And not to ev'ry one that comes,

Just as a Scotchman does his plums.
66 Pray take them Sir-enough's a feast:
"Eat some, and pocket up the rest”-
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
"No, Sir, you'll leave them to the hogs."
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitud's the certain crop ;

And 'tis but just, I'll tell you wherefore,
You give the thing you never care for.
A wise man always is or shou'd

Be mighty ready to do good;

But makes a diff'rence in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.

Now this I'll say, You'll find in me

A safe companion, and a free;
But if you'd have me always near-
A word, pray, in your Honour's ear:
I hope it is your

resolution

To give me back my constitution!
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
Th' engaging smile, the gaiety

That laugh'd down many a summer sun,
And kept you up so oft' till one,

25

30

35

40

45

And all that voluntary vein,

As when Belinda rais'd my strain.

50

A weasel once made shift to slink

In at a corn-loft thro' a chink,
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in;
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a Mouse)
Observing, cry'd, "You 'scape not so:
"Lean as you came, Sir, you must go,"
Sir, you may spare your application,
I'm no such beast nor his relation,
Nor one that temperance advance,
Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans;
Extremely ready to resign

All that may make me none of mine.
South-sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.

'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who prais'd my modesty, and smil❜d.
Give me, I cry'd, [enough for me,]
My bread and independency!
So bought an annual rent or two,
And liv'd-just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund my life.

Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low;
There dy'd my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
"Harley, the nation's great support”.
But you may read it, I stop short.

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80

84

IMITATED.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed in his Epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country. The author thought them considerable enough to address them to his prince, whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch upon whom the Romans depended for the increase of an absolute empire: but to make the Poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.

This Epistle will shew the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a patron of Poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate;

Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsolefieri, &c. the other, that this Piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries; first, against the taste of the Town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the court and nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the theatre; and, lastly, against the emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government. He shews (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that Poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the state; and concludes, that it was upon them the Emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity.