’Tis all a libel, Paxton, Sir, will say.
Pope.
Not yet, my friend! to-morrow, ’faith, it may;
And for that very cause I print to-day.
How should I fret to mangle ev’ry line,
In rev’rence to the sons of Thirty-nine!
Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,
Invention strives to be before in vain;
Feign what I will, and paint it e’er so strong,
Some rising genius sins up to my song.
Fr.
Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;
Ev’n Guthry saves half Newgate by a dash.
Spare then the person, and expose the vice.
Po.
How, Sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?
Come on then, Satire! gen’ral, unconfin’d,
Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!
Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!
Ye rev’rend atheists.
Fr.
Scandal! name them. Who?
Po.
Why that’s the thing you bid me not to do.
Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt,
I never nam’d; the town’s inquiring yet.
The pois’ning dame——
Fr.
You mean——
Po.
I don’t.
Fr.
You do.
Po.
See, now I keep the secret, and not you!
The bribing statesman——
Fr.
Hold, too high you go.
Po.
The brib’d elector——
Fr.
There you stoop too low.
Po.
I fain would please you, if I knew with what;
Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?
Must great offenders, once escap’d the crown,
Like royal harts, be never more run down?
Admit your law to spare the knight requires,
As beasts of nature may we hunt the squires?
Suppose I censure—you know what I mean—
To save a Bishop, may I name a Dean?
Fr.
A Dean, Sir? no; his fortune is not made;
You hurt a man that’s rising in the trade.
Po.
If not the tradesman who set up to-day,
Much less the ’prentice who to-morrow may.
Down, down, proud Satire! tho’ a realm be spoil’d,
Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild,
Or, if a court or country’s made a job,
Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.
But, Sir, I beg you, (for the love of vice!)
The matter’s weighty, pray consider twice;
Have you less pity for the needy cheat,
The poor and friendless villain, than the great?
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the Lawyer, but undoes the Scribe.
Then better sure it Charity becomes
To tax Directors, who (thank God) have plums;
Still better, Ministers; or, if the thing
May pinch ev’n there—Why, lay it on a King.
Fr.
Stop! stop!
Po.
Must Satire, then, nor rise nor fall?
Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all.
Fr.
Yes, strike that Wild, I’ll justify the blow.
Po.
Strike? why the man was hang’d ten years ago:
* * * * * * * * *
Fr.
The Priest, whose flattery be-dropt the crown,
How hurt he you? he only stain’d the gown.
And how did, pray, the florid youth offend,
Whose speech you took, and gave it to a friend?
Po.
Faith, it imports not much from whom it came;
Whoever borrow’d, could not be to blame,
Since the whole House did afterwards the same.
Let courtly wits to wits afford supply,
As hog to hog in huts of Westphaly;
If one, thro’ Nature’s bounty, or his Lord’s,
Has what the frugal, dirty soil affords,
From him the next receives it, thick or thin,
As pure a mess almost as it came in;
The blessed benefit, not there confin’d,
Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind;
From tail to mouth, they feed, and they carouse.
The last full fairly gives it to the House.
Fr.
This filthy simile, this beastly line
Quite turns my stomach—
Po.
So does Flatt’ry mine;
And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,
Perfume to you, to me is excrement.
But hear me farther—Japhet, ’tis agreed,
Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read,
In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite;
But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write;
And must no egg in Japhet’s face be thrown,
Because the deed he forg’d was not my own?
Must never Patriot then declaim at gin,
Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?
No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse,
Without a staring reason on his brows?
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because