stant beggar of favours; that importunity
with which he begs; his flattery; his servility; his fear of being
despised, which is inseparable from him. This addition may be made; viz.
that poetry, like love, is a little subject to blindness, which makes her
mistake her way to preferments and honours; that she has her satirical
quiver; and, lastly, that she retains a dutiful admiration of her father's
family; but divides her favours, and generally lives with her mother's
relations.

However, this is not necessity, but choice: were wisdom her governess, she
might have much more of the father than the mother; especially in such an
age as this, which shows a due passion for her charms.

Satire I.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF DORSET.

----Tanto major famae sitis est, quam
Virtutis.

JUV. SAT. X.

My verse is satire; Dorset, lend your ear,
And patronize a muse you cannot fear.
To poets sacred is a Dorset's name:
Their wonted passport through the gates of fame:
It bribes the partial reader into praise,
And throws a glory round the shelter'd lays:
The dazzled judgment fewer faults can see,
And gives applause to Blackmore, or to me.
But you decline the mistress we pursue;
Others are fond of fame, but fame of you.
Instructive satire, true to virtue's cause!
Thou shining supplement of public laws!
When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age
Reproach our silence, and demand our rage;
When purchas'd follies, from each distant land,
Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand;
When the law shows her teeth, but dares not bite,
And south sea treasures are not brought to light;
When churchmen scripture for the classics quit,
Polite apostates from God's grace to wit;
When men grow great from their revenue spent,
And fly from bailiffs into parliament;
When dying sinners, to blot out their score,
Bequeath the church the leavings of a whore;
To chafe our spleen, when themes like these increase,
Shall panegyric reign, and censure cease?
Shall poesy, like law, turn wrong to right,
And dedications wash an AEthiop white,
Set up each senseless wretch for nature's boast,
On whom praise shines, as trophies on a post?
Shall fun'ral eloquence her colours spread,
And scatter roses on the wealthy dead?
Shall authors smile on such illustrio