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Mine as a foe profess'd to false pretence,

Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense;
Mine as a friend to ev'ry worthy mind;

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And mine as man, who feel for all mankind.
F. You're strangely proud.

P. So proud, I am no slave;

So impudent, I own myself no knave;

So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud: I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me;
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touch'd and sham'd by ridicule alone.

O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,

Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
To all but heav'n-directed hands deny'd,

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The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide:
Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal,
To rouse the watchman of the public weal,
To Virtue's work provoke the tardy hall,
And goad the prelate slumb'ring in his stall.
Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains,
That counts your beauties only by your stains,
Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day,
The Muse's wing shall brush you all away:
All his Grace preaches, all his Lordship sings,
All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings;
All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
Like the last Gazette, or the last Address.

When black Ambition stains a public cause,
A monarch's sword when mad Vain-glory draws,

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There other trophies deck the truly brave
Than such as Anstis casts into the grave;
Far other stars then * and ** wear,

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And may descend to Mordington from Stair;

(Such as on Hough's unsully'd mitre shine,

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Or beam, good Digby! from a heartlike thine.)

Let Envy howl, while heav'n's whole chorus sings.
And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let Flatt'ry, sick'ning, see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal, verse, as mean as mine.
Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,
When truth stands trembling on the edge of law.
Here, last of Britons! let your names be read:
Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,
And for that cause which made your fathers shine,
Fall by the votes of their degen'rate line.
F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,
And write next winter more Essays on Man.

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EPISTLE I.

To Robert, Earl of Oxford, and Lord Mortimer.* SUCH were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung Till death, untimely, stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh, just beheld and lost! admir'd and mourn'd! With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd! Bless'd in each science! bless'd in ev'ry strain! Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear---in vain!

For him thou oft' hast bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For Swift and him despis'd the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great; Dext'rous the craving, fawning, crowd to quit, And pleas'd to 'scape from flattery to wit.

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Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear, (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear) Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, 15 Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays, Who, careless now of int'rest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford ere was great; Or deeming meanest, what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And sure if aught below the seats divine, Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine;

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*Sent to the Earl of Oxford, with Dr. Parnell's Poems, published by our author after the said Earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in the year 1721.

A soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of pow'r, the blast of public breath,
The bust of lucre, and the dread of death.

In vain to desarts thy retreat is made,
The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
'Tis her's the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.
When Int'rest calls off all her sneaking train,
And all th' oblig'd desert, and all the vain,

She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,

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When the last ling'ring friend has bid farewell. Ev'n now she shades thy ev'ning walk with bays; 35 (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise)

Ev'n now, observant of the parting ray,

Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day;
Thro' Fortune's cloud one truly great can see,
Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he.

EPISTLE II.

To James Craggs, Esq. Secretary of State, 1720.
A SOUL as full of worth as void of pride,
Which nothing seeks to shew, or needs to hide,
Which nor to guilt nor fear its caution owes,
And boasts a warmth that from no passion flows.
A face untaught to feign; a judging eye,
That darts severe upon a rising lie,

And strikes a blush thro' frontless flattery.

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All this thou wert; and being this before,
Know, kings and fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a foe these virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed--a minister, but still a man.
Be not (exalted to whate'er degre)
Asham'd of any friend, not e'en of me:
The patriot's plain, but untrod, path pursue;
If not, 'tis I must be asham'd of you.

EPISTLE III.

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To Mr. Jervas, with Mr. Dryden's Translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting.*

THIS verse be thine, my Friend! nor thou refuse

This from no venal or ungrateful Muse.
Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
Where life awakes, and dawns at ev'ry line;
Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass,
And from the canvas call the mimic face:
Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire
Fresnoy's close art, and Dryden's native fire;
And reading wish, like theirs, our fate and fame,
So mix'd our studies, and so join'd our name;
Like them to shine thro' long succeeding age,
So just thy skill, so regular my rage.

Smit with the love of sister arts we came,

And met congenial, miagling flame with flame;

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*This Epistle, and the two following, were written some years before the rest, and org.nally printed in Volume 111.

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