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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;
295 Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injured, 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, 300 And sees at Canons 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. * * *

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Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool, 335 Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool, Not proud, nor servile; be one poet's praise, That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways: That flattery, ev'n to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same; 340 That not in Fancy's maze he wandered long, But stooped to Truth, and moralized 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,

345 The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laughed 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 revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
The imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libelled person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his Sovereign's ear
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome e'en the last!
A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?
P. A knave's a knave, to me, in every state;
Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,

Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,
A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;
If on a pillory, or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded satirist Dennis will confess
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
So humble, he has knocked at Tibbald's door,

Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhymed for Moore.
Full ten years slandered, did he once reply?

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375 Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie;
To please a mistress 'one aspersed his life;

He lashed him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on his quill,
And write whate'er he please, except his will;
380 Let the two Curlls of town and court, abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,

390

It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:

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Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause, While yet in Britain honour had applause)

Each parent sprang - A. What fortune, pray? —

P. Their own,

And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.

Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,

Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

395 The good man walked innoxious through his age.
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,

No language, but the language of the heart.

400 By nature honest, by experience wise,

Healthy by temperance, and by exercise,

His life, though long, to sickness passed unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.

O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!

Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:

Me, let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,

Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death.
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,

And keep awhile one parent from the sky!

On cares like these if length of days attend,

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May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend, 415 Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,

And just as rich as when he served a queen.

A. Whether that blessing be denied or given, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

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THOMAS PARNELL

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore

The schoolmen and the sages o'er:

Their books from wisdom widely stray,

Or point at best the longest way.

I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide!
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.

The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:

The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.

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