That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, And show the sense of it without the love; Who to the Dean and silver bell can swear, 300 And sees at Canons what was never there; Who reads, but with a lust to misapply, Make satire a lampoon, and fiction lie; A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead. * * * * * * Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool, 335 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, ev'n to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same; 340 That not in Fancy's maze he wandered long, But stooped to Truth, and moralized 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, 345 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 whisper, that to greatness still too near, A. But why insult the poor, affront the great? A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhymed for Moore. H 350 355 360 365 370 375 Three thousand suns 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 Budgell charge low Grub Street on his quill, 390 It was a sin to call our neighbour fool: Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause, While yet in Britain honour had applause) Each parent sprang - 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, 395 The good man walked innoxious through his age. 400 By nature honest, by experience wise, His life, though long, to sickness passed unknown, O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I. 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. And keep awhile one parent from the sky! On cares like these if length of days attend, 405 410 May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend, 415 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. THOMAS PARNELL A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH By the blue taper's trembling light, The schoolmen and the sages o'er: Their books from wisdom widely stray, Or point at best the longest way. I'll seek a readier path, and go How deep yon azure dyes the sky, The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. |