Convey by penny-post to Lintot,
But let no friend alive look into't.
If Lintot thinks 'twill quit the coft,
You need not fear your labour loft :
And how agreeably furpriz'd
Are you to see it advertis'd!
The hawker fhews you one in print,
As fresh as farthings from the mint:
The product of your toil and fweating;
A bastard of your own begetting.
Be fure at Will's the following day Lie fnug, and hear what criticks fay. And, if you find the gen'ral vogue Pronounces you a ftupid rogue,
Damns all your thoughts as low and little,
Sit ftill, and fwallow down your fpittle.
Be filent as a politician,
For talking may beget suspicion :
Or praise the judgment of the town,
And help yourself to run it down.
Give up your fond paternal pride,
Nor argue on the weaker fide
For poems read without a name
We juftly praife, or juftly blame;
And criticks have no partial views,
Except they know whom they abufe:,
And fince you ne'er provok'd their fpight,
Depend upon't their judgment's right.
But, if you blab, you are undone,
Confider what a risk you run :
You lofe your credit all at once;
The town will mark you for a dunce;
The vileft doggrel Grubftreet fends
Will pafs for yours with foes and friends;
And muft bear the whole disgrace,
Till fome fresh blockhead takes your place.
Your fecret kept, your poem funk,
And fent in quires to line a trunk,
If ftill you be difpos'd to rhyme,
Go try your hand a fecond time.
Again you fail; yet fafe's the word;
Take courage, and attempt a third.
But firft with care employ your thoughts,
Where criticks mark'd your former faults:
The trivial turns, the borrow'd wit,
The fimiles that nothing fit;
The cant which ev'ry fool repeats,
Town-jefts, and coffee-houfe conceits;
Descriptions tedious, flat and dry,
And introduc'd the lord knows why A
Or where we find your fury fet
Against the harmless alphabet;
On a's and b's your malice vent,
While readers wonder whom you meant;
A public or a private robber,
A ftatefman, or a fouth-fea jobber;
A prelate who no God believes;
A parliament, or den of thieves;
A pick-purse at the bar or bench,
A duchefs, or a fuburb wench :
Oroft, when epithets you link
In gaping lines to fill a chink,
Like stepping-ftones, to fave a ftride,
In ftreets where kennels are too wide;
Or, like a heel-piece, to fupport
A cripple with one foot too fhort;
Or like a bridge, that joins a marish
To moorlands of a diff'rent parish.
So have I feen ill-coupled hounds
Drag diff'rent ways in miry gronnds.
So geographers in Afric maps
With favage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs,
Place elephants for want of towns.
But, though you miss your third effay,
You need not throw your pen away.
Lay now afide all thoughts of fame,
To fpring more profitable game.
From party-merit feek fupport;::
The vileft verfe thrives beft at court,
A pamphlet in Sir Bob's defence
Will never fail to bring in pence:
Nor be concern'd about the fale,
He pays his workmen on the nail.
A prince, the moment he is crown'd, Inherits every virtue round, As emblems of the fovereign power, Like other bawbles in the Tower: Is generous, valiant, juft, and wise, And fo continues till he dies: His humble fenate this profeffes In all their peeches, votes, addreffes: But once you fix him in a tomb, His virtues fade, his vices bloom; And each perfection wrong imputed, Is fully at his death confuted. The loads of poems in his praise Afcending make one funeral-blaze: As foon as you can hear his knell, This God on earth turns d-/ in hell: And lo! his minifters of ftate, Transform'd to imps, his levee wait; Where, in the fcenes of endless woe, They ply their former arts below;
And, as they fail in Charon's boat,
Contrive to bribe the judge's vote;
To Cerberus they give a fop
His triple-barking mouth to ftop;
Or in the iv'ry gate* of dreams
Project excife and South-fea schemes';
Or hire their party-pamphleteers
To fet Elyfium by the ears.
Then poet, if you mean to thrive, Employ your Mufe on kings alive; With prudence gath'ring up a cluster Of all the virtues you can mufter, Which, form'd into a garland fweet, Lay humbly at your monarch's feet; Who, as the odours reach his throne, Will fmile, and think 'em all his own; For law and gofpel both determine All virtues lodge in royal ermine (I mean the oracles of both, Who fhall depofe it upon oath). Your garland in the following reign, Change but the names, will do again.
But, if you think this trade too bafe (Which feldom is the dunce's cafe),
* Sunt gemina fomni porta, etc. Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanta.
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