Then, if

find the terms too hard,

you

No longer my advice regard :

But raife your fancy on the wing;
The Irish fenate's praises fing;

How jealous of the nation's freedom,
And for corruptions, how they weed 'em ;
How each the public good purfues,
How far their hearts from private views;
Make all true patriots, up to fhoe-boys,
Huzza their brethren at the Blue-boys;
Thus grown a member of the club,
No longer dread the rage of Grub.

How oft' am I for rhyme to feek!
To drefs a thought, may toil a week:
And then how thankful to the town,
If all my pains will earn a crown!
Whilft every critick can devour
My work and me in half an hour.
Would men of genius ceafe to write,
The rogues muft die for want and spite;
Muft die for want of food and raiment,
If fcandal did not find them payment.
How chearfully the hawkers cry
A fatire, and the gentry buy!
While my hard-labour'd poem pines
Unfold upon the printer's lines.

A genius in the reverend gown
Muft ever keep its owner down;
'Tis an unnatural conjunction,
And fpoils the credit of the function.

Round

ON THE LIBELS AGAINST DR. DELANY.
Round all your brethren caft your eyes;

Point out the fureft men to rife;
That club of candidates in black,
The leaft deferving of the pack,
Afpiring, factious, fierce, and loud,
With grace and learning unendow'd,
Can turn their hands to every job,
The fittest tools to work for Bob;
Will fooner coin a thoufand lies,
Than fuffer men of parts to rife;
They crowd about preferment's gate,
And prefs you down with all their weight.
For, as of old mathematicians

Were by the vulgar thought magicians;
So academic dull ale-drinkers

Pronounce all men of wit free-thinkers.
Wit, as the chief of virtue's friends,
Difdains to ferve ignoble ends.
Obferve what loads of ftupid rhymes
Opprefs us in corrupted times:
What pamphlets in a court's defence
Shew reafon, grammar, truth, or fenfe?
For though the Mufe delights in fiction,
She ne'er infpires against conviction.
Then keep your virtue ftill unmixt,
And let not faction come betwixt :
By party-steps no grandeur climb at,

Though it would make you England's primate:
First learn the fcience to be dull,

131

You then

may foon your

confcience lull;

If not, however seated high,

Your genius in your face will fly.

When Jove was from his teeming head
Of Wit's fair goddefs brought to bed,
There follow'd at his lying-in
For after-birth a Sooterkin;

Which, as the nurse pursued to kill,
Attain'd by flight the Muses' hill,
There in the foil began to root,
And litter'd at Parnaffus' foot.

From hence the critic vermin fprung,
With harpy claws and poisonous tongue,
Who fatten on poetic fcraps,

Too cunning to be caught in traps.
Dame Nature, as the learned fhow,
Provides each animal its foe

Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox
Devours your geefe, the wolf your flocks.
Thus Envy pleads a natural claim

To perfecute the Mufes' fame;

On

poets in all times abusive,

From Homer down to Pope inclufive.

Yet what avails it to complain?
You try to take revenge in vain.
A rat your utmost rage defies,

That fafe behind the wainscot lies.
Say, did you ever know by fight
In cheese an individual mite ?
Shew me the fame numeric flea,
That bit your neck but yesterday:

You

ON THE LIBELS AGAINST DR. DELANY. 133

You then may boldly go in quest

To find the Grub-street poet's neft;
What fpunging-house, in dread of jail,
Receives them, while they wait for bail;
What alley they are nestled in,
To flourish o'er a cup of gin;
Find the last garret where they lay,
Or cellar where they starve to-day.
Suppose you had them all trepann'd,
With each a libel in his hand,
What punishment would you inflict?
Or call them rogues, or get them kickt?
These they have often try'd before;
You but oblige them fo much more:
Themselves would be the first to tell,
To make their trash the better fell.

You have been libel'd Let us know,
What fool officious told you
fo?

Will you regard the hawker's cries,
Who in his titles always lies?
Whate'er the noify fcoundrel fays,
It might be fomething in your praise :
And praise bestow'd on Grub-street rhymes
Would vex one more a thousand times.
Till criticks blame, and judges praise,
The poet cannot claim his bays.
On me when dunces are fatiric,
I take it for a panegyrick.
Hated by fools, and fools to hate,
Be that my motto, and my fate.

DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING

A BIRTH-DAY SONG. 1.729.

O

To form a juft and finifh'd piece,

Take twenty gods of Rome or Greece,
Whofe godfhips are in chief request,
And fit your present subject beft:
And, should it be your hero's cafe,
To have both male and female race,
Your business must be to provide
A fcore of goddeffes befide.

Some call their monarchs fons of Saturn,
For which they bring a modern pattern ;
Because they might have heard of one,
Who often long'd to eat his fon :

But this, I think, will not go down,
For here the father kept his crown.
Why, then, appoint him son of Jove,
Who met his mother in a grove :
To this we freely fhall confent,
Well knowing what the poets meant ;
And in their fenfe, 'twixt me and you,
It may be literally true.

Next, as the laws of verse require,
He must be greater than his fire;
For Jove, as every school-boy knows,
Was able Saturn to depofe :

And fure no Chriftian poet breathing

Would be more fcrupulous than a Heathen!

Or,