While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main design.
More cannot be by mortal art expreft;
But venerable age shall add the rest.
For time shall with his ready pencil stand;
Retouch your figures with his ripening hand;
Mellow your colors, and imbrown the teint;
Add every grace, which time alone can grant;
To future ages shall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away.
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO
JULIAN,
SECRETARY of the MUSES.
HOU common shore of this poetic town,
Where all the excrements of wit are thrown,
For fonnet, satyr, bawdry, blafphemy,
Are emptied, and disburden'd all in thee:
The choleric wight untruffing all in rage
Finds thee, and lays his load upon thy page:
Thou Julian, or thou wife Vespasian rather,
Dost from this dung thy well pickt guineas gather,
All mischief's thine, transcribing thou wilt stoop,
From lofty Middlesex to lowly Scroop.
What times are these, when in the hero's room,
Bow-bending Cupid doth with ballads come,
And little Aston offers to the bum ?
Can two fuch pigmies such a weight support,
Two such Tom-Thumbs of fatyr in a court?
Poor George grows old, his muse worn out of
Hoarfly he fung Ephelia's lamentation.
Less art thou help'd by Dryden's bed-rid age,
That drone has lost his sting upon the stage :
Resolve me, poor apoftate, this my doubt,
What hope haft thou to rub this winter out?
Know, and be thankful then, for Providence
By me hath sent thee this intelligence.
A knight there is, if thou can'st gain his grace,
Known by the name of the hard-favor'd face,
For prowess of the pen renown'd is he,
From Don Quixote descended lineally,
And tho like him unfortunate he prove,
Undaunted in attempts of wit and love.
Of his unfinish'd face, what shall Isay?
But that 'twas made of Adam's own red clay,
That much much oaker was on it bestow'd,
God's image 'tis not, but fome Indian god :
Our christian earth can no resemblance bring
But ware of Portugal for fuch a thing;
Such carbuncles his fiery face confefs,
As no Hungarian water can redress.
A face which should he see (but heaven was kind,
And to indulge his self, Love made him blind.)
He durft not stir abroad for fear to meet
Curses of teeming women in the street :
The best could happen from this hideous fight,
Is that they should miscarry with the fright--
Heaven guard them from the likeness of the
Such is our charming Strephon's outward man,
His inward parts let those disclose who can :
One while he honoreth Birtha with his flame,
And now he chants no less Lovisa's name;
For when his paffion hath been bubbling long,
The scum at last boils up into a fong;
And fure no mortal creature at one time,
Was e'er so far o'ergone with love and rhime.
To his dear self of poetry he talks,
His hands and feet are scanning as he walks;
His writhing looks his pangs of wit accuse,
The airy symptoms of a breeding muse,
And all to gain the great Lovisa's grace,
But never pen did pimp for such a face ;
There's not a nymph in city, town, or court,
But Strephon's billet-doux has been their sport.
Still he loves on, yet still he's sure to miss,
As they who wash an Ethiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend?
Never to get a mistress, nor a friend.
Strephon alike both wits and fools detest,
'Cause he's like Esop's batt, half bird half beast;
For fools to poetry have no pretence,
And common wit supposes common sense,
Not quite so low as fool, nor quite a top,
He hangs between them both, and is a fop.
His morals like his wit are motley too,
He keeps from arrant knave with much ado,
But vanity and lying so prevail,
That one grain more of each would turn the scale:
He would be more a villain had he time,
But he's so wholly taken up with rhyme,
That he mistakes his talent; all his care
Is to be thought a poet fine and fair.
Small-beer, and gruel, are his meat and drink,
The diet he prescribes himself to think;
Rhyme next his heart he takes at the morn peep,
Some love-epistles at the hour of fleep;
So betwixt elegy and ode we fee
Strephon is in a course of poetry :
This is the man ordain'd to do thee good,
The pelican to feed thee with his blood;
Thy wit, thy poet, nay thy friend, for he
Is fit to be a friend to none but thee.
Make sure of him, and of his muse betimes,
For all his study is hung round with rhimes.
Laugh at him, justle him, yet still he writes,
In rhyme he challenges, in rhyme he fights;
Charg'd with the last, and basest infamy,
His business is to think what rhymes to lye,
Which found in fury he retorts again,
Strephon's a very dragon at his pen ;
His brother murder'd, and his mother's whor'd,
His mistress lost, and yet his pen's his sword.
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