mence a wit.
Such heroes have we! all, but life, they stake;
How must Spain tremble, and the German shake!
Such writers have we! all, but sense, they print;
Ev'n George's praise is dated from the mint.
In arms contemptible, in arts profane,
Such swords, such pens, disgrace a monarch's reign.
Reform your lives before you thus aspire,
And steal (for you can steal) celestial fire.
O the just contrast! O the beauteous strife!
'Twixt their cool writings, and pindaric life:
They write with phlegm, but then they live with fire;
They cheat the lender, and their works the buyer.
I reverence misfortune, not deride;
I pity poverty, but laugh at pride:
For who so sad, but must some mirth confess
At gay Castruchio's miscellaneous dress?
Though there's but one of the dull works he wrote,
There's ten editions of his old lac'd coat.
These, nature's commoners, who want a home,
Claim the wide world for their majestic dome;
They make a private study of the street;
And, looking full on every man they meet,
Run souse against his chaps; who stands amaz'd
To find they did not see, but only gaz'd.
How must these bards be rapt into the skies!
you need not read, you feel their ecstasies.
Will they persist? 'Tis Madness; Lintot, run,
See them confin'd--"O that's already done."
Most, as by leases, by the works they print,
Have took, for life, possession of the mint.
If you mistake, and pity these poor men,
est Ulubris, they cry, and write again.
Such wits their nuisance manfully expose,
And then pronounce just judges learning's foes;
O frail conclusion; the reverse is true;
If foes to learning, they'd be friends to you:
Treat them, ye judges! with an honest scorn,
And weed the cockle from the generous corn:
There's true good nature in your disrepect;
In justice to the good, the bad neglect:
For immortality, if hardships plead,
It is not theirs who write, but ours who read.
But, O! what wisdom can convince a fool,
But that 'tis dulness to conceive him dull?
'Tis sad experience takes the censor's part,
Conviction, not from reason, but from smart.
a virgin author, recent from the press,
The sheets yet wet, applauds his great success;
Surveys them, reads them, takes their charms to bed,
Those in his hand, and glory in his head;
'Tis joy too great; a fever of delight!
His heart beats thick, nor close his eyes all night: