But you forsooth your all must squander
On that poor spot, call'd Dell-ville, yonder:
And when you've been at vast expenses
In whims, parterres, canals, and fences,
Your assets fail, and cash is wanting;
Nor farther buildings, farther planting :
No wonder, when you raise and level,
Think this wall low, and that wall bevel.
Here a convenient box you found,
Which you demolish'd to the ground:
Then built, then took up with
your arbour,
And set the house to Rupert Barber.
You sprang an arch which in a scurvy
Humour, you tumbled topsyturvy.
You change a circle to a square,
Then to a circle as you were:
Who can imagine whence the fund is,
That you quadrata change rotundis?
To fame a temple you erect,
A Flora does the dome protect;
Mounts, walks, on high; and in a hollow
You place the Muses and Apollo ;
There shining 'midst his train, to grace
Your whimsical poetic place.
These stories were of old design'd
As fables but you have refin'd
The poets' mythologic dreams,
To real Muses, gods, and streams.
Who would not swear, when you contrive
That you're don Quixote redivivus ?
Beneath, a dry canal there lies, Which only Winter's rain supplies..
O! couldst thou, by some magic spell,
Hither convey St. Patrick's well!*
Here may it reassume its stream,
And take a greater Patrick's name!
If your expenses rise so high;
What income can your wants supply?
Yet still your fancy you inherit
A fund of such superior merit,
That you can't fail of more provision,
All by my lady's kind decision.
For, the more livings you can fish up,
You think you'll sooner be a bishop :
That could not be my lord's intent,
Nor can it answer the event.
Most think what has been heap'd on you
To other sort of folk was due:
Rewards too great for your
Epistles, riddles, epigrams.
Though now your depth must not be sounded, The time was, when you'd have compounded For less than Charley Grattan's school! Five hundred pound a year's no fool! Take this advice then from your friend, To your ambition put an end. Be frugal, Pat: pay what you owe, Before you build and you bestow. Be modest; nor address your betters With begging, vain, familiar letters.
A passage may be found,† I've heard, In some old Greek or Latian bard,
* See the verses on the sudden drying up of St. Partrick's Well, Vol. XVI. p. 396. N.
"Would crows in silence eat
Their offals, or their better meat,
Their generous feeders not provoking
By loud and unharmonious croaking,
They might unhurt by Envy's claws,
Live on, and stuff to boot their maws."
ON THE REVEREND DR. DELANY, AND HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN LORD CARTERET.
DELUDED mortals, whom the
Choose for companions tête-à-tête ;
Who at their dinners, en famille,
Get leave to sit whene'er you will;
Then boasting tell us where you
din'd,
And how his lordship was so kind;
How many pleasant things he spoke;
And how you laugh'd at every joke:
Swear he's a most facetious man;
That you and he are cup and can:
You travel with a heavy load,
And quite mistake preferment's road.
Suppose my lord and you alone;
Hint the least interest of your own,
His visage drops, he knits his brow,
He cannot talk of business now:
Or, mention but a vacant post,
He'll turn it off with "Name your toast:"
Nor could the nicest artist paint
A countenance with more constraint.
For, as their appetites to quench,
Lords keep a pimp to bring a wench;
So men of wit, are but a kind
Of panders to a vicious mind;
Who proper objects must provide
To gratify their lust of pride,
When, wearied with intrigues of state,
They find an idle hour to prate.
Then, shall you dare to ask a place,
You forfeit all your patron's grace,
And dissappoint the sole design,
For which he summon'd you to dine.
Thus Congreve spent in writing plays,
And one poor office, half his days:
While Montague, who claim'd the station
To be Mæcenas of the nation,
For poets open table kept,
But ne'er consider'd where they slept :
Himself as rich as fifty Jews,
Was easy, though they wanted shoes;
And crazy Congreve scarce could spare
A shilling to discharge his chair:
Till prudence taught him to appeal
From Pæan's fire to party zeal;
Not owing to his happy vein
The fortunes of his later scene,
Took proper principles to thrive :
And so might every dunce alive.*
*This picture is unfair and overcharged; for the honour of Government, Congreve had several good places conferred on him, and, in the latter part of his days, enjoyed an affluent fortune; but it was when he had disclaimed authorship, and chose to be considered as a private gentleman, as he told Voltaire. H.
Thus Steele, who own'd what others writ, And flourish'd by imputed wit,
From perils of a hundred jails,
Withdrew to starve, and die in Wales.
Thus Gay, the hare with many friends, Twice seven long years the court attends: Who, under tales conveying truth,
To virtue form'd a princely youth :*
Who paid his courtship with the crowd,
As far as modest pride allow'd;
Rejects a servile usher's place,
And leaves St. James's in disgrace.
Thus Addison, by lords carest,
Was left in foreign lands distrest;
Forgot at home, became for hire
A travelling tutor to a squire:
But wisely left the Muses' hill,
To business shap'd the poet's quill,
Let all his barren laurels fade,
Took up himself the courtier's trade,
And, grown a minister of state,
Saw poets at his levee wait.
Hail, happy Pope! whose generous mind
Detesting all the statesman kind,
Contemning courts, at courts unseen,
Refus'd the visits of a queen.
A soul with every virtue fraught,
By sages, priests, or poets taught;
Whose filial piety excels
Whatever Grecian story tells;
A genius for all stations fit,
Whose, meanest talent is his wit:
* William duke of Cumberland, son to George II. H.
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