Connected as the hand and glove,
Is Madam POETRY and LovE.
Shall not He then poffefs his Muse,
And fetch CORINNA from the stews,
The burthen of his amorous verse,
And charming melter of his purse,
While happy REBUS tells the name
Of His and DRURY'S Common Flame?
How will the wretch at BACCHUS' fhrine,
Betray the cause of wit and wine,
And wafte in bawdy, port, and pun,
In taste a very GOTH or HUN,
Thofe little hours, of value more
Than all the round of time before;
When fancy brightens with the flask,
And the heart speaks without a mask ?
Muft THOU, whofe genius, dull and c Is muddy as the stagnant pool; Whofe torpid foul and fluggish brains, Dullness pervades, and Wine difdains; Muft Thou to nightly taverns run, APOLLO'S gueft, and JONSON's fon?
And in thy folly's beaftly fit,
Attempt the fallies of a wit?
Art thou the child of PHOEBUS' choir?
Think of the Adage-Afs and Lyre*.
If thou wouldst really fucceed,
And be a mimic wit indeed,
Let DRYDEN lend thee SHEFFIELD's blows,
Or like WILL. DAVENANT lose your nose.
O LUCIAN, Sire of antient wit, Who wedding, HUMOUR, didft beget Those doctors in the laughing school, Those Giant fons of RIDICULE,
SWIFT, RAB'LAIS, and † that favourite Child,
Who, less excentrically wild,
Inverts the mifanthropic Plan,
And hating vices, hates not Man :
How do I love thy gibing vein !
Which glances at the mimic train
Of fots, who proud as modern beaus
Of birth-day suits, and tinsel cloaths,
The late inimitable HENRY FIELDING, Efq.
In dirty hue, with naked feet,
In rags and tatters, ftrole the ftreet,
OSTENSIVELY exceeding wife;
But Knaves, and Fools, and walking Lie
External Mimicry their plan,
The monkey's copy after Man.
Wits too poffefs this affectation,
And live a life of imitation,
Are Slovens, Revellers and Brutes,
Laborious, abfent, prattlers, Mutes,
From fome example handed down
Of fome great Genius of Renown.
If ADDISON, from habit's trick,
Could bite his fingers to the quick,
Shall not I nibble from defign,
And be an ADDISON to mine?
If POPE moft feelingly complains
Of aching head, and throbbing pains.
My head and arm his pofture hit,
And I already ache for wit.
If CHURCHILL, following nature's call,
Has head that never aches at all,
With burning brow, and heavy eye,
I'll give my looks and pain the Lye.
If huge tall words of termination,
Which ask a Critic's explanation,
Come rolling out along with thought,
And seem to stand juft where they ought;
If language more in grammar dreft,
With greater emphasis exprest,
Unftudied, unaffected flows,
In fome great Wit's converfing profe;
If from the tongue the period round
Fall into ftyle, and swell to found,
'Tis nature which herself difplays,
And JOHNSON fpeaks a JOHNSON's phrase.
But can you hear, without a smile,
The formal coxcomb ape his ftyle,
Who, most dogmatically wife,
Attempts to cenfure, and despise,
Affecting what he cannot reach,
A trim propriety of speech?
What tho' his pompous Language wear
The grand decisive folemn Air,
Where quaint ANTITHESIS prevails,
And Sentences are weighed in fcales,
Can you bow down with reverend awe
Before this puppet king of straw?
Or hufh'd in mute attention fit,
To hear this CRITIC, POET, WIT,
PHILOSOPHER, all, all at once,
And to compleat them all, this-DUNCE?
-All this you'll fay is mighty fine,
But what has this to do with Wine?
Have patience and the Muse shall tell
What you, my friend, know full as well.
Vices in Poets, Wits and Kings,
Are catching imitable things;
And frailties ftanding out to view,
Become the objects fools pursue.
Thus have I pictures often seen,
Where features neither speak nor mean,
Yet fpite of all the Face will strike,
And mads us that it fhould be like,
When all the near resemblance grows,
From scratch or pimple on the Nose.
To Poets then (I mean not here
The fcribling Drudge, or fcribling Peer,
Nor those who have the monthly fit,
The Lunatics of modern Wit)
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