Yet fuch our Av'rice is, that ev'ry Tree
Pays for his Head; not Sleep it felf is free:
Nor Place, nor Perfons, now are Sacred held,
From their own Grove the Mufes are expell'd.
Into this lonely Vale our Steps we bend,
I and my fullen difcontented Friend:
The marble Caves, and Aquæducts we view;
But how adult'rate now, and different from the true!
How much more Beauteous had the Fountain been
Embellifh'd with her firft created Green,
Where Crystal Streams thro' living Turf had run,
Contented with an Urn of Native Stone!
Then thus Umbricius (with an angry Frown,
And looking back on this degen'rate Town,)
Since noble Arts in Rome have no Support,
And ragged Virtue not a Friend at Court,
No Profit rifes from th' ungrateful Stage,
My Poverty encreafing with my Age,
'Tis time to give my juft Difdain a vent,
And, Curfing, leave fo bafe a Government.
Where 7 Dedalus his borrow'd Wings laid by,
To that obfcure Retreat I chufe to fly:
While yet few Furrows on my Face are seen,
While I walk upright, and old Age is green,
And 8 Lachefis has fomewhat left to spin.
Now, now 'tis time to quit this curfed Place;
And hide from Villains my too honest Face:
Here let 9 Arturius live, and fuch as he;
Such Manners will with fuch a Town agree.
7 Where Dedalus,&c. Mean- | Diftaff, and Atropes to cut the ing at Cuma.
8 Lachefis; one of the three Deftinies, whofe Office was to fpin the Life of every Man; as it was of Clothe to hold the
9 Arturius. Any debauch'd wicked Fellow who gains by the times,
Knaves who in full Affemblies have the knack
Of turning Truth to Lies, and White to Black:
Can hire large Houses, and opprefs the Poor
By farm'd Excife; can cleanse the Common-fhoar;
And rent the Fishery; can bear the Dead;
And teach their Eyes diffembled Tears to fhed.
All this for Gain; for Gain they fell their very Head.
Thefe Fellows (fee what Fortune's Pow'r can do)
Were once the Minstrels of a Country Show:
Follow'd the Prizes thro' each paltry Town,
By Trumpet-Cheeks and bloated Faces known.
But now, grown rich, on drunken Holy-days,
At their own Costs exhibit publick Plays:
Where influenc'd by the Rabble's bloody Will,
With 10 Thumbs bent back, they popularly kill.
From thence return'd, their fordid Avarice rakes
In Excrements again, and hires the Jakes.
Why hire they not the Town, not ev'ry thing,
Since fuch as they have Fortune in a String?
Who, for her Pleafure, can her Fools advance;
And tofs 'em topmost on the Wheel of Chance.
What's Rome to me, what Bus'nefs have I there,
I who can neither Lie nor falfly Swear?
Nor praise my Patron's undeferving Rhimes,
yet comply with him, nor with his Times;
Unskill'd in Schemes by Planets to foreshow,
Like Canting Rafcals, how the Wars will
I neither will, nor can Prognosticate
To the young gaping Heir, his Father's Fate:
Io With Thumbs bent back.
In a Prize of Sword-Players,
when one
of the Fencers
had the other at his Mer-
cy, the Vanquish'd Party im-
plor'd the Clemency of the
Spectators. If they thought he deserv'd it not, they held up their Thumbs and bent them backwards, in fign of Death.
Nor in the Intrails of a Toad have pry'd,
Nor carry'd Eawdy Prefents to a Bride:
For want of thefe Town Virtues, thus, alone,
I go conducted on my Way by none:
Like a dead Member from the Body rent;
Maim'd, and unufeful to the Government.
Who now is lov'd, but he who loves the Times,
Confcious of close Intrigues, and dipt in Crimes:
Lab'ring with Secrets which his Bofom burn,
Yet never muft to publick Light rerurn?
They get Reward alone who can betray:
For keeping honeft Counsels none will pay.
He who can Verres when he will, accufe,
The Purfe of Verres may at pleasure ufe:
But let not all the Gold which 12 Tagus hides,
And pays the Sea in Tributary Tides,
Be Bribe fufficient to corrupt thy Breaft;
Or violate with Dreams thy peaceful Reft.
Great Men with jealous Eyes the Friend behold,
Whole Secrefie they purchase with their Gold.
I hafte to tell thee, nor fhall Shame oppofe
What Confidents our wealthy Romans chofe:
And whom I most abhor: To fpeak my Mind,
I hate, in Rome, a Grecian Town to find:
To fee the Scum of Greece tranfplanted here,
Receiv'd like Gods, is what I cannot bear.
Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound,
Obfcene 13 Orontes diving under ground,
11 Verres, Prætor in Sicily, Contemporary with Cicero; by whom accus'd of oppreffing the Province, he was condemn'd: His Name is us'd here for any Rich vicious Men.
12 Tagus, a famous River in Spain, which discharges it
felf into the Ocean nea Lisbon in Portugal. It was held of old, to be full of Golden Sands.
13 Orontes, the greatest River of Syria: The Poet here puts the River for the Inhabitants of Syria.
Conveys his Wealth to 14 Tyber's hungry Shores,
And fattens Italy with foreign Whores:
Hither their crooked Harps and Customs come:
All find receipt in Hofpitable Rome.
The barbarous Harlots crowd the publick Place:
Go, Fools, and purchase an unclean Embrace;
The painted Mitre court, and the more painted Face.
¦ Old 's Romulus, and Father Mars look down,
Your Herdsman primitive, your homely Clown
Is turn'd a Beau in a loose tawdry Gown.
His once unkem'd, and horrid Locks, hehold
Stilling Sweet Oil: his Neck inchain'd with Gold:
Aping the Foreigners in ev'ry Drefs;
Which, bought at greater Coft, becomes him lefs.
Mean time they wifely leave their Native Land,
From Sycion, Samos, and from Alaband,
And Amydon, to Rome they fwarm in Shoals:
So fweet and eafie is the Gain from Fools.
Poor Refugees at firft, they purchase here:
And, foon as Denizen'd, they domineer.
Grow to the Great, a flatt'ring fervile Rout:
Work themselves inward, and their Patrons out.
Quick-witted, Brazen-fac'd, with fluent Tongues,
Patient of Labours, and diffembling Wrongs.
Riddle me this, and guess him if you can,
Who bears a Nation in a fingle Man?
A Cook, a Conjurer, a Rhetorician,
A Painter, Pedant, a Geometrician,
A Dancer on the Ropes, and a Phyfician.
All things the hungry Greek exactly knows:
And bid him go to Heav'n, to Heav'n he goes.
14 Tyber; the River which runs by Rome.
Is Romulus, First King of
Rome; Son of Mars, as the Poets feign. The first Romans were originally Herdsmen.
In fhort, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But 16 in that Town which Arms and Arts adorn,
Shall he be plac'd above me at the Board,
In Purple cloath'd, and lolling like a Lord?
Shall he before me fign, whom t'other Day
A fmall-craft Veffel hither did convey;
Where stow'd with Prunes, and rotten Figs, he lay?
How little is the Privilege become
Of being born a Citizen of Rome!
The Greeks get all by fulfom Flatteries;
A moft peculiar Stroke they have at Lies.
They make a Wit of their infipid Friend;
His Blobber-lips and Beetle-brows commend:
His long Crane-Neck, and narrow Shoulders praise;
You'd think they were defcribing Hercules.
A creaking Voice for a clear Trebble goes;
Tho' harfher than a Cock that Treads and Crows.
We can as grofly Praise; but, to our Grief,
No Flatt'ry but from Grecians gains Belief.
Befides thefe Qualities, we must agree
They Mimick better on the Stage than we:
The Wife, the Whore, the Shepherdess they Play,
In fuch a Free, and fuch a Graceful way,
That we believe a very Woman fhown,
And fancy fomething underneath the Gown.
But not 17 Antiochus, nor Stratocles,
Our Ears and ravifh'd Eyes can only please:
The Nation is compos'd of fuch as these.
All Greece is one Comedian: Laugh, and they
Return it louder than an Afs can bray:
16 But in that Town, &c. He means Athens; of which, Pallas the Goddess of Arms and Arts was Patronefs,
17 Antiochus and Stratocles, two famous Grecian Mimicks, or Actors, in the Poet's time.
|