Without my aid, the best divine
In learning would not know a line:
The lawyer must forget his pleading;
The scholar could not shew his reading.
Nay; man my master is

my

flave :
I give command to kill or save,
Can grant ten thousand pounds a year,
And make a beggar's brat a peer.

But, while I thus my life relate,
I only hasten on my fate.
My tongue is black, my mouth is furr’d,
I hardly now can force a word.
I die unpitied and forgot,
And on some dunghill left to rot.

II.

ANOTHER.

A

LL-ruling tyrant of the earth,
To vileft slaves I owe my

birth.
How is the greatest monarch bleft,
When in my gaudy liv'ry drest!
No haughty nymph has pow'r to run
Fron me; or my embraces shun.
Stabb’d to the heart, condemn'd to flame,
My constancy is still the fame.

The fav’rite messenger of yove*,
And Lemnian God + consulting strove
To make me glorious to the sight
Of mortals, and the Gods delight.
Soon would their altars fame expire,
If I refus'd to lend them fire.

III.
A NO THE R.

By fate exalted, high in place,

Lo, here I stand with double face; Superior none on earth I find; But see below me all mankind. Yet, as it oft attends the great, I almost sink with my own weight. At every

motion undertook, The vulgar all consult my

look.
I sometimes give advice in writing,
But never of my own inditing.

I am a courtier in my way;
For those who rais’d me, I betray;
And some give out, that I entice
To lust and luxury and dice:
Who punishments on me inflict,
Because they find their pockets pickt.

* Mercury.

+ Vulcan,

By

By riding post I lose my health; And only to get others wealth.

IV.

Α Ν Ο Τ Η Ε R.

BF

ECAUSE I am by nature blind,

I wisely chuse to walk behind;
However, to avoid disgrace,
I let no creature see my face.
My words are few, but spoke with sense :
And

yet my Speaking gives offence :
Or, if to whisper I presume,
The company will fly the room.
By all the world I am opprest,
And my oppression gives them reft.

Through me, though sore against my will, Instructors ev'ry art instil. By thousands I am fold and bought, Who neither get nor lose a groat; For none, alas! by me can gain, But those who give me greatest pain. Shall man presume to be my master, Who's but my caterer and tasier? Yet, though I always have my will, I'm but a meer depender still:

An

An humble hanger-on at best;
Of whom all people make a jest.

In me detractors feek to find Two vices of a diff'rent kind: I'm too profuse, some cens’rers cry, And all I get, I let it fly : While others give me many a curse, Because too close I hold my purse. But this I know, in either cafe They dare not charge me to my face. 'Tis true indeed, sometimes I save, Sometimes run out of all I have; But, when the year is at an end, Computing what I get, and spend, My goings out, and comings in, I cannot find I lose or win; And therefore all that know me say, I justly keep the middle way. I'm always by my betters lead; I last get up, and first a-bed; Though, if I rise before my time, The learn'd in sciences sublime Consult the stars, and thence foretel Good ļuck to those with whom I dwell.

V.
A N O THE R.

THE joy of man, the pride of brutes,

Domestic subject for disputes,
Of plenty thou the emblem fair,
Adorn'd by nymphs with all their care !
I saw thee rais’d to high renown,
Supporting half the British crown;
And often have I seen thee

grace
The chaste Diana's infant face ;
And whenfoe'er you please to shine,
Less useful is her light than thine :
Thy num’rous fingers know their way,
And oft in Celia's treffes play.

To place thee in another view,
I'll dhew the world strange things and true;
What lords and dames of high degree
May juftly claim their birth from thee.
The foul of man with spleen you vex :
Of spleen you cure the female sex.
Thee for a gift the courtier sends
With pleasure to his special friends :
He gives; and with a gen’rous pride,
Contrives all means the gift to hide :

Nor