Pears and pistachio-nuts my mother sold,
He a dramatic poet, she a scold.
His tragic Muse could countesses affright,
His wit in boxes was my lord's delight.
No mercenary priest e'er join'd their hands,
Uncramp'd by wedlock's unpoetic bands.
Laws my Pindaric parents matter'd not,
So I was tragi-comically got.
My infant tears a sort of measure kept,
I squall'd in distichs, and in triplets wept.
No youth did I in education waste,
Happy in an hereditary Taste.
Writing neʼer cramp'd the sinews of my thumb,
Nor barbarous birch e'er brush'd my tender bum.
My guts ne'er suffer'd from a college cook,
My name ne'er enter'd in a buttery-book.
Grammar in vain the sons of Priscian teach,
Good parts are better than eight parts of speech:
Since these declin'd, those undeclin❜d they call,
I thank my stars, that I declin'd them all.
To Greek or Latin tongues without pretence,
I trust to mother wit and father sense.
Nature's my guide, all sciences I scorn,
Pains I abhor, I was a poet born.
Yet is my goût for criticism such,
I've got some French, and know a little Dutch.
Huge commentators grace my learned shelves,
Notes
upon books out-do the books themselves.
Critics indeed are valuable men,
But hyper-critics are as good agen.
Though Blackmore's works my soul with raptures fill,
With notes by Bentley they'd be better still.
The Boghouse-Miscellany's well design'd,
To case the body, and improve the mind.
Swift's whims and jokes for my resentment call,
For he displeases me that pleases all.
Verse without rhyme I never could endure,
Uncouth in numbers, and in sense obscure.
To him as nature, when he ceas'd to see,
Milton's an universal blank to me.
Confirm'd and settled by the nation's voice,
Rhyme is the poet's pride, and people's choice.
Always upheld by national support,
Of market, university, and court:
Thomson, write blank; but know that for that reason, These lines shall live when thine are out of season. Rhyme binds and beautifies the poet's lays,
As London ladies owe their shape to stays.
Had Cibber's self the Careless Husband wrote, He for the laurel ne'er had had my vote: But for his epilogues and other plays, He thoroughly deserves the modern bays. It pleases me, that Pope unlaurell'd goes, While Cibber wears the bays for play-house prose: So Britain's monarch once uncover'd sate, While Bradshaw bully'd in a broad-brim'd hat.
Long live old Curll! he ne'er to publish fears, The speeches, verses, and last wills of peers. How oft has he a public spirit shewn,
And pleas'd our ears, regardless of his own?
But to give merit due, though Curll's the fame ?
Are not his brother book-sellers the same?
Can statutes keep the British press in awe,
While that sells best, that's most against the law ?
Lives of dead play'rs my leisure hours beguile, And Sessions-papers tragedize my stile. 'Tis charming reading in Ophelia's life, So oft a mother, and not once a wife: She could with just propriety behave, Alive with peers, with monarchs in her grave: Her lot how oft have envious harlots wept, By prebends bury'd, and by generals kept.
T'improve in morals Mandevil I read,
And Tyndal's scruples are my settled creed.
I travell❜d early, and I soon saw through
Religion all, ere I was twenty-two.
Shame, pain, or poverty shall I endure,
When ropes or opium can my ease procure?
When money
's gone, and I no debts can pay,
Self-murder is an honorable way.
As Pasaran directs I'd end my life,
And kill myself, my daughter, and my wife.
Burn but that Bible which the parson quotes,
And men of spirit all shall cut their throats.
But not to writings I confine my pen,
I have a taste for buildings, music, men.
Young travell'd coxcombs mighty knowledge boast, With superficial smattering at most.
Not so my mind, unsatisfied with hints,
Knows more than Budgel writes, or Roberts prints.
I know the town, all houses I have seen,
From High-Park corner down to Bednal-Green.
Sure wretched Wren was taught by bungling Jones,
To murder mortar, and disfigure stones!
Who in Whitehall can symmetry discern?
I reckon Covent-Garden church a barn.
Nor hate I less thy vile cathedral, Paul!
The choir's too big, the cupola's too small :
Substantial walls and heavy roofs I like,
They're Vanbrugh's structures that my fancy strike:
Such noble ruins every pile would make,
I wish they'd tumble for the prospect's sake.
To lofty Chelsea, or to Greenwich dome,
Soldiers and sailors all are welcom'd home.
Her poor to palaces Britannia brings,
St. James's hospital may serve for kings,
Buildings so happily I understand,
That for one house I'd mortgage all my land.
Doric,, Ionic, shall not there be found,
But it shall cost me threescore thousand pound.
From out my honest workmen, I'll select
A Bricklay❜r, and proclaim him architect;
First bid him build me a stupendous dome,
Which having finish'd, we set out for Rome;
Take a week's view of Venice and the Brent,
Stare round, see nothing, and come home content. I'll have my Villa too, a sweet abode,
Its situation shall be London road:
Pots o'er the door I'll place like Cits balconies, Which Bentley calls the Gardens of Adonis.
I'll have my gardens in the fashion too,
For what is beautiful that is not new?
Fair four-legg'd temples, theatres that vye
With all the angles of a Christmas-pye.
Does it not merit the beholder's praise,
What's high to sink? and what is low to raise ?
Slopes shall ascend where once a green-house
And in my horse-pond I will plant a wood.
Let misers dread the hoarded gold to waste,
Expence and alteration shews a Taste.
In curious paintings I'm exceeding nice,
And know their several beauties by their price.
Auctions and sales I constantly attend,
But choose my pictures by a skilful friend.
Originals and copies much the same,
The picture's value is the painter's name.
My Taste in sculpture from my choice is seen,
I buy no statues that are not obscene.
In spite of Addison and ancient Rome,
Sir Cloudesly Shovel's is my fav'rite tomb.
|