230

230

235

But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,
To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,
Sate full-blown Bufo puff’d by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
His library, where busts of poets dead
And a true Pindar stood without a head,
Received of wits an undistinguish'd race,
Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a place :
Much they extoll’d his pictures, much his seat;
And flatter'd every day, and some days eat: 240
Till grown more frugal in his riper days,
He paid some bards with port, and some with praise;
To some a dry rehearsal was assign'd,
And others (harder still) he paid in kind.
Dryden alone (what wonder ?) came not nigh;
Dryden alone escaped this judging eye: 246
But still the great have kindness in reserve;
He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.
May some choice patron bless each gray goose

quill! May every Bavius have his Bufo still! 250

So when a statesman wants a day's defence,
Or envy holds a whole week’s war with sense,
Or simple pride for flattery makes demands,
May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands !
Bless'd be the great, for those they take away, 255
And those they left me ; for they left me Gay; .
Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:
Of all thy blameless life the sole return
My verse, and Queensbury weeping o'er thy
urn!

260 0, let me live my own, and die so too, (To live and die is all I have to do)

256 They left me Gay. Gentleness of manners and mediocrity of genius were Gay's passports to fame.: he obtained the reputation of a poet by living among poets; and he was suffered to live among them, because, while his manners pleased, his talents were incapable of rivalry. His · Fables' are acknowleged triflings : of the ‘Beggars' Opera’ it is impossible that he should bave been more than the nominal author : its sarcastic, searching, and characteristic force was totally beyond his conception : he was capable of neither its wit nor its wickedness. While we have evidence, on the one hand, that the idea of the Newgate Pastoral' was suggested by Swift, and the plan submitted to Pope; we have, on the other, evidence, in the singular insipidity of his subsequent opera, • Polly,' that Gay was destitute of all dramatic power. His life was vexed by disappointments at court; and Addison has been charged with thus doing injury to the friend of Pope: but the sources were higher-the queen and sir Robert Walpole. Gay had sought preferment through Mrs. Howard, notoriously the king's mistress : and he who sought it through this channel, deserved to lose it. He writes to Swift, — Mrs. Howard has declared herself very strongly to both the king and queen as my protector. The queen, naturally hostile to this species of influence, traversed it on all occasions, and Gay failed. The Beggars' Opera,' which came out soon after, was filled with satire on the minister, though satire which never came from Gay; and the failure was irretrievable.

Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,
And see what friends, and read what books I

please :
Above a patron, though I condescend 265
Sometimes to call a minister my friend.
I was not born for courts or great affairs ;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers ;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,
Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead. 270

Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light? Heavens ! was I born for nothing but to write ? Has life no joys for me? or, to be grave, Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save ? • I found him close with Swift.' - Indeed ? no doubt,'

275 Cries prating Balbus, something will come out.' 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will : • No, such a genius never can lie still ;' And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first lampoon sir Will or Bubo makes. 280

280 Will or Bubo makes. Sir William Young, and Bubb Doddington, afterwards lord Melcombe. Doddington's name has gone down to perpetual contempt by the avowed baseness of his principles. His well-known Diary' is a trite, trifling, and nearly unintelligible performance; useful only as a proof of the diligence with which a political trader may consign himself to infamy.

Doddington had many advantages of nature and fortune : he was handsome, well-bred, a wit in the court circles, and the possessor of considerable wealth. Lady M. Montague, a sufficient judge of all the merits and demerits of her society, pronounces him the all-accomplished Mr. Doddington. He was a frequent speaker in the house, and became an ostentatious partisan of Frederic, prince of Wales. Walpole has preserved a curious extravagance of Doddington's sorrow on his death.

285

Poor guiltless I ! and can I choose but smile,
When every coxcomb knows me by my style ?

Cursed be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear !
But he who hurts a harmless neighbor's peace,
Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slanders helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out; 290
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,

And show the sense of it without the love; · Who has the vanity to call you friend,

Yet wants the honor, injured, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you

say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who to the dean' and silver bell’ can swear,
And sees at Canons what was never there; 300
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply;
Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie;
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.
Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of
silk,

305 Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?

295

Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys; 311
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

315 As shallow streams run dimpling all the way; Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet

squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 320 In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all seesaw, between that' and “this,' Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis.

325 Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have express'd, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; 331 Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will

trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.