Then, come old age whene'er it will,
Your friendship shall continue still:
And thus a mutual gentle fire
Shall never but with life expire.
APOLLO; OR, A PROBLEM SOLVED. 1731.
APOLLO, god of light and wit,
Could verse inspire, but seldom writ;
Refin'd all metals with his looks,
As well as chemists by their books;
As handsome as my lady's page;
Sweet five and twenty was his age.
His wig was made of sunny rays,
He crown'd his youthful head with bays;
Not all the court of Heaven could show
So nice and so complete a beau.
No heir upon his first appearance,
With twenty thousand pounds a year rents,
E'er drove, before he sold his land,
So fine a coach along the Strand;
The spokes, we are by Ovid told,
Were silver, and the axle gold:
I own, 'twas but a coach and four,
For Jupiter allows no more.
Yet, with his beauty, wealth, and parts,
Enough to win ten thousand hearts,
No vulgar deity above.
Was so unfortunate in love.
Three weighty causes were assign'd,
That mov'd the nymphs to be unkind.
Nine Muses always waiting round him,
He left them virgins as he found them.
His singing was another fault;
For he could reach to B in alt:
And, by the sentiments of Pliny,
Such singers are like Nicolini.
At last, the point was fully clear'd;
In short, Apollo had no beard.
THE PLACE OF THE DAMNED. 1731.
ALL folks, who pretend to religion and grace,
Allow there's a HELL, but dispute of the place:
But, if HELL may by logical rules be defin'd
The place of the damn'd-I'll tell you my mind.
Wherever the damn'd do chiefly abound,
Most certainly there is HELL to be found:
Damn'd poets, damn'd criticks, damn'd blockheads,
damn'd knaves,
Damn'd senators brib'd, damn'd prostitute slaves; Damn'd lawyers and judges, damn'd lords and damn'd squires;
Damn'd spies and informers, damn'd friends, and damn'd liars;
Damn'd villains, corrupted in every station;
Damn'd timeserving priests all over the nation;
And into the bargain I'll readily give you
Damn'd ignorant prelates and counsellors privy.
Then let us no longer by parsons be flamm'd,
For we know by these marks the place of the damn'd:
And HELL to be sure is at Paris or Rome.
How happy for us that it is not at home!
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT *.
WITH A Whirl of thought oppress'd,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
A horrid vision seiz'd my head,
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm'd with terrours, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars, and lightning flies!
Amaz'd, confus'd, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepp'd aside;
And you who never fell from pride:
You who in different sects were shamm'd,
And come to see each other damn'd:
(So some folk told you, but they knew -
No more of Jove's designs than you)
-The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
-I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools !-Go, go, you're bit."
This Poem was first printed (from the Dean's MS.) in a letter from lord Chesterfield addressed to Mr. Voltaire, dated Aug. 27, 1752. N.
By the just vengeance of incensed skies,
Poor bishop Judas late repenting dies.
The Jews engag'd him with a paltry bribe,
Amounting hardly to a crown a tribe;
Which though his conscience forc'd him to restore,
(And, parsons tell us, no man can do more)
Yet, through despair, of God and man accurst,
He lost his bishoprick, and hang'd or burst.
Those former ages differ'd much from this;
Judas betray'd his master with a kiss:
But some have kiss'd the Gospel fifty times,
Whose perjury's the least of all their crimes;
Some who can perjure through a two-inch board,
Yet keep their bishopricks, and 'scape the cord:
Like hemp, which, by a skilful spinster drawn
To slender threads, may sometimes pass for lawn.
As ancient Judas by transgression fell,
And burst asunder ere he went to Hell;
So could we see a set of new Iscariots
Come headlong tumbling from their mitred chariots;
Each modern Judas perish like the first,
Drop from the tree, with all his bowels burst;
Who could forbear, that view'd each guilty face,
To cry," Lo! Judas gone to his own place,
His habitation let all men forsake,
And let his bishoprick another take !"
AN EPISTLE TO MR. GAY*. 1731.
How could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse's train,
To serve a tasteless court twelve years in vain +!
Fain would I think our female friend ‡ sincere,
Till Bob, the poet's foe, possess'd her ear.
Did female virtue e'er so high ascend,
To lose an inch of favour for a friend?
Say, had the court no better place to choose
For thee, than make a drynurse of thy Muse?
How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,
To squire a royal girl of two years old;
In leading strings her infant steps to guide,
Or with her go-cart amble side by side!
But princely Douglas, and his glorious dame,
Advanc'd thy fortune, and preserv'd thy fame.
Nor will your nobler gifts be misapply'd,
When o'er your patron's treasure you preside:
The world shall own, his choice was wise and just,
For sons of Phoebus never break their trust.
Not love of beauty less the heart inflames Of guardian eunuchs to the sultan's dames, Their passions not more impotent and cold, Than those of poets to the lust of gold. With Pæan's purest fire his favourites glow, The dregs will serve to ripen ore below;
The Dean, having been told by an intimate friend, that the duke of Queensberry had employed Mr. Gay to inspect the accounts and management of his grace's receivers and stewards (which however proved to be a mistake) wrote this Epistle to his friend.
See the libel on Dr. Delany and lord Carteret. H.
The countess of Suffolk. H.
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