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Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:
Of all thy blameless life the sole return
My verse, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn!
Oh! let me live my own, and die so too! 261
(To live and die is all I have to do ;)
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,

And see what friends, and read what books, I please;
Above a patron, though I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my friend.

I was not born for courts or great affairs;

I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs ;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,

Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.

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Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light? Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write ? Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save ? 274 I found him close with Swift-Indeed? no doubt (Cries prating Balbus) something will come out.' 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will;

No, such a genius never can lie still;' And then for mine obligingly mistakes

The first lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes. 280
Poor guiltless I! and can I chuse but smile,
When ev'ry coxcomb knows me by my Style?

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-ey'd virgin steal a tear!

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But he who hurts a harmless neighbor's peace,
Insults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out;
That fop whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it, without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you Friend,
Yet wants the honor, injur'd, to defend;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray;
Who to the Dean and silver bell can swear,
And sees at Canons what was never there;
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie;
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.
Let Sporus tremble—A. What? that thing of

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silk, Sporus! that mere white curd of asses' milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?— Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.

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Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

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And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 320
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all see-saw between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
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Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilette, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, 330
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;

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Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud nor servile, be one poet's praise;
That if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways;
'That flatt'ry, ev'n to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in faney's maze he wander'd long, 340
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song;
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,

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The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own ;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libell'd person, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;

The whisper that, to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sov'reign's ear—
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past;
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last!

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A. But why insult the poor, affront the great? P. A knave's a knave, to me, in ev'ry state; 361 Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail ; A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the Post corrupt, or of the shire; 365 If on a pillory, or near a throne,

He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

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Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit: This dreaded sat'rist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress ; So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhym'd for Moore.

Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie.
To please a mistress one aspers'd his life;

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He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife :
Let Budgel charge, low Grub-street on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will;
Let the two Curls of town and court, abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and Muse.
Yet why that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbor Fool;
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore ;
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!
Unspotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in virtue, or in song,

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Of gentle blood (part shed in Honor's cause,
While yet in Britain Honor had applause)
Each parent sprung.-A. What fortune, pray ?
P. Their own;
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And better got than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

age;

The good man walk'd innoxious through his
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temp'rance, and by exercise;

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