You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
And are, besides, too moral for a wit.
Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel--
Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?
'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said, "Tories called him Whig, and Whigs a Tory";
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
"To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter".
But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes, he lashed no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown,
Blunt could do business, Huggins knew the town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
In reverend bishops note some small neglects,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king.
His sly, polite, insinuating style
Could please at court, and make Augustus smile:
An artful manager, that crept between
His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.
But 'faith your very friends will soon be sore:
Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more--
And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought
The great man never offered you a groat.
Go see Sir Robert--
P[_ope_]. See Sir Robert!--hum--
And never laugh--for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power;
Seen him, uncumbered with the venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only difference is, I dare laugh out.
_F_. Why yes: with Scripture still you may be free:
A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty;
A joke on Jekyl, or some odd old Whig
Who never changed his principle or wig.
A patriot is a fool in every age,
Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,
And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.
If any ask you, "Who's the man, so near
His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?"
Why, answer, Lyttleton, and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage;
But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury,[207]
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends,