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EPILOGUE

TO THE

SATIRE S.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.

EPILOGUE

TO THE

SATIRE S.

DIALOGUE I.

FR. NOT twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,
And when it comes, the court see nothing in't.

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

5

Said, "Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory:" And taught his Romans, in much better metre, "To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter."

After ver. 2 in the MS.

You don't, I hope, pretend to quit the trade,
Because you think your reputation made :
Like good Sir Paul, of whom so much was said,
That when his name was up, he lay a-bed.
Come, come, refresh us with a livelier song,
Or, like St. Paul, you'll lie a-bed too long.
P. Sir, what I write, should be correctly writ.
F. Correct! 'tis what no genius can admit.
Besides, you grow too moral for a wit.

But

But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice; Bubo observes, he lash'd no sort of vice:

Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the crown,
Blunt could do bus'ness, H-ggins knew the town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,

In rev'rend bishops note some small neglects,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
Who cropt our ears, and sent them to the King.
His sly, polite, insinuating style

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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 25
The great man never offer'd you a groat.

Go

VER. 12. Bubo observes,] Bubo is said to mean Mr. Doddington, afterward Lord Melcombe.

VER. 14. Huggins] Formerly gaoler of the Fleet prison, en riched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled.

VER. 15. In Sappho touch] In former editions,

Sir George of some slight gallantries suspect.

VER. 18. Who cropt our ears,] Said to be executed by the captain of a Spanish ship on one Jenkins, a captain of an English one. He cut off his ears, and bid him carry them to the King his

master.

After ver. 26 in the MS.

There's honest Tacitus * once talk'd as big,

But is he now an independant Whig?

Mr. Thomas Gordon, who was bought off by a place at court.

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