Without my aid, the best divine In learning would not know a line: The lawyer muft forget his pleading; The fcholar could not fhew his reading.
Nay; man my mafter is my flave: I give command to kill or fave, Can grant ten thousand pounds a year, And make a beggar's brat a peer.
But, while I thus my life relate, I only haften 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 fome dunghill left to rot.
LL-ruling tyrant of the earth, To vileft flaves I owe my birth. How is the greatest monarch bleft, When in my gaudy liv'ry dreft! No haughty nymph has pow'r to run From me; or my embraces fhun.
Stabb'd to the heart, condemn'd to flame, My conftancy is fill the fame.
The fav'rite meffenger of Jove*, And Lemnian God + consulting strove To make me glorious to the fight Of mortals, and the Gods delight. Soon would their altars flame expire, If I refus'd to lend them fire.
ANOTHER.
BY fate exalted high in place,
Lo, here I ftand with double face; Superior none on earth I find; But fee 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 confult my look. I fometimes 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 fome give out, that I entice To luft and luxury and dice: Who punishments on me inflict, Because they find their pockets pickt.
By riding post I lose my health; And only to get others wealth.
ECAUSE I am by nature blind, I wifely chufe to walk behind; However, to avoid disgrace,
I let no creature fee my face. My words are few, but fpoke with fense: And yet my Speaking gives offence: Or, if to whisper I prefume,
The company will fly the room. By all the world I am oppreft, And my oppreffion gives them reft.
Through me, though fore against my will, Inftructors ev'ry art inftil.
By thousands I am fold and bought, Who neither get nor lofe a groat; For none, alas! by me can gain, But those who give me greatest pain. Shall man prefume to be my mafter, Who's but my caterer and tafter? Yet, though I always have my will, I'm but a meer depender fill:
An humble hanger-on at best; Of whom all people make a jeft.
In me detractors feek to find Two vices of a diff'rent kind: I'm too profufe, fome cens'rers cry, And all I get, I let it fly:
While others give me many a curfe, 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, fometimes I fave, 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 lofe or win; And therefore all that know me fay, I justly keep the middle way. I'm always by my betters lead; I laft get up, and first a-bed; Though, if I rife before my time, The learn'd in fciences fublime Confult the ftars, and thence foretel
Good luck to thofe with whom I dwell.
THE joy of man, the pride of brutes, Domeftic fubject for difputes,
Of plenty thou the emblem fair, Adorn'd by nymphs with all their care! I faw thee rais'd to high renown, Supporting half the British crown; And often have I feen thee
grace The chafte Diana's infant face; And whenfoe'er you please to shine, Lefs 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 fhew the world ftrange things and true; What lords and dames of high degree May juftly claim their birth from thee. The foul of man with fpleen you vex : Of spleen you cure the female fex. Thee for a gift the courtier fends With pleasure to his fpecial friends : He gives; and with a gen'rous pride, Contrives all means the gift to hide :
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