But now, grown rich, on drunken holidays,
At their own cofts exhibit public plays :
Where influenc'd by the rabble's bloody will,
With 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 topmost on the wheel of chance.
What's Rome to me, what bus'nefs have I there,
I who can neither lie nor falfely swear?
Nor praise my patrons undeferving rhimes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times;
Unskill'd in fchemes by planets to forefhow,
Like canting rafcals, how the wars will go :
I neither will, nor can prognofticate
To the young gaping heir, his father's fate:
Nor in the entrails 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,
Conscious of close intrigues, and dipt in crimes ;
Lab'ring with fecrets which his bofom burn,
Yet never muft to public light return;
They get reward alone who can betray:
For keeping honeft counfels none will pay.
I With thumbs bent back. In a prize of fword-players, when one of the fencers had the other at his mercy, the vanquished party implored the clemency of the spectators. If they thought he deferved it not, they held up their thumbs, and bent them backwards, in fign of death.
He who can 2 Verres when he will, accufe,
The purfe of Verres may at pleasure use:
But let not all the gold which 3 Tagus hides,
And pays the fea in tributary tides,
Be bribe fufficient to corrupt the breast;
Or violate with dreams thy peaceful rest.
Great men with jealous eyes the friend behold,
Whofe fecrecy they purchase with their gold.
I hafte to tell thee, nor fhall shame oppofe
What confidence our wealthy Romans chofe :
And whom I moft abhor: to speak my mind,
I hate, in Rome, a Grecian town to find:
To fee the fcum of Greece transplanted here,
Receiv'd like Gods, is what I cannot bear.
Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound,
Obfcene 4 Orontes diving under ground,
Conveys his wealth to 5 Tyber's hungry fhores,
And fattens Italy with foreign whores :
Hither their crooked harps and cuftoms come:
All find receipt in hofpitable Rome.
The barbarous harlots crowd the public place:
Go, fools, and purchase an unclean embrace;
The painted mitre court, and the more painted face.
Old 6 Romulus, and father Mars look down,
Your herdfman primitive, your homely clown
Is turn'd a beau in a loose tawdry gown.
His once unkem'd, and horrid locks, behold
Stilling fweet oil: his neck inchain'd with gold:
2 Verres, Prætor in Sicily, contemporary with Cicero; by whom accused of oppreffing the province, he was condemned: his name is ufed here for any rich vicious man.
3 Tagus, a famous river in Spain, which discharges itself into the ocean near Lisbon in Portugal. It was held of old, to be full of golden fands.
4 Orontes, the greatest river of Syria: the poet here puts the river for the inhabitants of Syria.
5 Tyber; the river which runs by Rome.
6 Romulus; first king of Rome; fon of Mars, as the poets feign. The firft Romans were originally herdfmen.
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 fhoals:
So fweet and easy 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 themfelves inward, and their patrons out.
Quick-witted, brazen-fac'd, with fluent tongues,
Patient of labours, and diffembling wrongs.
Riddle me this, and guefs him if you can,
Who bears a nation in a single 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.
In short, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But 7 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 fulfome flatteries;
A moft peculiar ftroke 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.
But in that town, &c. He means Athens; of which, Pallas the goddess of arms and arts was patronefs.
A creaking voice for a clear trebble
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 mimic better on the stage than we:
The wife, the whore, the fhepherdefs 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 8 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 ass can bray :
Grieve, and they grieve; if you weep filently,
There feems a filent echo in their eye:
They cannot mourn like you, but they can cry.
Call for a fire, their winter cloaths they take:
Begin but you to fhiver, and they shake:
In froft and fnow, if you complain of heat,
They rub th' unfweating brow, and fwear they fweat.
We live not on the fquare with fuch as these,
Such are our betters who can better please:
Who day and night are like a looking-glafs;
Still ready to reflect their patron's face.
The panegyric hand, and lifted eye,
Prepar'd for fome new piece of flattery.
Ev'n naftinefs, occafions will afford;
They praife a belching, or well-piffing lord.
Besides, there's nothing facred, nothing free
From bold attempts of their rank letchery.
Thro' the whole family their labours run;
The daughter is debauch'd, the wife is won:
Nor 'scapes the bridegroom, or the blooming fon.
8 Antiochus and Stratocles, two famous Grecian mimicks, or actors, in the poet's time.
If none they find for their lewd purpose fit,
They with the walls and very floors commit.
They fearch the fecrets of the house, and fo
Are worshipp'd there, and fear'd for what they know.
And, now we talk of Grecians, caft a view
On what, in schools, their men of morals do;
A rigid 9 ftoick his own pupil flew :
A friend, against a friend of his own cloth,
Turn'd evidence, and murder'd on his oath.
What room is left for Romans in a town
Where Grecians rule, and cloaks controul the gown?
Some Diphilus, or fome Protogenes,
Look fharply out, our fenators to feize:
Engrofs 'em wholly, by their native art,
And fear'd no rivals in their bubbles heart:
One drop of poifon in my patron's ear,
One flight fuggeftion of a fenfelefs fear,
Infus'd with cunning, ferves to ruin me ;
Difgrac'd, and banish'd from the family.
In vain forgotten fervices I boast;
My long dependance in an hour is loft:
Look round the world, what country will appear,
Where friends are left with greater ease than here ?
At Rome (nor think me partial to the poor)
All offices of ours are out of door :
In vain we rise, and to the levees run;
My lord himself is up, before, and gone:
The prætor bids his lictors mend their pace,
Left his colleague outftrip him in the race :
The childish matrons are, long fince, awake;
And, for affronts, the tardy vifits take.
'Tis frequent, here, to fee a free-born fon On the left-hand of a rich hireling run;
9 A rigid ftoick, &c. Publius Ignatius, a ftoick, falfly accufed
Bareas Sorenus, as Tacitus tells us.
1 Diphilus, and Protogenes, &c. were Grecians living in Rome.
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