Howe'er the river rolls its tides, The cork upon the furface rides. And on Ink's Ocean, lightly buoy'd, That cork of vanity is Lloyd.
Let me too use the common claim
And foufe at once upon my name,
Which fome have done with greater stress,
Who know me, and who love me less.
Poets are very harmless things,
Unless you teaze one till he ftings;
And when affronts are plainly meant,
We're bound in honour to refent:
And what tribunal will deny
An injur'd person to reply?
In these familiar emanations,
Which are but writing converfations,
Where thought appears in difhabille,
And fancy does just what she will,
The foureft critic wou'd excufe
The vagrant fallies of the Mufe:
Which lady, for Apollo's bleffing
Has still attended our careffing,
As many children round her fees
As maggots in a Cheshire cheese,
Which I maintain at vaft expence,
Of pen and paper, time and sense :
And surely 'twas no small miscarriage
When first I enter'd into marriage.
The poet's title which I bear,
With some strange caftles in the air,
Was all my portion with the fair.
However narrowly I look,
In Phœbus's valorum book,
I cannot from enquiry find
Poets had much to leave behind.
They had a copyhold estate
In lands, which they themselves create,
A foolish title to a fountain,
A right of common in a mountain,
And yet they liv'd amongst the great,
More than their brethren do of late;
Invited out at feasts to dine,
Eat as they pleas'd, and drank their wine;
Nor is it any where fet down
They tipt the fervants half a crown,
But pafs'd amid the waiting throng
And pay'd the porter with a fong;.
As once, a wag in modern days,
When all are in these bribing ways,
His fhillings to dispense unable,
Scrap'd half the fruit from off the table,
And walking gravely thro' the croud,
Which flood obfequiously, and bow'd,
To keep the fashion up of tipping,
Dropt in each hand a golden pippin.
But there's a difference indeed
"Twixt ancient bards and modern breed.
Tho' poet known, in Roman days,
Fearless he walk'd the public ways,.
Nor ever knew that facred name
Contemptuous fmile, or painful fhame ::
While with a foolish face of praise,
The folks wou'd stop to gape and
And half untold the story leave,
Pulling their neighbour by the fleeve,
While th' index of the finger fhews,
There-yonder's Horace - there he goes.
This finger, I allow it true,. Points at us modern poets too; But 'tis by way of wit and joke,
To laugh, or as the phrase is, smoke..
Yet, there are thofe, who're fond of wit,
Altho' they never us'd it yet,
Who wits and witlings entertain
Of Tafte, Virtù, and Judgment vain,
And dinner, grace, and grace-cup done,
Expect a wond'rous deal of fun :
"Yes - He at bottom-don't you know him? "That's He that wrote the last new poem..
"His Humour's exquifitely high,
"You'll hear him open by and by."
The man in print and converfation
Have often very small relation;
And he, whose humour hits the town,
When copied fairly, and fet down,
In public company may pass,
For little better than an afs.
Perhaps the fault is on his fide,
Springs it from modesty, or pride,
Those qualities asham'd to own,
For which he's happy to be known;
Or that his nature's ftrange and fhy,
And diffident, he knows not why;
Or from a prudent kind of fear,
As, knowing that the world's fevere,
He wou'd not fuffer to escape
Familiar wit in easy shape:
Left gaping fools, and vile repeaters,
Should catch her up, and fpoil her features,
And, for the child's unlucky maim,
The faultlefs parent come to fhame.
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