Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest,
And all is splendid poverty at best.
Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell,
Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal, 355
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!’ 360
And, ‘Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!’
Such wits and beauties are not prais’d for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
‘T would burst ev’n Heraclitus with the spleen
To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin: 365
The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The mosque of Mahound, or some queer pagod.
See them survey their limbs by Durer’s rules,
Of all beau-kind the best proportion’d fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw 370
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! 375
Thus finish’d, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the Fair.
So first to preach a white-glov’d Chaplain goes,
With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim, 380
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! 385
Nature made ev’ry 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, 390
Tho’ his soul’s bullet, and his body buff.
He spits foreright; his haughty chest before,
Like batt’ring rams, beats open ev’ry door;
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod’s hang-dogs in old tapestry, 395
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 licens’d Fool, commands like law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so 400
As men from jails to execution go;
For hung with deadly sins I see the wall,
And lin’d with giants deadlier than them all.
Each man an Ask apart, of strength to toss,
For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross. 405
Scared at the grisly forms, I sweat, I fly,
And shake all o’er, like a discover’d spy.
Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine;
Charge them with Heav’n’s Artill’ry, bold Divine!
From such alone the Great rebukes endure, 410
Whose satire’s sacred, and whose rage secure:
‘T is mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a Court in tears.
Howe’er, what ‘s now apocrypha, my wit,
In time to come, may pass for Holy Writ. 415
Epilogue to the Satires
In Two Dialogues. Written in 1738
The first dialogue was originally entitled One Thousand Seven Hundred and thirty-eight, a Dialogue something like Horace. Johnson’s London is said by Boswell to have been published on the same morning of May, 1738, and in spite of its anonymity to have made more stir than Pope’s satire.
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 — 5
Why now, this moment, don’t I see you steal?
‘T is all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said ‘Tories call’d him whig, and whigs a tory;’
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
‘To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.’ 10
But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes, he lash’d no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown,
Blunt could do business, Higgins knew the town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex, 15
In rev’rend bishops note some small neglects,
And own the Spaniards did a waggish thing,
Who cropt our ears, and sent them to the King.
His sly, polite, insinuating style
Could please at court, and make Augustus smile: 20
An artful manager, that crept between
His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.
But, ‘faith, your very Friends will soon be sore;
Patriots there are who wish you ‘d jest no more.
And where ‘s the glory? ‘t will be only thought 25
The great man never offer’d 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; 30
Seen him, uncumber’d with a 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; 35
The only diff’rence 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. 40
A patriot is a fool in ev’ry age,
Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,
And wear their strange old virtue as they will.
If any ask you, ‘Who ‘s the man so near 45
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 Fanny’s case. 50
Sejanus, 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, 55
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To Vice and Folly to confine the jest
Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest,
Did not the sneer of more impartial men
At Sense and Virtue, balance all again. 60
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; 65
Come, Henley’s oratory, Osborne’s wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio’s tongue,
The flowers of Bubo, and t
he flow of Yonge!
The gracious dew of pulpit Eloquence,
And all the well-whipt cream of courtly Sense 70
That first was H[er]vey’s, F[ox]’s next, and then
The S[ena]te’s, and then H[er]vey’s once again,
O come! that easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,
As, tho’ the pride of Middleton and Bland, 75
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, 80
And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
All parts perform’d, and all her children blest!
So — Satire is no more — I feel it die —
No Gazetteer more innocent than I —
And let, a’ God’s name! ev’ry Fool and Knave 85
Be graced thro’ life, and flatter’d in his grave.
F. Why so? if Satire knows its time and place,
You still may lash the greatest — in disgrace;
For merit will by turns forsake them all;
Would you know when? exactly when they fall. 90
But let all Satire in all changes spare
Immortal S[elkir]k, and grave De[lawa]re.
Silent and soft, as saints remove to Heav’n,
All ties dissolv’d, and ev’ry sin forgiv’n,
These may some gentle ministerial wing 95
Receive, and place for ever near a King!
There where no Passion, Pride, or Shame transport,
Lull’d with the sweet Nepenthe of a Court:
There where no father’s, brother’s, friend’s disgrace
Once break their rest, or stir them from their place; 100
But past the sense of human miseries,
All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;
No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a Question or a Job.
P. Good Heav’n forbid that I should blast their glory, 105
Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,
And when three Sov’reigns died could scarce be vext,
Consid’ring what a gracious Prince was next.
Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
As pride in slaves, and avarice in Kings? 110
And at a peer or peeress shall I fret,
Who starves a sister or forswears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of Vice be lost?
Ye Gods! shall Cibber’s son, without rebuke, 115
Swear like a Lord; or Rich outwhore a Duke?
A fav’rite’s porter with his master vie,
Be bribed as often, and as often lie?
Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman’s skill?
Or Japhet pocket, like His Grace, a will? 120
Is it for Bond or Peter (paltry things)
To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like Kings?
If Blount dispatch’d himself, he play’d the man,
And so mayst thou, illustrious Passeran!
But shall a printer, weary of his life, 125
Learn from their books to hang himself and wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear;
Vice thus abused demands a nation’s care;
This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,
And hurls the thunder of the Laws on Gin. 130
Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten Metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple quaker, or a quaker’s wife,
Outdo Landaff in doctrine — yea, in life;
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, 135
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
‘T is just alike to Virtue and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a King,
She ‘s still the same belov’d, contented thing. 140
Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth;
But ‘t is the Fall degrades her to a whore;
Let Greatness own her, and she ‘s mean no more:
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess; 145
Chaste Matrons praise her, and grave Bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And hers the Gospel is, and hers the Laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead. 150
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,
Old England’s genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragg’d in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our youth, all liv’ried o’er with foreign gold, 155
Before her dance! behind her crawl the old!
See thronging millions to the pagod run,
And offer country, parent, wife, or son!
Hear her black trumpet thro’ the land proclaim,
That not to be corrupted is the shame. 160
In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Power,
‘T is Av’rice all, Ambition is no more!
See all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, 165
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up with reverential awe,
At crimes that ‘scape, or triumph o’er the law:
While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry —
‘Nothing is sacred now but Villany.’ 170
Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
Show there was one who held it in disdain.
Dialogue II
Fr. ‘T IS all a libel — Paxton, Sir, will say.
P. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow ‘faith it may;
And for that very cause I print to-day. 175
How should I fret to mangle ev’ry line
In rev’rence to the sins of Thirty-nine!
Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,
Invention strives to be before in vain;
Feign what I will, and paint it e’er so strong, 180
Some rising genius sins up to my song.
F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;
Ev’n Guthry saves half Newgate by a dash.
Spare then the Person, and expose the Vice.
P. How, Sir! not damn the Sharper, but the Dice? 185
Come on then, Satire! gen’ral, unconfin’d,
Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!
Ye tradesmen vile, in army, court, or hall!
Ye rev’rend atheists! F. Scandal! name them, who? 190
P. Why that ‘s the thing you bid me not to do.
Who starv’d a sister, who forswore a debt,
I never named; the town ‘s inquiring yet.
The pois’ning Dame — F. You mean — P. I don’t. F. You do.
P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! 195
The bribing Statesman — F. Hold, too high you go.
P. The bribed Elector — F. There you stoop too low.
P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what.
Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?
Must great offenders, once escaped the crown, 200
Like royal harts, be never more run down?
Admit your law to spare the Knight requires.
As beasts of Nature may we hunt the Squires?
Suppose I censure — you know what I mean —
To save a Bishop, may I name a Dean? 205
F. A Dean, sir? no: his fortune is
not made;
You hurt a man that ‘s rising in the trade.
P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day,
Much less the ‘prentice who to-morrow may.
Down, down, proud Satire! tho’ a realm be spoil’d, 210
Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;
Or, if a court or country ‘s made a job,
Go drench a pickpocket, and join the Mob.
But, Sir, I beg you — for the love of Vice —
The matter’s weighty, pray consider twice — 215
Have you less pity for the needy cheat,
The poor and friendless villain, than the great?
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the Lawyer, but undoes the Scribe.
Then better sure it charity becomes 220
To tax Directors, who (thank God!) have plums;
Still better Ministers, or if the thing
May pinch ev’n there — why, lay it on a King.
F. Stop! stop!
P. Must Satire then nor rise nor fall?
Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all. 225
F. Yes, strike that Wild, I ‘ll justify the blow.
P. Strike? why the man was hang’d ten years ago:
Who now that obsolete example fears?
Ev’n Peter trembles only for his ears.
F. What, always Peter? Peter thinks you mad; 230
You make men desp’rate, if they once are bad;
Else might he take to Virtue some years hence —
P. As S[elkir]k, if he lives, will love the Prince.
F. Strange spleen to S[elkir]k!
P. Do I wrong the man?
God knows I praise a Courtier where I can. 235
When I confess there is who feels for fame,
And melts to goodness, need I Scarb’row name?
Pleased let me own, in Esher’s peaceful grove
(Where Kent and Nature vie for Pelham’s love),
The scene, the master, opening to my view, 240
I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!
Ev’n in a Bishop I can spy desert;
Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart;
Manners with candour are to Benson giv’n;
To Berkley ev’ry virtue under Heav’n. 245
But does the Court a worthy man remove?
That instant, I declare, he has my love:
I shun his zenith, court his mild decline.
Thus Somers once and Halifax were mine:
Oft in the clear still mirror of retreat 250
I studied Shrewsbury, the wise and great:
Carleton’s calm sense and Stanhope’s noble flame
Compared, and knew their gen’rous end the same;
How pleasing Atterbury’s softer hour!
How shined the soul, unconquer’d, in the Tower! 255
How can I Pulteney, Chesterfield, forget,
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 46