?
Make quays, build bridges, or repair Whitehall;
Or to thy country let that heap be lent,

As Mo's was, but not at five per cent.

Who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind,
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
And who stands safest ? tell me, is it he
That spreads and swells in puff'd prosperity,
Or bless'd with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a war?

Thus Bethel spoke, who always speaks his
thought,

And always thinks the very thing he ought:
His equal mind I copy what I can,
And, as I love, would imitate the man.
In South-Sea days not happier, when surmis'd
The lord of thousands, than if now excis'd;
In forest planted by a father's hand,
Than in five acres now of rental land.
Content with little, I can piddle here
On broccoli and mutton, round the year;
But ancient friends, (though poor, or out of play)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
'Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards,
But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords :
To Hounslow-heath I point, and Banstead-down,
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my

That keep me from myself; and still delay
Life's instant business to a future day;

For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.
"Pray heaven it last! (cries Swift) as you go on; That task, which, as we follow or despise,

I wish to God this house had been your own:
Pity to build, without a son or wife:
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."
Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
What's property? dear Swift! you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or in pure equity (the case not clear)

The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year:
At best, it falls to some ungracious son, [own."
Who cries, "My father's damn'd, and all's my
Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord:

And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener, or a city knight.

Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

BOOK I. EPISTLE I.

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

St. John, whose love indulg'd my labours past,
Matures my present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
Public too long, ah! let me hide my age!
See modest Cibber now has left the stage:
Our generals now, retir'd to their estates,
Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates,
In life's cool evening satiate of applause,
Nor fond of bleeding ev'n in Brunswick's cause.
A voice there is, that whispers in my ear,
('Tis reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)
"Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,
And never gallop Pegasus to death;
Lest stiff and stately, void of fire or force,
You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse."
Farewell then verse, and love, and every toy,
The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy:
What right, what true, what fit we justly call,
Let this be all my care for this is all:
To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste,
What every day will want, and most the last.
But ask not, to what doctors I apply:
Sworn to no master, of no sect am I:
As drives the storm, at any door I Knock;

The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise:
Which done, the poorest can no wants endure;
And which not done, the richest must be poor.
Late as it is, I put myself to school,
And feel some comfort, not to be a fool.
Weak though I am of limb, and short of sight,
Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite;
I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise,
To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.
Not to go back is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk, at least, before they dance.
Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move
With wretched avarice, or as wretched love? [trol,
Know, there are words, and spells, which can con-
Between the fits, this fever of the soul:

Know, there are rhymes, which fresh and fresh apply'd,
Will cure the arrant'st puppy of his pride.
Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk,
Slave to a wife, or vassal to a punk,

A Switz, a High Dutch, or a Low Dutch bear!
All that we ask is but a patient ear.

'Tis the first virtue, vices to abhor;
And the first wisdom, to be fool no more:
But to the world no bugbear is so great,
As want of figure, and a small estate.
To either India see the merchant fly,
Scar'd at the spectre of pale poverty!
See him, with pains of body, pangs of soul,
Burn through the tropic, freeze beneath the pole !
Wilt thou do nothing for a nobler end,
Nothing to make philosophy thy friend?
To stop thy foolish views, thy long desires,
And ease thy heart of all that it admires?

Here Wisdom calls: "Seek virtue first, be bold!
As gold to silver, virtue is to gold."
There, London's voice, "Get money, money still!
And then let virtue follow, if she will."
This, this the saving doctrine, preach'd to all,
From low St. James's up to high St. Paul;
From him whose quills stand quiver'd at his ear,
To him who notches sticks at Westminster.

Barnard in spirit, sense, and truth abounds;
Pray then, what wants he? Fourscore thousand
A pension, or such harness for a slave [pounds;
As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have.
Barnard, thou art a cit with all thy worth;
But Bug and D*1, their honours! and so forth.
Yet every child another song will sing,

And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke: "Virtue, brave boys! 'tis virtue makes a king."

Sometimes a patriot, active in debate,

Mix with the world, and battle for the state;
Free as young Lyttelton, her cause pursue,
Still true to virtue, and as warm as true:
Sometimes with Aristippus, or Saint Paul,
Indulge my candour, and grow all to all;
Back to my native moderation slide,
And win my way by yielding to the tide.

Long, as to him who works for debt, the day,
Long as the night to her whose love's away,
Long as the year's dull circle seems to run,
When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one;
So slow th' unprofitable moments roll,
That lock up all the functions of my soul;

True, conscious honour is to feel no sin;
He's arm'd without that's innocent within:
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass;
Compar'd to this, a minister's an ass.

And say, to which shall our applause belong,
This new court-jargon, or the good old song?
The modern language of corrupted peers,
Or what was spoke at Cressy or Poitiers?
Who counsels best? who whispers," Be but great,
With praise or infamy, leave that to fate;
Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place."
For what? to have a box where eunuchs sing,
And foremost in the circle eye a king: