By your revenue measure your expense,
And to your funds and acres join your sense.
No man is bless'd by accident or guess;
True wisdom is the price of happiness;
Yet few without long discipline are sage,
And our youth only lays up sighs for age.
But how, my Muse! canst thou resist so long
The bright temptation of the courtly throng,
Thy most inviting theme? the court affords
Much food for satire ;---it abounds in lords.
"What lords are those saluting with a grin ?”
One is just out, and one as lately in.
"How comes it then to pass we see preside
"On both their brows an equal share of pride?"
Pride, that impartial passion, reigns thro' all,
Attends our glory, nor deserts our fall.
As in its home it triumphs in high place,
And frowns a haughty exile in disgrace.
Some lords it bids admire their wands so white, Which bloom, like Aaron's to their ravish'd sight: Some lords it bids resign, and turn their wands, Like Moses', into serpents in their hands,
These sink, as divers, for renown, and boast,
With pri e inverted, of their honours lost:
But against reason sure 'tis equal sin
To boast of merely being out or in.
What numbers here, thro' odd ambition, strive To seem the most transported things alive?
As if by joy desert was understood,
And all the fortunate were wise and good.
Hence aching bosoms wear a visage gay,
And stifled groans frequent the ball and play.
Completely dress'd by Monteuil * and grimace,
They take their birth-day suit, and public face:
Their smiles are only part of what they wear,
Put off at night, with Lady B----'s hair:
What bodily fatigue is half so bad?
With anxious care they labour to be glad.
What numbers here would into fame advance,
Conscious of merit in the coxcomb's dance?
The tayern! park! assembly! mask! and play!
Those dear destroyers of the tedious day?
That wheel of fops! that saunter of the Town!
Call it diversion, and the pill goes down.
Fools grin on fools, and, Stoic-like, support,
Without one sigh, the pleasures of a court.
Courts can give nothing to the wise and good
But scorn of pomp, and love of solitude.
High stations tumult, but not bliss, create:
None think the great unhappy but the great:
Fools gaze, and envy; envy darts a sting,
Which makes a swain as wretched as a king.
I envy none their pageantry and show;
I envy none the gilding of their woe.
Give me, indulgent Gods! with mind serene,
And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene;
No splendid poverty, no smiling care,
No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur there;
There pleasing objects useful thoughts suggest,
The sense is ravish'd, and the soul is bless'd;
On ev'ry thorn delightful wisdom grows,
In ev'ry rill a sweet instruction flows:
But some, untaught, o'erhear the whisp'ring rill,
In spite of sacred leisure blockheads still:
Nor shoots up Folly to a nobler bloom
In her own native soil the drawing-room.
The squire is proud to see his coursers strain,
Or well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain.
Say, dear Hippolitus! (whose drink is ale,
Whose erudition is a Christmas tale,
Whose mistress is saluted with a smack,
And friend receiv'd with thumps upon th: back) 260
When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound,
And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground,
Is that thy praise? let Ringwood's fame alone;
Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own,
Nor envies when a gipsy you commit,
And shake the clumsy bench with country wit;
When you the dullest of dull things have said,
And then ask pardon for the jest you made.
Here breathe, my Muse! and then thy task renew; Ten thosand fools unsung are still in view.
Fewer lay-Atheists made by church-debates,
Fewer great beggars fam'd for large estates,
Ladies whose love is constant as the wind,
Cits, who prefer a guinea to mankind;
Fewer grave lords to Scr---pe discreetly bend,
And fewer shocks a statesman gives his friend.
Is there a man of an eternal vein,
Who lulls the town in winter with his strain,
At Bath, in summer, chants the reigning lass,
And sweetly whistles as the waters pass?
Is there a tongue like Delia's o'er her cup,
That runs for ages without winding up?
Is there whom his tenth epic mounts to fame?
Such, and such only, might exhaust my theme;
Nor would these heroes of the task be glad,
For who can write so fast as men run mad?
My Muse! proceed, and reach thy destin'd end,
Tho' toil and danger the bold task attend.
Heroes and gods make other poems fine,
Plain satire calls for sense in ev'ry line.
Then to what swarms thy faults I dare expose?
All friends to vice and folly are thy foes.
When such the foe, a war eternal wage,
'Tis most ill-nature to repress thy rage;
And if these strains some nobler Muse excite,
I'll glory in the verse I did not write.
So weak are humankind by Nature made,
Or to such weakness by their vice betray'd,
Almighty Vanity! to thee they owe
Their zest of pleasure, and their balm of woe.
Thou, like the sun, all colours dost contain,
Varying, like rays of light, on drops of rain:
For ev'ry soul finds reasons to be proud,
Tho' hiss'd and hooted by the pointing crowd.
Warm in pursuit of foxes and renown
Hippolitus demands the sylvan crown;
But Florio's fame, the product of a show'r,
Grows in his garden, an illustrious flow'r!
*This refers to the First Satire.
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