And fays, "Sir, I'm your friend; all fears dismiss;
"Your glory, and my own, shall live by this;
"Your power is fixt, your fame through time convey'd,
"And Britain Europe's Queen-if I am paid."
A Statesman has his anfwer in a trice;
"Sir, fuch a genius is beyond all price;
"What man can pay for this?"-Away he turns
His work is folded, and his bofom burns:
His patron he will patronize no more;
But rushes like a tempeft out of door.
Loft is the patriot, and extinct his name!
Out comes the piece, another, and the fame ;
For A, his magic pen evokes an O,

And turns the tide of Europe on the foe:
He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff';
But 'tis fo very foul, it won't go off:
Dreadful his thunders, while unprinted, roar;
But, when once publish'd, they are heard no more.
Thus diftant bugbears fright, but, nearer draw,
The block's a block, and turns to mirth your awe.

Can thofe oblige, whofe heads and hearts are fuch?
No; every party 's tainted by their touch.
Infected perfons fly each public place;
And none, or enemies alone, embrace:
To the foul fiend their every paffion 's fold:
They love, and hate, extempore, for gold:
What image of their fury can we form?
Dulness and rage, a puddle in a storm.

Reft they in peace? If you are pleas'd to buy,
To fwell your fails, like Lapland winds, they fly:

Write they with rage? The tempeft quickly flags;
A State-Ulyffes tames them with his bags;
Let him be what he will, Turk, Pagan, Jew:
For Chriftian minifters of ftate are few.

Behind the curtain lurks the fountain head,
That pours his politics through pipes of lead;
Which far and near ejaculate, and spout
O'er tea and coffee, poison to the rout:
But, when they have bespatter'd all they may,
The statesman throws his filthy fquirts away!
With golden forceps, thefe, another takes,
And ftate elixirs of the vipers makes.

The richest ftatesman wants wherewith to pay
A fervile fcycophant, if well they weigh
How much it costs the wretch to be fo base;
Nor can the greatest powers enough disgrace,
Enough chafife, fuch proftitute applause,
If well they weigh how much it stains their cause.
But are our writers ever in the wrong?

Does virtue ne'er feduce the venal tongue?

Yes; if well-brib'd, for virtue's self they fight;
Still in the wrong, though champions for the right:
Whoe'er their crimes for intereft only quit,
Sin on in virtue, and good deeds commit.

Nought but inconftancy Britannia meets,
And broken faith in their abandon'd fheets;
From the fame hand how various is the page!
What civil war their brother pamphlets wage!
Tracts battle tracts, self-contradi&tions glare ;
Say, is this lunacy ?-I wish it were.

If fuch our writers, startled at the fight,
Felons may blefs their stars they cannot write!
How justly Proteus' transmigrations fit
The monstrous changes of a modern wit!
Now, fuch a gentle ftream of eloquence
As feldom rifes to the verge of sense;

Now, by mad rage, transform'd into a flame,
Which yet fit engines, well apply'd, can tame;
Now, on immodeft trafh, the wine obfcene
Invites the town to fup at Drury-lane;
A dreadful lion, now he roars at power,
Which fends him to his brothers at the Tower;
He 's now a ferpent, and his double tongue
Salutes, nay licks, the feet of those he stung;
What knot can bind him, his evasion fuch?
One knot he well deserves, which might do much.
The flood, flame, fwine, the lion, and the fnake,
Thofe fivefold monfters, modern authors make :
The Snake reigns moft; Snakes, Pliny fays, are bred,
When the brain 's perifh'd in a human head.
Ye groveling, trodden, whipt, fript, turncoat things,
Made up of venom, volumes, ftains, and ftings!
Thrown from the Tree of Knowledge, like you, curft
To fcribble in the duft, was Snake the first.

What if the figure should in fact prove true?
It did in Elkenah *, why not in you?
Poor Elkenah, all other changes paft,
For bread in Smithfield dragons hift at last,
Spit ftreams of fire to make the butchers gape,
And found his manners fuited to his fhape:

0 3

* Settle, the city post.

Such

Such is the fate of talents mifapply'd;
So liv'd your Prototype; and fo he dy’d.
Th' abandon'd manners of our writing train
May tempt mankind to think religion vain;
But in their fate, their habit, and their mein,
That gods there are is eminently seen :

Heaven stands absolv'd by vengeance on their pen,
And marks the murderers of fame from men :
Through meagre jaws they draw their venal breath,
As ghaftly as their brothers in Macbeth:

Their feet through faithless leather meet the dirt,

And oftener chang'd their principles than fhirt.

The tranfient vestments of these frugal men,

Haftens to paper for our mirth again :

Too foon (O merry-melancholy fate!)

They beg in rhyme, and warble through a grate :
The man lampoon'd forgets it at the fight;

The friend through pity gives, the foe through spite;

And, though full confcious of his injur'd purse,
Lintot relents, nor Curll can with them worse.
So fare the men, who writers dare commence
Without their patent, probity and sense.

From thefe, their politics our Quidnuncs feek,
And Saturday's the learning of the week:
These labouring wits, like paviors, mend our ways,
With heavy, huge, repeated, flat essays ;

Ram their coarse nonfenfe down, though ne'er fo dull;
And hem at every thump upon your

skull:

These staunch-bred writing hounds begin the cry,
And honest folly echoes to the lye.

O how

O how I laugh, when I a blockhead fee,
Thanking a villain for his probity!
Who ftretches out a most respectful ear,
With fnares for woodcocks in his holy leer
It tickles through my foul to hear the cock's
Sincere encomium on his friend the fox,
Sole patron of his liberties and rights !
While graceless Reynard liftens-till he bites,

As, when the trumpet founds, th' o'erloaded ftate

Discharges all her poor and profligate;

Crimes of all kinds difhonour'd weapons wield,
And prisons pour their filth into the field;
Thus nature's refufe, and the dregs of men,
Compofe the black militia of the pen.