Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs, 65
Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?
His Grace will game: to White's a Bull be led,
With spurning heels and with a butting head.
To White's be carry'd, as to ancient games,
Fair Courfers, Vases, and alluring Dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,
Bear home fix Whores, and make his Lady weep?
Or foft Adonis, so perfum'd and fine,
Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine?
Oh filthy check on all industrious skill,
To fpoil the nation's last great trade, Quadrille! Since then, my Lord, on such a World we fall, What say you? B. Say? Why take it, Gold and all.
P. What Riches give us, let us then inquire? Meat, Fire, and Cloaths. B. What more? P. Meat,
Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give.
* Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past)
Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last !
What can they give? to dying Hopkins, Heirs ;
To Chartres, Vigour; Japhet, Nose and Ears?
Can they, in gems bid pallid Hippia glow,
In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below;
Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,
With all th' embroidery plaister'd at thy tail?
Ver. 77. Since then, &c.] In the former Ed.
Well then, fince with the world we stand or fall,
Come take it, as we find it, Gold and all.
They might (were Harpax not too wife to spend)
Give Harpax felf the blessing of a Friend;
Or find fome Doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's Wife:
But thousands die, without or this or that,
Die, and endow a College, or a Cat.
To fome, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate,
T' enrich a Bastard, or a Son they hate.
Perhaps you think the Poor might have their part, Bond damns the Poor, and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule That every man in want is knave or fool: "God cannot love (says Blunt, with tearless eyes) "The wretch he starves"--and piously denies : But the good Bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care. Yet to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: Damn'd to the Mines, an equal fate betides The Slave that digs it, and the Slave that hides. B. Who fuffer thus, mere Charity should own, Must act on motives powerful, though unknown. P. Some War, some Plague, or Famine, they foresee, Some Revelation hid from you and me.
Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found, 115
He thinks a Loaf will rise to fifty pound.
What made Directors cheat in South-sea year?
To live on Venison when it fold so dear.
Ask you why Phrine the whole Auction buys?
Phryne foresees a general Excise.
Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous fum ?
Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.
Wife Peter fees the World's respect for Gold,
And therefore hopes this Nation may be fold:
Glorious Ambition! Peter, swell thy store,
And be what Rome's great Didius was before.
The Crown of Poland, venal twice an age,
To just three millions stinted modest Gage.
But nobler scenes, Maria's dreams unfold,
Hereditary Realms, and worlds of Gold.
Congenial fouls; whose life one Avarice joins,
And one fate buries in th' Asturian Mines.
Much-injur'd Blunt! why bears he Britain's hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate : "At length Corruption, like a general flood, " (So long by watchful Ministers withstood) "Shall deluge all; and Avarice, creeping on, " Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the Sun; " Statefman and Patriot ply alike the Stocks, "Peeress and Butler share alike the Box,
" And Judges job, and Bishops bite the town,
"And mighty Dukes pack cards for half a crown.
See Britain funk in lucre's fordid charms,
" And France reveng'd of ANNE's and EDWARD'S
'Twas no Court-badge, great Scrivener, fir'd thy brain,
Nor lordly Luxury, nor City Gain :
No, 'twas thy righteous end, asham'd to fee
Senates degenerate, Patriots difagree,
And nobly wishing Party-rage to ceafe,
To buy both fides, and give thy Country peace.
"All this is madness," cries a sober fage :
But who, my friend, has reason in his rage?
"The Ruling Passion, be it what it will,
"The Ruling Passion conquers reason still."
Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame,
Than even that Passion, if it has no Aim;
For though such motives Folly you may call,
The Folly 's greater to have none at all.
Hear then the truth: "'Tis Heaven each Passion
"And different men directs to different ends.
" Extremes in Nature equal good produce,
"Extremes in Man concur to general use."
Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow?
That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow,
Bids feed-time, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconcil'd extremes of drought and rain,
Builds Life on Death, on Change Duration founds,
And gives th' eternal wheels to know their rounds.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who fees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the Poor;
This year a Reservoir, to keep and spare;
The next, a Fountain, spouting through his Heir,
In lavish streams to quench a Country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Old Cotta sham'd his fortune and his birth,
Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth:
What though (the use of barbarous spits forgot)
His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot?
His court with nettles, moats with crefles stor'd,
With foups unbought and fallads bless'd his board?
If Cotta liv'd on pulse, it was no more
Than Bramins, Saints, and Sages did before;
To cram the rich, was prodigal expence,
And who would take the Poor from Providence?
Like fome lone Chartreux stands the good old Hall,
Silence without, and fasts within the wall;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor found,
No noontide bell invites the country round:
Tenants with fighs the smoakless towers survey,
And turn th' unwilling steeds another way:
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,
Curse the fav'd candle, and unopening door;
While the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.
Not so his Son: he mark'd this oversight,
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right.
(For what to shun, will no great knowledge need;
But what to follow, is a task indeed.)
Yet fure, of qualities deserving praise,
More go to ruin Fortunes, than to raise.
What flaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine,
Fill the capacious 'Squire, and deep Divine!
Yet no mean motives this profusion draws,
His oxen perish in his country's cause;
|