Then turns repentant, and his God adores With the same spirit that he drinks and wh***s;Enough if all around him but admire, And now the punk applaud, and now the friar.
Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart;Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt;And most contemptible, to shun contempt:
His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;A constant bounty which no friend has made;An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, Too rash for thought, for action too refined:
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves;
A rebel to the very king he loves;
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule?
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.
Nature well known, no prodigies remain, Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.
Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake, If second qualities for first they take.
When Catiline by rapine swelled his store;When Caesar made a noble dame a wh***;
In this the lust, in that the avarice Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice.
That very Caesar, born in Scipio's days, Had aimed, like him, by chastity at praise.
Lucullus, when frugality could charm, Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm.
In vain the observer eyes the builder's toil, But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.
In this one passion man can strength enjoy, As fits give vigour, just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Consistent in our follies and our sins, Here honest Nature ends as she begins.
Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last;As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, As sober Lanesb'row dancing in the gout.
Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed By his own son, that passes by unblessed:
Still to his haunt he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees.
A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor called, declares all help too late:
"Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul!
Is there no hope!--Alas!--then bring the jowl."The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires.
"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke"(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);"No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead--And--Betty--give this cheek a little red."The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined An humble servant to all human kind, Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, "If--where I'm going--I could serve you, sir?""I give and I devise" (old Euclio said, And sighed) "my lands and tenements to Ned.""Your money, sir?" "My money, sir? what, all?
Why--if I must" (then wept)--"I give it Paul.""The Manor, sir?"--"The Manor! hold," he cried, "Not that,--I cannot part with that"--and died.
And you! brave Cobham, to the latest breath Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death:
Such in those moments as in all the past, "Oh, save my country, Heaven!" shall be your last.
EPISTLE II.
TO A LADY.
OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN.
Nothing so true as what you once let fall, "Most women have no characters at all."Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair.
How many pictures of one nymph we view, All how unlike each other, all how true!
Arcadia's countess, here, in ermined pride, Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side.
Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, And there, a naked Leda with a swan.
Let then the fair one beautifully cry, In Magdalen's loose hair, and lifted eye, Or dressed in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine, With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine;Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Come then, the colours and the ground prepare!
Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air;Choose a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.
Rufa, whose eye, quick-glancing o'er the park Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke, As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock;Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, With Sappho fragrant at an evening masque:
So morning insects that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun.
How soft is Silia! fearful to offend;
The frail one's advocate, the weak one's friend:
To her, Calista proved her conduct nice;
And good Simplicius asks of her advice.
Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the wink, But spare your censure; Silia does not drink.
All eyes may see from what the change arose, All eyes may see--a pimple on her nose.
Papillia, wedded to her am'rous spark, Sighs for the shades--"How charming is a park!"A park is purchased, but the fair he sees All bathed in tears--"Oh, odious, odious trees!"Ladies, like variegated tulips show;
'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe;Fine by defect, and delicately weak, Their happy spots the nice admirer take, 'Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarmed, Awed without virtue, without beauty charmed;Her tongue bewitched as oddly as her eyes, Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise;Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had, Was just not ugly, and was just not mad;Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create, As when she touched the brink of all we hate.
Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild, To make a wash, would hardly stew a child;Has even been proved to grant a lover's prayer, And paid a tradesman once to make him stare;Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim, And made a widow happy, for a whim.
Why then declare good-nature is her scorn, When 'tis by that alone she can be borne?
