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| WHAT flocks of critics hover here to-day, | |
| As vultures wait on armies for their prey, | |
| All gaping for the carcase of a play! | |
| With croaking notes they bode some dire event, | |
| And follow dying poets by the scent. | 5 |
| Ours gives himself for gone; y’ have watched your time: | |
| He fights this day unarmed,—without his rhyme;— | |
| And brings a tale which often has been told; | |
| As sad as Dido’s; and almost as old. | |
| His hero, whom you wits his bully call, | 10 |
| Bates of his mettle, and scarce rants at all; | |
| He’s somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind; | |
| Weeps much; fights little; but is wond’rous kind. | |
| In short, a pattern, and companion fit, | |
| For all the keeping Tonies of the pit. | 15 |
| I could name more: a wife, and mistress too; | |
| Both (to be plain) too good for most of you: | |
| The wife well-natured, and the mistress true. | |
| Now, poets, if your fame has been his care, | |
| Allow him all the candour you can spare. | 20 |
| A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day; | |
| Like Hectors in at every petty fray. | |
| Let those find fault whose wit’s so very small, | |
| They’ve need to show that they can think at all; | |
| Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; | 25 |
| He who would search for pearls, must dive below. | |
| Fops may have leave to level all they can; | |
| As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. | |
| Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, | |
| We scarce could know they live, but that they bite. | 30 |
| But, as the rich, when tired with daily feasts, | |
| For change, become their next poor tenant’s guests; | |
| Drink hearty draughts of ale from plain brown bowls, | |
| And snatch the homely rasher from the coals: | |
| So you, retiring from much better cheer, | 35 |
| For once, may venture to do penance here. | |
| And since that plenteous autumn now is past, | |
| Whose grapes and peaches have indulged your taste, | |
| Take in good part, from our poor poet’s board, | |
| Such rivelled fruits as winter can afford. | 40 |
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