Till I cry'd out: 'You prove yourself so able,
'Pity! you was not Druggerman1 at Babel;
For had they found a linguist half so good,
'I make no question but the Tow'r had stood.'
"Obliging Sir! for Courts you sure were made:
"Why then for ever bury'd in the shade?
'Spirits like you, should see and should be seen,
"The King would smile on you-at least the Queen."
Ah gentle Sir! you Courtiers so cajole us-
But Tully has it, Nunquam minus solus2:
And as for Courts, forgive me, if I say
'No lessons now are taught the Spartan way:
Tho' in his pictures Lust be full display'd,
'Few are the Converts Aretine3 has made;
And tho' the Court show Vice exceeding clear,
'None should, by my advice, learn Virtue there.'
At this entranc'd, he lifts his hands and eyes,
Squeaks like a high-stretch'd lutestring, and replies:
"Oh 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things
"To gaze on Princes, and to talk of Kings!"
Then, happy Man who shows the Tombs!' said I,
'He dwells amidst the royal Family;
'He ev'ry day, from King to King can walk,
'Of all our Harries, all our Edwards talk,
And get by speaking truth of monarchs dead,
'What few can of the living, Ease and Bread.'
'Lord, Sir, a mere Mechanic! strangely low,
"And coarse of phrase,-your English all are so.
"How elegant your Frenchmen?" Mine, d'ye mean?
'I have but one, I hope the fellow's clean.'
"Oh! Sir, politely so! nay, let me die,
"Your only wearing is your Padua-soy.
'Not, Sir, my only, I have better still,
And this you see is but my dishabille-'
Wild to get loose, his Patience I provoke,
Mistake, confound, object at all he spoke.
But as coarse iron, sharpen'd, mangles more,
And itch most hurts when anger'd to a sore;
So when you plague a fool, 'tis still the curse,
You only make the matter worse and worse.
He past it o'er; affects an easy smile
At all my peevishness, and turns his style.
He asks, "What News?" I tell him of new Plays,
New Eunuchs, Harlequins, and Operas.
He hears, and as a Still with simples in it
Between each drop it gives, stays half a minute,
Loth to enrich me with too quick replies,
By little and by little, drops his lies.
1 [Dragoman, i. e. interpreter.]
2 [Cicero (de Officiis, 1. III. c. 1) quotes from Cato major the saying of Scipio Africanus m.: 'that he was never less at leisure, than when at leisure; and never less alone, than when alone."]
3 Alluding to the infamous sonnets which this [Florentine author of the age of Leo X.] composed to accompany some designs of Giulio Romano. Warton.
4 ['The way to it is King Street.' Donne.]
Mere household trash! of birth-nights, balls, and shows,
More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes1.
When the Queen frown'd, or smil'd, he knows; and what
A subtle Minister may make of that;
Who sins with whom: who got his Pension rug2,
Or quicken'd a Reversion by a drug;
Whose place is quarter'd out, three parts in four,
And whether to a Bishop, or a Whore;
Who having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent,
Is therefore fit to have a Government;
Who in the secret, deals in Stocks secure,
And cheats th' unknowing Widow and the Poor;
Who makes a Trust or Charity a Job,
And gets an Act of Parliament to rob;
Why Turnpikes rise, and now no Cit nor clown
Can gratis see the country, or the town;
Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole3,
But some excising Courtier will have toll.
He tells what strumpet places sells for life,
What 'Squire his lands, what citizen his Wife:
And last (which proves him wiser still than all)
What Lady's face is not a whited wall.
As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore,
I puke, I nauseate,-yet he thrusts in more:
Trims Europe's balance, tops the statesman's part",
And talks Gazettes and Post-boys o'er by heart.
Like a big wife at sight of loathsome meat
Ready to cast, I yawn, I sigh, and sweat.
Then as a licens'd spy, whom nothing can
Silence or hurt, he libels the great Man;
Swears ev'ry place entail'd for years to come,
In sure succession to the day of doom;
He names the price for ev'ry office paid,
And says our wars thrive ill, because delay'd;
Nay hints, 'tis by connivance of the Court,
That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a Port.
Not more amazement seiz'd on Circe's guests,
To see themselves fall endlong into beasts,
Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise
Already half turn'd traitor by surprise.
I felt th infection slide from him to me,
As in the pox, some give it to get free;
And quick to swallow me, methought I saw
One of our Giant Statutes ope its jaw.
In that nice moment, as another Lie
Stood just a-tilt, the Minister came by.
To him he flies, and bows, and bows again,
Then, close as Umbra1, joins the dirty train.
Not Fannius'2 self more impudently near,
When half his nose is in his Prince's ear.
I quak'd at heart; and still afraid, to see
All the Court fill'd with stranger things than he,
Ran out as fast, as one that pays his bail
And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail.
Bear me, some God! oh quickly bear me hence
To wholesome Solitude, the nurse of sense:
Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings3,
And the free soul looks down to pity Kings!
There sober thought pursu'd th' amusing theme,
Till Fancy colour'd it, and form'd a Dream.
A Vision hermits can to Hell transport,
And forc'd ev'n me to see the damn'd at Court.
Not Dante dreaming all th' infernal state,
Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.
Base Fear becomes the guilty, not the free;
Suits Tyrants, Plunderers, but suits not me:
Shall I, the Terror of this sinful town,
Care, if a liv'ry'd Lord or smile or frown?
Who cannot flatter, and detest who can,
Tremble before a noble Serving-man?
O my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee
For huffing, braggart, puff'd Nobility?
Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all
The busy, idle blockheads of the ball,
Hast thou, oh Sun! beheld an emptier fort,
Than such as swell this bladder of a court?
Now pox on those who show a Court in wax!
It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs:
Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race
Of hollow gew-gaws, only dress and face!
Such waxen noses, stately staring things-
No wonder some folks bow, and think them Kings.
See! where the British youth, engag'd no more
At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a whore,
Pay their last duty to the Court, and come
All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing room;
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,
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As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.
"That's velvet for a King!" the flatt'rer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
1 [Bubb Doddington.]
2 Lord Hervey.]
3 [From Milton's Comus; but possibly taken by Pope from Hughes's Thought in a Garden, or Mrs Chandler's lines on Solitude, quoted by Wakefield.]
4 Court in wax!] A famous show of the Court of France, in Wax-work. P. [Donne
alludes to] a show of the Italian Gardens in Waxwork, in the time of King James I. P.
At Fig's, at White's, with felons,] White's was a noted gaming-house: Fig's, a Prize-fighter's Academy, where the young Nobility receiv'd instruction in those days. It was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate. P.
Our Court may justly to our stage give rules1,
That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools.
And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes?
For these are actors too, as well as those:
Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest,
And all is splended poverty at best.
Painted for sight, and essenc'd for the smell,
Like frigates fraught with spice and cochinel,
Sail in the Ladies: how each pirate eyes
So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!
Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim,
He boarding her, she striking sail to him:
"Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!"
And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!"
Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
'Twou'd burst ev'n Heraclitus with the spleen,
To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin :.
The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pagod.
See them survey their limbs by Durer's3 rules,
Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;
But oh! what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole;
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the Fair.
So first to preach a white-glov'd Chaplain goes,
With band of Lily, and with cheek of Rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immac'late trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.
Let but the Ladies smile, and they are blest:
Prodigious! how the things protest, protest :
Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!
Nature made ev'ry Fop to plague his brother,
Just as one Beauty mortifies another.
But here's the Captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries Arm! whose very look's an oath:
The Captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough,
Tho' his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
Like batt'ring-rams, beats open ev'ry door:
1 our stage give rules,] Alluding to the Chamberlain's Authority [as licenser of plays]. Warburton.
theory of his art, published a work on the Proportions of the human figure.]
4 Much resembling Noll Bluff in Congreve's 2 ['The weeping philosopher.'] Old Bachelor, who was copied from Thraso, and 3 [Albrecht Dürer, among other works on the also from Ben Jonson. Warton.
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hang-dogs in old Tapestry1,
Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from Jails to execution go;
For hung with deadly sins 2 I see the wall,
And lin'd with Giants deadlier than 'em all:
Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss
For Quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.
Scar'd at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly,
And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.
Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine:
Charge them with Heav'n's Artill'ry, bold Divine!
From such alone the Great rebukes endure,
Whose Satire's sacred, and whose rage secure:
'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a Court in tears.
Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my Wit,
In time to come, may pass for holy writ4.
[THE first part of these Satires was published under the title of One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-eight, a Dialogue something like Horace; and the second part followed in the same year. It is remarkable, says Boswell (in his Life of Johnson), that Johnson's London came out on the same morning in May as Pope's 1738; so that England had at once its Juvenal and Horace as poetical monitors.' Johnson's satire, though published anonymously and having nothing, like Pope's, to betray its author, appears to have created the stronger sensation.]
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