Chapter 13

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence, While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;-- I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered,--I was not in debt. If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint. Did some more sober critic come abroad; If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critic some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. Were others angry: I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess? The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown,[198] Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a-year; He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left: And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest satire bade translate, And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.[199] How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe! And swear, not Addison himself was safe. Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:-- Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus[200] were he? Who though my name stood rubric on the walls, Or plaistered posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers' load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad?[201] I sought no homage from the race that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded (now be-rhymed so long) No more than thou, great George! a birthday song. I ne'er with wits or witlings passed my days, To spread about the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouthed, and cried, With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole Castillan state. Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo, puffed by every quill;[202] Fed with soft dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand in song. His library (where busts of poets dead And a true Pindar stood without a head), Received of wits an undistinguished race, Who first his judgment asked, and then a place: Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat, And flattered every day, and some days eat: Till grown more frugal in his riper days, He paid some bards with port, and some with praise To some a dry rehearsal was assigned, And others (harder still) he paid in kind, Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh, Dryden alone escaped this judging eye: But still the great have kindness in reserve, He helped to bury whom he helped to starve. May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill! May every Bavias have his Bufo still! So, when a statesman wants a day's defence, Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense, Or simple pride for flattery makes demands, May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands! Blest be the great! for those they take away, And those they left me; for they left me Gay; Left me to see neglected genius bloom, Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb: Of all thy blameless life the sole return My verse, and Queensbury weeping o'er thy urn! Oh, let me live my own, and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do:) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please; Above a patron, though I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend. I was not born for courts or great affairs; I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; Can sleep without a poem in my head; Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. Why am I asked what next shall see the light? Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? "I found him close with Swift"--"Indeed? no doubt," (Cries prating Balbus) "something will come out." 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. No, such a genius never can lie still; And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first lampoon Sir Will,[203] or Bubo[204] makes. Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile, When every coxcomb knows me by my style? Cursed be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress, Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a libel, or who copies out: That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame: Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, And, if he lie not, must at least betray: Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swear,[205] 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. Let Sporus[206] tremble-- _A_. What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? _P_. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, 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 fortune's 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 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, 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 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 Budgel charge low Grub Street 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 whore: 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, No 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 passed 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 awhile 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.

[Footnote 198: Ambrose Philips translated a book called the _Persian Tales_.]

[Footnote 199: Nahum Tate, the joint-author with Brady of the version of the Psalms.]

[Footnote 200: Addison.]

[Footnote 201: Hopkins, in the 104th Psalm.]

[Footnote 202: Lord Halifax.]

[Footnote 203: Sir William Yonge.]

[Footnote 204: Bubb Dodington.]

[Footnote 205: Meaning the man who would have persuaded the Duke of Chandos that Pope meant to ridicule him in the Epistle on _Taste_.]

[Footnote 206: Lord Hervey.]

XXXVIII. EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

The following piece represents the first dialogue in the Epilogue to the Satires. Huggins mentioned in the poem was the jailer of the Fleet Prison, who had enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled. Jekyl was Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a man of great probity, who, though a Whig, frequently voted against the Court, which drew on him the laugh here described. Lyttleton was George Lyttleton, Secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished for his writings in the cause of liberty. Written in 1738, and first published in the following year.

_Fr_[_iend_]. 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, Huggins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the sex, 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 very 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[_ope_]. 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, uncumbered 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 fashion 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, Lyttleton, 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. Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury,[207] 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, God 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 Yonge! 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.[208] O come, that easy Ciceronian style, So Latin, yet so English all the while, As, though the pride of Middleton[209] and Bland, All boys may read, and girls may understand! Then might I sing, without the least offence, And all I sung shall be the nation's sense; Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn, Hang the sad verse on Carolina's[210] urn, And hail her passage to the realms of rest, All parts performed, 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, every fool and knave Be graced through life, and flattered 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. But let all satire in all changes spare Immortal Selkirk[211], and grave De----re. Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven, All ties dissolved and every sin forgiven, These may some gentle ministerial wing Receive, and place for ever near a king! There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport, Lulled 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: But passed 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 heaven forbid, that I should blast their glory, Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory, And, when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vext, Considering what a gracious prince was next. Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings; And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret, Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt?[212] Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost? Ye gods! shall Gibber's son, without rebuke, Swear like a lord, or Rich out-whore a duke? A favourite'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? Is it for Bond, or Peter (paltry things), To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings? If Blount dispatched himself, he played the man, And so mayest thou, illustrious Passeran! But shall a printer, weary of his life, 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. Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well; A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife, Outdo Llandaff in doctrine,--yea in life: Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Virtue may choose the high or low degree, 'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me; Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king, She's still the same, beloved, contented thing. Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth: But 'tis 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; 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. Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car, Old England's genius, rough with many a scar, Dragged in the dust! his arms hang idly round, His flag inverted trails along the ground! Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold, 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 through the land proclaim, That not to be corrupted is the shame. In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power, 'Tis avarice 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, 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 villainy ". Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show, there was one who held it in disdain.

[Footnote 207: Cardinal: and Minister to Louis XV.]

[Footnote 208: This couplet alludes to the preachers of some recent Court Sermons of a florid panegyrical character; also to some speeches of a like kind, some parts of both of which were afterwards incorporated in an address to the monarch.]

[Footnote 209: Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the _Life of Cicero_.]

[Footnote 210: Queen Consort to King George II. She died in 1737.]

[Footnote 211: A title given to Lord Selkirk by King James II. He was Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to William III., to George I., and to George II. He was proficient in all the forms of the House, in which he comported himself with great dignity.]

[Footnote 212: Referring to Lady M.W. Montagu and her sister, the Countess of Mar.]

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

(1709-1784.)

XXXIX. THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.

Published in January, 1749, in order, as was reported, to excite interest in the author's tragedy of _Irene_. The poem is written in imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal.