a

Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein,
Their Phæbus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discourag'd youths ! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemn’d to country cottages and ale ;
To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classicks, read “ Th’ Attorney's Guide ;".
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.

Oh ! had I been apostle to the Swiss,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this ;
Combin’d in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died.
Thou still with tyrants in succession curst,
The last invaders trampling on the first :
Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half-thy course of misery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon shall thy sons (the time is jutt at hand)
Be all made captives in their native land;
When, for the use of no Hibernian born,
Shall rise one blade of grafs, one ear of corn ;
When shells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass *
But all turn leasers to that t mongrel breed,
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed ;

* Wood's ruinous project in 1724. IRISH ED.

+ The absentees, who spent the income of their Irish eftates, places, and pensions, in England. Irish ED.

Who

Who to yon ravenous ifle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvests there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.

I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage resign.

ON READING DR. YOUNG'S SATIRES

CALLED
THE UNIVERSAL PASSION,

C

BY WHICH HE MEANS PRIDE.

1726.

If there be truth in what you fing

:

Such god-like virtues in the king;
A minister * so fill'd with zeal
And wisdom for the common-weal :
If he + who in the chair presides
So steadily the senate guides :
If others, whom

you

make
Are seconds in the glorious scheme:
If every peer, whom you commend,
To worth and learning be a friend :
If this be truth, as you attest,
What land was ever half so bleft ?

your theme,

a

* Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford.

+ Sir Spencer Compton, then speaker, afterwards earl of Wilmington.

No

:

No falsehood now among the great,
And tradesmen now no longer cheat ;
Now on the bench fair Justice shines ;
Her scale to neither fide inclines :
Now Pride and Cruelty are flown,
And Mercy here exalts her throne :
For such is good-example’s power,
It does its office every hour,
Where governors are good and wise;
Or else the truest maxim lyes :
For so we find all ancient sages
Decree, that, ad exemplum regis,
Through all the realm his virtues run,
Ripening and kindling like the fun.
af this be true, then how much more

have nam'd at least a score
Of courtiers, each in their degree,
If possible, as good as he?

Or take it in a different view. I ask (if what you say be true) you

affirm the present age Deserves your

fatire's keenest-rage :
If that same univerfal paffion
With every vice hath fill'd' the nation :
If virtue dares not venture down
A single step beneath the crown:
Af clergymen, to fhew their wit,
Praife classicks more than holy writ:
If bankrupts, when they are undenc,
Into the senate house can run,

When you

And

And sell their votes at such a rate,
As will retrieve a loft estate :
I law be such a partial whore,
To spare the rich, and plague the poor:
If these be of all crimes the worst,
What land was ever half so curft?

Q

THE DOG AND THIEF. 1726. UOTH the thief to the dog, let me into your door,

And I 'll give you these delicate bits. Quoth the dog, I fhall then be more villain than you 're,

And besides must be out of my wits. Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal,

But my master each day gives me bread ; You 'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal, And I must be hang'd in your

stead. The stock-jobber thus from Change-alley goes down,

And tips you the freeman a wink;
Let me have but your vote to serve for the town,

And here is a guinea to drink.
Says the freeman, your guinea to-night would be spent!

Your offers of bribery cease :
I'll vote for my landlord, to whom I pay rent,

forfeit

my

leafe. From London they come, filly people to chouse,

Their lands and their faces unknown : Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house, That would turn a man out of his own ?

Or else I may

TO THE GRUB-STREET VERSE-WRITERS.

1726.
Y E poets

ragged and forlorn,
E
Down from your garrets

haste

;
Ye rhymers dead as soon as born,

Not yet consign’d to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive ;

O, 'tis a quaint device :
Your still-born poeins shall revive,

And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,

Then let them well be dried ;
And Curll must have a special care

To leave the margin wide.
Lend these to paper-sparing * Pope;

And when he fits to write,
No letter with an envelope

Could give him more delight.
When Pope has fill'd the margins round,

Why then recall your loan ;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,

And swear they are your own.
* The original copy of Mr. Pope's celebrated tranha-
tion of Homer (preserved in the British Museum) is
almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and
sometimes between the lines of the letters themselves. N.

TO