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, 335
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 fancy'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,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit ;

345 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;

355 The whisper that, to greatness still too near, Perhaps yet vibrates on his sov’reign's ear

350 /

365

Welcome for thee, fair Virtue ! all the past ;
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome erin the last!

A. But why insult the poor, affront the great? 360
P. A knave's a knave to me in ev'ry state;
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,
If on a pillory, or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

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

370 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, 375 To please a mistress one aspers’d his life; He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife : Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on his quill, And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will ; Let the two Curlls of town and court abuse 380) His father, mother, body, soul, and Muse : Yet why? that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour Fool;

That harmless mother thought no wife a whore ;
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! 385
Unspotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in virtue or in song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause,
While yet in Britain Honour had applause)
Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray?-
P. Their own;

390 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, The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age : 395 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,

400 Healthy by temp'rance and by exercise ; His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown ; His death was instant, and without a groan. O grant me thus to live, and thus to die !

404 Who

sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
Oh, Friend ! may each domestic bliss be thine !
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine :
Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 410
Make Languor smile, and smooth the bed of Death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky !
On cares like these, if length of days attend,
May Heav’n, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene, 416
And just as rich as when he serv'da Queen.
A. Whether that blessing be deny'd or giv'n,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n. 419