assic fame demand,
For heaping up, with a laborious hand,
A waggon-load of meanings for one word,
While A's deposed, and B with pomp restor'd.
Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
To patch-work learn'd quotations are allied;
Both strive to make our poverty our pride.
On glass how witty is a noble peer!
Did ever diamond cost a man so dear?
Polite diseases make some idiots vain,
Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.
Of folly, vice, disease, men proud we see;
And (stranger still!) of blockheads' flattery;
Whose praise defames; as if a fool should mean,
By spitting on your face, to make it clean.
Nor is't enough all hearts are swoln with pride,
Her power is mighty, as her realm is wide.
What can she not perform? The love of fame
Made bold Alphonsus his Creator blame:
Empedocles hurl'd down the burning steep:
And (stronger still!) made Alexander weep.
Nay, it holds Delia from a second bed,
Tho' her lov'd lord has four half months been dead.
This passion with a pimple have I seen
Retard a cause, and give a judge the spleen.
By this inspir'd (O ne'er to be forgot!)
Some lords have learn'd to spell, and some to knot.
It makes Globose a speaker in the house;
He hems, and is deliver'd of his mouse.
It makes dear self on well-bred tongues prevail,
And I the little hero of each tale.
Sick with the love of fame, what throngs pour in,
Unpeople court, and leave the senate thin!
My glowing subject seems but just begun,
And, chariot-like, I kindle as I run.
Aid me, great Homer! with thy epic rules,
To take a catalogue of British fools.
Satire! had I thy Dorset's force divine,
A knave or fool should perish in each line;
Tho' for the first all Westminster should plead,
And for the last, all Gresham intercede.
Begin. Who first the catalogue shall grace?
To quality belongs the highest place.
My lord comes forward; forward let him come!
Ye vulgar! at your peril, give him room:
He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
By heraldry prov'd valiant or discreet.
With what a decent pride he throws his eyes
Above the man by three descents less wise!
If virtues at his noble hands you crave,
You bid him raise his fathers from the grave.
Men should press forward in fame's glorious chase;
Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.
Let high birth triump