His patron he will patronize no more,
But rushes like a tempest out of door.
Lost is the patriot, and extinct his name!
Out comes the pièce, another, and the same;
For A, his magic pen evokes an O,
And turns the tide of Europe on the foe:
He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff,
But 'tis so very foul it won't go off:
Dreadful his thunders, while unprinted roar,
But when once publish'd they are heard no more.
Thus distant bugbears fright, but nearer draw,
The block's a block, and turns to mirth your awe.
Can these oblige whose heads and hearts are such!
No; ev'ry party's tainted by their touch.
Infected persons fly each public place,
And none, or enemies alone embrace:
To the foul fiend their ev'ry passion 's sold;
They love and hate, extempore, for gold.
What image of their fury can we form?
Dulness and rage, a puddle in a storm.
Rest they in peace? If you are pleas'd to buy,
To swell your sails, like Lapland winds they fly.
Write they with rage? the tempest quickly flags;
A state Ulysses tames 'em with his bags:
Let him be what he will, Turk, Pagan, Jew,
For Christian ministers of state are few.
Behind the curtain lurks the fountain-head
That pours his politics thro' pipes of lead,
Which far and near ejaculate and spout,
O'er tea and coffee, poison to the rout;
But when they have bespatter'd all they may,
The statesman throws his filthy squirts away!
With golden forceps these another takes,
And state-elixirs of the vipers makes.
The richest statesman wants wherewith to pay
A servile sycophant, if well they weigh
How much it costs the wretch to be so base:
Nor can the greatest pow'rs enough disgrace,
Enough chastise, such prostitute applause,
If well they weigh how much it stains their cause.
But are our writers ever in the wrong?
Does virtue ne'er seduce the venal tongue?
Yes; if well-brib'd, for virtue.self they fight,
Still in the wrong, tho' champions for the right:
Whoe'er their crimes for int'rest only quit,
Sin on in virtue, and good deeds commit.
Nought but inconstancy Britannia meets,
And broken faith in their abandon'd sheets.
From the same hand how various is the page?
What Civil war their brother pamphlets wage?
Tracts, battle tracts, self-contradictions glare;
Say, is this lunacy---I wish it were.
If such our writers, startled at the sight,
Felons may bless their stars they cannot write!
How justly Proteus' transmigrations fit
The monstrous changes of a modern wit?
Now such a gentle stream of eloquence,
As seldom rises to the verge of sense;
Now, by mad rage, transform'd into a flame,
Which yet fit engines, well apply'd, can tame;
Now, on immodest trash, the swine obscene
Invites the Town to sup at Drury-lane;
A dreadful lion, now he roars at pow'r,
Which sends him to his brothers at the Tow'r;
He's now a serpent, and his double tongue,
Salutes, nay licks, the feet of those he stung.
What note can bind him, his evasion such?
One knot he well deserves which might do much.
The flood, flame, swise, the lion, and the snake,
Those fivefold monsters modern authors make.
The snake reigns most; snakes, Pliny says, are bred
When the brain 's perish'd in a human head.
Ye grov'lling, trodden, whipt, stript, turncoat things,
Made up of venom, volumes, stains, and stings!
Thrown from the tree of Knowledge, like you, curs'd
To scribble in the dust, was snake the first.
What if the figure should in fact prove true?
It did in Elkenah, why not in you?
Poor Elkenah, all other changes past,
For bread in Smithfield dragons hiss'd at last,
Spit streams of fire to make the butchers gape,
And found his manners suited to his shape.
Such is the fate of talents misapply'd;
So liv'd your prototype, and so he dy’d.
Th' abandon'd manners of our writing train
May tempt mankind to think religion vain ;
But in their fate, their habit, and their mien,
That gods there are is eminently seen:
Heav'n stands absolv'd by vengeance on their pen,
And marks the murderers of fame from men:
Thro' meager jaws they draw their venal breath,
As ghastly as their brothers in Macbeth:
Their feet thro' faithless leather meet the dirt,
And oft'ner chang'd their principles than shirt:
The transient vestments of these frugal men
Hasten to paper for our mirth agen:
Too soon (O merry melancholy fate!)
They beg in rhyme, and warble thro' a grate:
The man lampoon'd forgets it at the sight;
The friend thro' pity gives, the foe thro' spight;
And tho' full conscious of his injur'd purse,
Lintot relents, nor Curl can wish them worse.
So fare the men who writers dare commence
Without their patent, probity, and sense.
From these their politics our quidnuncks seek,
And Saturday's the learning of the week:
These lab'ring wits, like paviers, mend our ways
With heavy, huge, repeated, flat, essays;
Ram their coarse nonsense down, tho' ne'er so dull,
And hem at ev'ry thump upon your scull:
These staunch-bred writing hounds begin the cry,
And honest Folly echoes to the lie.
O how I laugh when I a blockhead see
Thanking a villain for his probity;
Who stretches out a most respectful ear,
With snares for woodcocks in his holy leer:
It tickles thro' my soul to hear the cock's
Sincere encomium on his friend the fox,
Sole patron of his liberties and rights!
While graceless Reynard listens---till he bites.
As when the trumpet sounds, th' o'erloaded state
Discharges all her poor and profligate,
Crimes of all kinds dishonour'd weapons wield,
And prisons pour their filth into the field;
Thus Nature's refuse, and the dregs of men,
Compose the black militia of the pen.
ALL write at London; shall the rage abate
Here, where it most should shine, the Muses' seat?
Where, mortal or immortal, as they please,
The learn'd may chuse eternity or ease?
Has not a royal patron* wisely strove
To woo the Muse in her Athenian grove?
Added new strings to her harmonious shell,
And give new tongues to those who spoke so well?
* His late Majesty's benefaction for modern languages.
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