Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have expressed, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust;Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortunes worshipper, nor fashion's fool, 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, even to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.
That not in fancy's maze he wandered long:
But stooped to truth, and moralised 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;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 even 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?
Three thousand sons 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 Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill, And write whate'er he pleased, except his will;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, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless mother thought no wife a w***e:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!
Unspotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in virtue, or in song.
Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause While yet in Britain honour had applause)Each parent sprung-- 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, The good man walked innoxious through his age.
Nor 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.
By nature honest, by experience wise, Healthy by temperance, and by exercise;His life, though long, to sickness past 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 a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend, May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend, 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.
SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr.
Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State, neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.
UNI AEQUUS VIRTUTI ATQUE EJUS AMICIS. P.
THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.
SATIRE I.
TO MR. FORTESCUE.
P. There are (I scarce can think it, but am told), There are, to whom my satire seems too bold:
Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough, And something said of Chartres much too rough.
The lines are weak another's pleased to say, Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe, I come to counsel learned in the law:
You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free, Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.
F. I'd write no more. P. Not write? but then I think, And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.
I nod in company, I wake at night, Fools rush into my head, and so I write.
F. You could not do a worse thing for your life.
Why, if the nights seem tedious--take a wife:
Or rather truly, if your point be rest, Lettuce and cowslip wine: Probatum est.
But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.
