And then, with heart more hard than stone, '
He pick'd my marrow from the bone.
To vex me more, he took a freak
To flit my tongue, and make me speak :
But that which wonderful appears,
I speak to eyes, and not to ears.
He oft employs me in difguife,
And makes me tell a thousand lies:
To me he chiefly gives in trust
To please his malice, or his luft.
From me no fecret he can hide :
I fee his vanity and pride :
And my delight is to expofe
His follies to his greatest foes.
ALL languages I can command,
Yet not a word I understand.
Without my aid the best divine
In learning would not know a line:
The lawyer must forget his pleading;
The scholar could not shew his reading.
NAY, man my mafter is my flave:
I give command to kill or fave,
Can grant ten thousand pounds a-year,
And make a beggar's brat a peer.
BUT while I thus my life relate,
I only haften on my fate.
My tongue is black, my mouth is furr'd,
I hardly now can force a word.
I die unpitied and forgot,
And on fome dunghill left to rot.
How is the greatest monarch blefs'd,
When in my gaudy liv'ry dress'd !
No haughty nymph has pow'r to run
From me, or my embraces fhun.
Stabb'd to the heart, condemn'd to flame,
My conftancy is ftill the fame.
The fav'rite meffenger of Jove t,
And Lemnian god ‡ confulting ftrove
To make me glorious to the fight
Of mortals, and the gods delight.
Soon would their altars flame expire,
If I refus'd to lend them fire.
A NO T H E
III.
Y fate exalted high in place,
Lo, here I ftand with double face;
Superior none on earth I find;
But fee below me all mankind.
Yet, as it oft attends the great,
I almost fink with my own weight.
At every motion undertook,
The vulgar all confult my look.
I fometimes give advice in writing,
But never of my own inditing.
I am a courtier in my way,
For those who rais'd me, I betray;
And fome give out that I entice
To luft, and luxury, and dice;
Who punishments on me inflict,
Because they find their pockets pick'd.
By riding poft I lofe my health;
And only to get others wealth.
Ecaufe I am by nature blind,
I wifely chufe to walk behind; However, to avoid disgrace
I let no creature fee my face.
My words are few, but spoke with fense:
And yet my speaking gives offence:
Or, if to whisper I prefume,
The company will fly the room.
By all the world I am oppreft,
And my oppreffion gives them reft.
THRO' me, tho' fore against my will,!
Inftructors ev'ry art instil.
By thoufands I am fold and bought,
Who neither get, nor lose a groat;
For none, alas, by me can gain,
But those who give me greatest pain.
Shall man prefume to be my mafter,
Who's but my caterer and tafter ?.
Yet tho' I always have my will,
I'm but a mere depender ftill:
An humble hanger-on at best;
Of whom all people make a jeft.
IN me detractors feek to find
Two voices of a diff'rent kind
I'm too profufe, fome cens'rers cry,
And all I get, I let it fly:
While others give me many a curse,
Because too close I hold my purse.
But this I know, in either cafe
They dare not charge me to my face.
'Tis true indeed, fometimes I fave,
Sometimes run out of all I have;
But when the year is at an end,
Computing what I get and spend,
My goings out, and comings in,
I cannot find I lofe or win;
And therefore all that know me fay,
I juftly keep the middle-way.
I'm always by my betters led;
I laft get up, am first a-bed;
Tho', if I rife before my time,
The learn'd in sciences fublime
Confult the ftars, and thence foretel
Good luck to those with whom I dwell.
HE joy of man, the pride of brutes,
Domestic subject for difputes,
Of plenty thou the emblem fair,
Adorn'd by nymphs with all their care;
I faw thee rais'd to high renown,
Supporting half the British crown;
And often have I feen thee grace
The chafte Diana's infant face;
And whenfoe'er you please to shine,
Lefs useful is her light than thine:
And oft in Celia's treffes play.
Thy num'rous fingers know their way,
I'll fhew the world strange things and true;
What lords and dames of high degree
To place thee in another view,
May justly claim their birth from thee.
The foul of man with spleen you vex;
Of spleen you cure the female fex.
Thee for a gift the courtier fends
With pleasure to his special friends:
He gives; and, with a gen'rous pride,
Contrives all means the gift to hide;
Nor oft can the receiver know,
Whether he has the gift or no.
On airy wings you take your flight,
And fly unfeen both day and night;"
Conceal your form with various tricks;
And few know how or where
Yet fome, who ne'er bestow'd thee, boast
That they to others give thee moft.
Mean time, the wife a question ftart,
If thou a real being art;
Or but a creature of the brain,
That gives imaginary pain:
But the fly giver better knows thee;
Who feels true joys, when he bestows thee.
HO' I, alas! a pris'ner be,
My trade is pris'ners to fet free.
No flave his Lord's commands obeys
With fuch infinuating ways.
My genius piercing, Sharp, and bright,
Wherein the men of wit delight.
The clergy keep me for their ease,
And turn and wind me as they please.
A new and wondrous art I fhow
Of raifing spirits from below;
In fearlet fome, and fome in white:
They rife, walk round, yet never fright.
In at each mouth the fpirits pass,
Diftinctly seen as thro' a glafs :
O'er head and body make a rout,
And drive at last all fecrets out:
VOL. VI.
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