Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhyme below e'en David's Psalms translated,
Some in my speedy pace I must out-run,
As lame Mephibosheth the wizard's son:
To make quick way I'll leap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza as I would the pox;
And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who, by my Muse, to all succeeding times,
Shall live in spite of their own dogrel rhymes.
Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody,
Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out or in;
Free from all meaning whether good or bad,
And, in one word, heroically mad:
He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,
But faggotted his notions as they fell,
And if they rhym'd and rattled all was well:
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
For still there goes some thinking to ill nature;
He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,
All his occasions are to eat and drink:
If he call rogue and rascal from a garret,
He means you no more mischief than a parrot:
The words for friend and foe alike were made,
To fetter 'em in verse is all his trade.
For almonds he'll cry Whore to his own mother, 430
And call young Absalom King David's brother.
Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
And nothing suffer since he nothing meant:
Hanging supposes human soul and reason,
This animal's below committing treason:
Shall he be hang'd who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achithophel.
The woman that committed buggary,
Was rightly sentenc'd by the law to die;
But 't was hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog that never heard the statute read.
Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pass for mere instinct in him!
Instinct he follows, and no farther knows,
For to write verse with him is to transpose.
'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
Who makes Heav'n's gate a lock to its own key.
Let him rail on; let his invective muse
Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fire-works give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write:
The height of his ambition is, we know,
But to be master of a puppet-show;'
On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Now stop your noses, readers, all and some
For here's a tun of midnight work to come,
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home.
Round as a globe, and liquor'd ev'ry chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link;
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For ev'ry inch that is not fool is rogue:
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spew'd to make the batter.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God; but God before curs'd him:
And if man could have reason, none has more,
That made his paunch so rich and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for Heav'n knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That e'en on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But tho' Heav'n made him poor, with rev'rence speakHe never was a poet of God's making;
The midwife laid his hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing----Be thou dull;
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight,
Fit for thy bulk; do any think but write :
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men;
A strong nativity---but for the pen !
Eat opium, mingle ars'nic in thy drink,
Still thou may'st live, avoiding pen and ink,
I see, I see 'tis counsel giv'n in vain,
For treason botch'd in rhyme will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck;
'Tis fatal to thy fame, and to thy neck.
Why should thy metre good King David blast?
A psalm of his will surely be thy last.
Dar'st thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,
Thou, whom the Penny Pamphlet foil'd in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade:
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason and for writing dull:
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hang'd for nonsense is the devil.
Hadst thou the glories of thy king exprest,
Thy praises had been satire at the best :
But thou in clumsy verse, unlick'd, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defy'd the Lord's anointed.
I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
But of King David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom;
And for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee."
Achithophel each rank, degree, and age!
For various ends neglects not to engage;
The wise and rich for purse and counsel brought,
The fools and beggars for their number sought;
Who yet not only on the town depends,
For even in Court the faction had its friends;
These thought the places they possest too small,
And in their hearts wish'd Court and King to fall;
Whose names the Muse disdaining, holds i' th' dark
Thrust in the villain herd without a mark;
With parasites and libel-spawning imps,
Intriguing fops, dulljesters, and worse pimps.
Disdain the rascal rabble to pursue,
Their set cabals are yet a viler crew;
See where involv'd in common smoke they sit,
Some for our mirth, some for our satite fit;
These gloomy, thoughtful, and on mischief bent,
While those for mere good fellowship frequent
Th' appointed club, can let sedition pass,
Sense, nonsense, any thing to employ the glass; 530
And who believe in their dull honest hearts,
The rest talk reason but to shew their parts;
Who ne'er had wit or will for mischief yet,
But pleas'd to be reputed of a set.
But in the sacred annals of our plot,
Industrious Arod never be forgot;
The labours of this midnight magistrate
May vie with Corah's to preserve the state:
In search of arms he fail'd not to lay hold
On War's most powerful, dang'rous weapon, gold;
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