An Essay on Man Part 16

What speech esteem you most?" "The King's," said I "But the best words?"-"O, sir, the dictionary."

"You miss my aim; I mean the most acute And perfect speaker?"-"Onslow, past dispute."

"But, sir, of writers?" "Swift, for closer style, But Ho**y for a period of a mile."

"Why, yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pa.s.s: Good common linguists, and so Panurge was; Nay troth the Apostles (though perhaps too rough) Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough: Yet these were all poor gentlemen! I dare Affirm, 'twas travel made them what they were."

Thus others' talents having nicely shown, He came by sure transition to his own: Till I cried out: "You prove yourself so able, Pity! you was not Druggerman at Babel; For had they found a linguist half so good I make no question but the tower had stood."

"Obliging sir! for courts you sure were made: Why then for ever buried in the shade?

Spirits like you should see and should be seen, The King would smile on you-at least the Queen."

"Ah, gentle sir! you courtiers so cajole us- But Tully has it, Nunquam minus solus: And as for courts, forgive me, if I say No lessons now are taught the Spartan way: Though in his pictures l.u.s.t be full displayed, Few are the converts Aretine has made; And though the Court show vice exceeding clear, None should, by my advice, learn virtue there."

At this entranced, he lifts his hands and eyes, Squeaks like a high-stretched lutestring, and replies: "Oh, 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things To gaze on princes, and to talk of kings!"

"Then, happy man who shows the tombs!" said I, "He dwells amidst the Royal Family; He every day, from king to king can walk, Of all our Harries, all our Edwards talk, And get by speaking truth of monarchs dead, What few can of the living, ease and bread."

"Lord, sir, a mere mechanic! strangely low, And coa.r.s.e of phrase-your English all are so.

How elegant your Frenchmen?" "Mine, d'ye mean?

I have but one, I hope the fellow's clean."

"Oh! sir, politely so! nay, let me die, Your only wearing is your Paduasoy."

"Not, sir, my only, I have better still, And this you see is but my dishabille-."

Wild to get loose, his patience I provoke, Mistake, confound, object at all he spoke.

But as coa.r.s.e iron, sharpened, mangles more, And itch most hurts when angered to a sore; So when you plague a fool, 'tis still the curse, You only make the matter worse and worse.

He past it o'er; affects an easy smile At all my peevishness, and turns his style.

He asks, "What news?" I tell him of new plays, New eunuchs, harlequins, and operas.

He hears, and as a still with simples in it Between each drop it gives, stays half a minute, Loth to enrich me with too quick replies, By little and by little drops his lies.

Mere household tras.h.!.+ of birth-nights, b.a.l.l.s, and shows, More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes.

When the Queen frowned, or smiled, he knows; and what A subtle minister may make of that; Who sins with whom: who got his pension rug, Or quickened a reversion by a drug; Whose place is quartered out, three parts in four, And whether to a bishop, or a w***e; Who having lost his credit, p.a.w.ned his rent, Is therefore fit to have a Government; Who in the secret, deals in stocks secure, And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor; Who makes a trust or charity a job, And gets an Act of Parliament to rob; Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown Can gratis see the country, or the town; Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising courtier will have toll.

He tells what strumpet places sells for life, What 'squire his lands, what citizen his wife: And last (which proves him wiser still than all) What lady's face is not a whited wall.

As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore, I puke, I nauseate-yet he thrusts in more: Trims Europe's balance, tops the statesman's part, And talks gazettes and post-boys o'er by heart.

Like a big wife at sight of loathsome meat Ready to cast, I yawn, I sigh and sweat.

Then as a licensed spy, whom nothing can Silence or hurt, he libels the great man; Swears every place entailed for years to come, In sure succession to the day of doom; He names the price for every office paid, And says our wars thrive ill, because delayed; Nay hints, 'tis by connivance of the Court, That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a port.

Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests, To see themselves fall endlong into beasts, Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise Already half turned traitor by surprise.

I felt the infection slide from him to me, As in the ---- some give it to get free; And quick to swallow me, methought I saw One of our giant statutes ope its jaw.

In that nice moment, as another lie Stood just a-tilt, the minister came by.

To him he flies, and bows, and bows again, Then, close as Umbra, joins the dirty train.

Not Fannius' self more impudently near, When half his nose is in his Prince's ear.

I quaked at heart; and still afraid, to see All the Court filled with stranger things than he, Ran out as fast as one that pays his bail And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail.

Bear me, some G.o.d! oh, quickly bear me hence To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense: Where Contemplation plumes her ruffled wings, And the free soul looks down to pity kings!

There sober thought pursued the amusing theme, Till fancy coloured it, and formed a dream.

A vision hermits can to h.e.l.l transport, And forced even me to see the d.a.m.ned at Court.

Not Dante dreaming all the infernal state, Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.

Base fear becomes the guilty, not the free; Suits tyrants, plunderers, but suits not me: Shall I, the terror of this sinful town, Care, if a liveried lord or smile or frown?

Who cannot flatter, and detest who can, Tremble before a n.o.ble serving-man?

O, my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee For huffing, braggart, puffed n.o.bility?

Thou, who since yesterday hast rolled o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, oh, sun! beheld an emptier fort, Than such who swell this bladder of a Court?

Now plague on those who show a Court in wax!

It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs: Such painted puppets! such a varnished race Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face!

Such waxen noses, stately staring things- No wonder some folks bow, and think them kings.

See! where the British youth, engaged no more At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a bore, Pay their last duty to the Court and come All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing-room; In hues as gay, and odours as divine, As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.

"That's velvet for a king!" the flatterer swears 'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.

Our Court may justly to our stage give rules, That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools.

And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes?

For these are actors too, as well as those: Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest, And all is splended poverty at best.

Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell, Like frigates fraught with spice and cochinel, Sail in the ladies: how each pirate eyes So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!

Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim, He boarding her, she striking sail to him: "Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!"

And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!"

Such wits and beauties are not praised for nought, For both the beauty and the wit are bought.

'Twould burst even Herac.l.i.tus with the spleen To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin: The presence seems, with things so richly odd, The mosque of Mahound, or some queer PaG.o.d.

See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, Of all beau-kind the best proportioned fools!

Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw; But oh! what terrors must distract the soul Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole; Or should one pound of powder less bespread Those monkey tails that wag behind their head.

Thus finished, and corrected to a hair, They march, to prate their hour before the fair.

So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes, With band of lily, and with cheek of rose, Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim, Neatness itself impertinent in him.

Let but the ladies smile, and they are blest: Prodigious! how the things protest, protest: Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you, If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!

Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.

But here's the captain that will plague them both, Whose air cries Arm! whose very look's an oath: The captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough, Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff.

He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before, Like battering rams, beats open every door: And with a face as red, and as awry, As Herod's hangdogs in old tapestry, Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse, Has yet a strange ambition to look worse; Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe, Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.

Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so As men from jails to execution go; For hung with deadly sins I see the wall, And lined with giants deadlier than 'em all: Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss For quoits, both Temple Bar and Charing Cross.

Scared at the grizzly forms, I sweat, I fly, And shake all o'er, like a discovered spy.

Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine: Charge them with Heaven's artillery, bold divine!

From such alone the great rebukes endure Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure: 'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a Court in tears.

However, what's now Apocrypha, my wit, In time to come, may pa.s.s for holy writ.

EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCx.x.xVIII.

DIALOGUE I.

Fr. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print, And when it comes, the Court see nothing in't.

You grow correct, that once with rapture writ, And are, besides, too moral for a wit.

Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel- Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?

'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye Said, "Tories called him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;"

And taught his Romans, in much better metre, "To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter."

But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice; Bubo observes, he lashed no sort of vice; Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, H-ggins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the s.e.x, In reverend bishops note some small neglects, And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king.

His sly, polite, insinuating style Could please at Court, and make Augustus smile: An artful manager, that crept between His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.

But 'faith, your friends will soon be sore; Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more- And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought The Great Man never offered you a groat.

Go, see Sir Robert-P. See Sir Robert!-hum- And never laugh-for all my life to come?

Seen him I have, but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power; Seen him, unenc.u.mbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe.

Would he oblige me? let me only find He does not think me what he thinks mankind.

Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt; The only difference is I dare laugh out.

F. Why, yes: with Scripture still you may be free; A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty: A joke on Jekyl, or some odd old Whig Who never changed his principle, or wig: A patriot is a fool in every age, Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage: These nothing hurts; they keep their fas.h.i.+on still, And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.

If any ask you, "Who's the man, so near His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?"

Why, answer, Lyttelton, and I'll engage The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage; But were his verses vile, his whisper base, You'd quickly find him in Lord f.a.n.n.y's case.

Seja.n.u.s, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury, But well may put some statesmen in a fury.

Laugh, then, at any, but at fools or foes; These you but anger, and you mend not those.

Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore, So much the better, you may laugh the more.

To vice and folly to confine the jest, Sets half the world, G.o.d knows, against the rest; Did not the sneer of more impartial men At sense and virtue, balance all again.

Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule, And charitably comfort knave and fool.

P. Dear sir, forgive the prejudice of youth; Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth!

Come, harmless characters, that no one hit; Come, Henley's oratory, Osborne's wit!

The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue, The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Y--ng!

The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence, And all the well-whipped cream of courtly sense, That first was H--vy's, F---'s next, and then The S--te's, and then H--vy's once again.

O, come, that easy Ciceronian style, So Latin, yet so English all the while, As, though the pride of Middleton and Bland, All boys may read, and girls may understand!

Then might I sing, without the least offence, And all I sung should be the nation's sense; Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn, Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, And hail her pa.s.sage to the realms of rest, All parts performed, and all her children blessed!

So-satire is no more-I feel it die- No Gazetteer more innocent than I- And let, a' G.o.d's name, every fool and knave Be graced through life, and flattered in his grave.