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To him he flies, and bows, and bows again,
Then, close as Umbra1, joins the dirty train.
Not Fannius'2 self more impudently near,
When half his nose is in his Prince's ear.
I quak'd at heart; and still afraid, to see
All the Court fill'd with stranger things than he,
Ran out as fast, as one that pays his bail
And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail.

Bear me, some God! oh quickly bear me hence
To wholesome Solitude, the nurse of sense:
Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings3,
And the free soul looks down to pity Kings!
There sober thought pursu'd th' amusing theme,
Till Fancy colour'd it, and form'd a Dream.
A Vision hermits can to Hell transport,

And forc'd ev'n me to see the damn'd at Court.
Not Dante dreaming all th' infernal state,
Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.
Base Fear becomes the guilty, not the free;
Suits Tyrants, Plunderers, but suits not me:
Shall I, the Terror of this sinful town,
Care, if a liv'ry'd Lord or smile or frown?
Who cannot flatter, and detest who can,
Tremble before a noble Serving-man?

O my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee
For huffing, braggart, puff'd Nobility?
Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all
The busy, idle blockheads of the ball,
Hast thou, oh Sun! beheld an emptier fort,
Than such as swell this bladder of a court?
Now pox on those who show a Court in wax!
It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs:
Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race
Of hollow gew-gaws, only dress and face!
Such waxen noses, stately staring things-
No wonder some folks bow, and think them Kings.
See! where the British youth, engag'd no more

At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a whore,
Pay their last duty to the Court, and come
All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing-room;

In hues as gay, and odours as divine,

As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.
"That's velvet for a King!" the flatt'rer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.

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alludes to] a show of the Italian Gardens in War work, in the time of King James I. P.

5 At Fig's, at White's, with felons,] White's was a noted gaming-house: Fig's, a Prize-fighter's Academy, where the young Nobility receiv'd instruction in those days. It was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate. P.

Our Court may justly to our stage give rules1,
That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools.
And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes?
For these are actors too, as well as those:
Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest,
And all is splended poverty at best.

Painted for sight, and essenc'd for the smell,
Like frigates fraught with spice and cochinel,
Sail in the Ladies: how each pirate eyes

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So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!

Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim,
He boarding her, she striking sail to him:

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"Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!"

And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!"

Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
'Twou'd burst ev'n Heraclitus with the spleen,
To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin:
The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pagod.
See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules,
Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;
But oh what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole;
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,

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They march, to prate their hour before the Fair.
So first to preach a white-glov'd Chaplain goes,
With band of Lily, and with cheek of Rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immac'late trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.

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Let but the Ladies smile, and they are blest:

Prodigious! how the things protest, protest:

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Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,

If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!
Nature made ev'ry Fop to plague his brother,

Just as one Beauty mortifies another.

But here's the Captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries Arm! whose very look's an oath:
The Captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough,
Tho' his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
Like batt'ring-rams, beats open ev'ry door:

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1 our stage give rules,] Alluding to the Chamberlain's Authority [as licenser of plays]. Warburton.

theory of his art, published a work on the Proportions of the human figure.]

4 Much resembling Noll Bluff in Congreve's 2 [The weeping philosopher.'] Old Bachelor, who was copied from Thraso, and 3 [Albrecht Dürer, among other works on the also from Ben Jonson. Warton.

And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hang-dogs in old Tapestry1,
Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from Jails to execution go;
For hung with deadly sins2 I see the wall,
And lin'd with Giants deadlier than 'em all:
Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss
For Quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross,
Scar'd at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly,
And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.

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Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine:
Charge them with Heav'n's Artill'ry, bold Divine!
From such alone the Great rebukes endure,
Whose Satire's sacred, and whose rage secure:

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'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a Court in tears.
Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my Wit,
In time to come, may pass for holy writ1.

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EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.

[THE first part of these Satires was published under the title of One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-eight, a Dialogue something like Horace; and the second part followed in the same year. It is remarkable, says Boswell (in his Life of Johnson), that Johnson's London came out on the same morning in May as Pope's 1738;' so that England had at once its Juvenal and Horace as poetical monitors.' Johnson's satire, though published anonymously and having nothing, like Pope's, to betray its author, appears to have created the stronger sensation.]

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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 call'd 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 observes1, he lash'd no sort of Vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the Crown3,

Blunt could do Bus'ness, H-ggins 3 knew the Town;
In Sappho touch the Failings of the Sex,
In rev'rend Bishops note some small Neglects,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,

Who cropt 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 5.
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 7 never offer'd you a groat.
Go see Sir ROBERT-

P. 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-exchang'd for Pow'r;
Seen him, uncumber'd with the Venal tribe,
Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe,
Would he oblige me? let me only find,

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He does not think me what he thinks mankind 10.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only diff'rence is I dare laugh out.

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F. Why yes: with Scripture still you may be free;
A Horse-laugh, if you please, at Honesty;

1 Bubo observes,] Some guilty person very fond of making such an observation. P.

2 [V. Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 280.]

3 H-ggins] Formerly Jailor of the Fleet prison, enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled. P. [This Huggins] was the father of the author of the absurd and prosaic Translation of Ariosto. Warton.

4 Who cropt our Ears,] Said to be executed by the Captain of a Spanish ship on one Jenkins, a Captain of an English one. He cut off his ears, and bid him carry them to the King his master. P. [Vide Mr Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great, passim.]

5 Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit. PERS. [Sat. I. 116.] P. Screen] A metaphor peculiarly appropriated to a certain person in power. P.

6 Patriots there are, &c.] This appellation was generally given to those in opposition to the Court. Though some of them (which our author hints at) had views too mean and interested to deserve that Name. P.

7 The Great man] A phrase by common use appropriated to the first minister. P.

8 [Explained by Warburton to refer to the favour conferred by Walpole at Pope's request upon the Catholic priest Southcote. See Introductory Memoir, p. xi.],

9 Seen him, uncumber'd] These two verses were originally in the poem, though omitted in all the first editions. P.

10 [Bowles quotes Coxe's correction of the cynical saying commonly attributed to Sir R. Walpole. The political axiom was perverted by leaving out the word those' (referring to certain pretended patriots).]

A Joke on JEKYL1, or some odd Old Whig
Who never chang'd his Principle, or Wig:
A Patriot is a Fool in ev'ry age,

Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the Stage:
These nothing hurts 2; 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, LYTTELTON3, 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 4, hurt not honest FLEURY 5,
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 Flow'rs of Bubo, and the Flow of Y-ng7!
The gracious Dew of Pulpit Eloquence,
And all the well-whipt 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.
O come, that easy Ciceronian style 9,

1 A Joke on Jekyl,] Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a true Whig in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity. He sometimes voted against the Court, which drew upon him the laugh here described of ONE who bestowed it equally upon Religion and Honesty. He died a few months after the publication of this poem.

P.

2 These nothing hurts ;] i. e. offends. Warburton.

3 Why, answer, Lyttelton,] George Lyttelton, Secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished both for his writings and speeches in the spirit of Liberty. P. [V. Im. of Hor. Bk. 1. Ep. i. v. 29.]

4 Sejanus, Wolsey,] The one the wicked minister of Tiberius; the other, of Henry VIII. The writers against the Court usually bestowed these and other odious names on the Minister, without distinction, and in the most injurious manner. See Dial. II. v. 137. P.

5 Fleury,] Cardinal: and Minister to Louis

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XV. It was a Patriot-fashion, at that time, to cry up his wisdom and honesty. P.

6 Henley-Osborne] See them in their places in the Dunciad. P.

7 [Sir William Yonge, not, as Bowles conjectures to be possible, Dr Edward Young, author of The Night Thoughts, although to the latter Doddington (Bubo) was a constant friend].

8 The gracious Dew] Alludes to some court sermons, and florid panegyrical speeches; particularly one very full of puerilities and flatteries; which afterwards got into an address in the same pretty style; and was lastly served up in an Epitaph, between Latin and English, published, by its author. P. An 'Epitaph' on Queen Caroline was written hy Lord Hervey, and an address moved in the House of Commons (the Senate) on the occasion by H. Fox. Carruthers.

9 that easy Ciceronian style,], A joke upon absurd Imitators; who in light and familiar compositions, which require ease, affect a Ciceronian

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