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 discontented Friend:
The marble Caves, and Aquæducts we view;
But how adult'iate now, and different from the true!
How much more Beauteous had the Fountain been
Embellifh'd with her first created Green,
Where Chrystal 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 base 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, an old Age is green,
And 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 such as he;
Such Manners will with such a Town agree.
7 Where Dedalus, &c. Mean- | Distaff, and Atropos to cut the ing at Cuma.
8 Lacbefis; one of the three Deftinies, whofe Office was to fpin the Life of every Man; as it was of Clothe to hold the
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 oppress 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 shed,
All this for Gain; for Gain they fell their very Head.
Thefe Fellows (see 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 Cofts 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 Pleasure, can her Fools advance;
And tofs 'em topmoft on the Wheel of Chance.
What's Rome to me, what Bus'ness have I there,
I who can neither Lie nor falfly Swear?
Nor praise my Patron's undeferving Rhimes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his Times;
Unskill'd in Schemes by Planets to forefhow,
Like canting Rafcals, how the Wars will go:
I neither will, nor can Prognosticate
To the young gaping Heir, his Father's Fate:
TO With Thumbs bent back. In a Prize of Sword-Players. when one of the Fencers had the other at his Mercy, the Vanquish'd Party implor'd the Clemency of the
Nor in the Intrails of a Toad have pry'd,
Nor carry'd Bawdy Prefents to a Bride:
For want of thefe Town Virtues, thus, alone,
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 clofe Intrigues, and dipt in Crimes;
Lab'ring with Secrets which his Bofom burn,
Yet never mult to publick Light return?
They get Reward alone who can betray:
For keeping honeft Counfels none will pay.
He who can Verres when he will, accufe,
The Purfe of Verres may at pleasure use:
But let not all the Gold which 12 Tagus hides,
And pays the Sea in Tributary Tides,
Be Bribe fufficient to corrupt the Breast;
Or violate with Dreams thy peaceful Reft.
. Great Men with jealous Eyes the Friend behold,
Whofe Secrefie they purchase with their Gold.
I hafte to tell thee, nor fhall Shame oppose
What Confidence our wealthy Romans chose :
And whom I moft abhor: To speak my Mind,
I hate, in Rome, a Grecian Town to find:
To fee the Scum of Greece tranfplanted here,
Receiv'd like God's, is what I cannot bear.
Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound,
Obscene 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.
felf into the Ocean near 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 12 Tagus, a famous River of Syria. in Spain, which discharges it
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 is Romulus, and Father Mars look down,
Your Herdsman primitive, your homely Clown
Is turn'd a Beau in a loose tawdy Gown.
His once unkem'd, and horrid Locks, behold
Stilling fweet 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 swarm in Shoals:
So fweet and easie is the Gain from Fools.
Poor Refugees at first, 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 Physician.
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.
15 Romulus, first King of
Rome; Son of Mars, as the Poets feign. The first Romans were originally Herdfmen.
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 ftow'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-lip, 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' harther 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 these Qualities, we muft agree
They Mimick better on the Stage than we:
The Wife, the Whore, the Shepherdefs they Play,
In fuch a Free, and fuch a Graceful way,
That we believe a very Woman shown,
And fancy fomething underneath the Gown.
But not '7 Antischus, nor Stratocles,
Our Ears and ravish'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 Ass can bray:
16 But in that Town, &c. He means Atbens; of which Pallas the Goddefs of Arms and Arts was Patronefs.
14 Antiochus and Stratocles, two famous Grecian Mimicks, or Actors, in the Poet's time.
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