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'nefs 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 foreshow,
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 intrails of a toad have pry'd,
Nor carry'd bawdy presents to a bride:
For want of these town-virtues, thus, alone,

go conducted on my way by none:

Like a dead member from the body rent;
Maim'd, and unuseful 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 fecrets which his bofom burn,
Yet never must to public 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 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 be-
hold,

Whofe fecrefy they purchase with their gold.

I haste to tell thee, nor fhall shame oppose What confidence our wealthy Romans chose: And whom I most abhor: to fpeak my mind, I hate, in Rome, a Grecian town to find: To see the fcum of Greece tranfplanted here, Receiv'd like Gods, is what I cannot bear. Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound, Qbfcene Orontes diving under ground, Conveys his wealth to 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 public place: Go, fools, and purchase an unclean embrace; The painted mitre court, and the more painted face.

Old 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, behold
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 fhoals:
So fweat and easy 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 guefs 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.

In short, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But 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 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 fhepherdess 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 Antiochus, nor Stratocles,

Our ears and ravifh'd eyes can only please:
The nation is compos'd of fuch as thefe.
All Greece is one comedian: laugh, and they
Return it louder than an afs can bray :

Grieve, and they grieve; if you weep filently,
There seems a filent echo in their

their eyes: an ey 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 swear 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-glass;
Still ready to reflect their patron's face.
The panegyric hand, and lifted eye,
Prepar'd for fome new piece of flattery.
Ev'n naftiness, occafions will afford ;
They praise a belching, or well-piffing lord.
Befides, 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 'fcapes the bridegroom, or the blooming fon.

}