| |
| HOW much of paper ’s spoil’d! what floods of ink! | |
| And yet how few, how very few can think! | |
| The knack of writing is an easy trade; | |
| But to think well requires—at least a head. | |
| Once in an age, one genius may arise, | 5 |
| With wit well cultur’d, and with learning wise: | |
| Like some tall oak, behold his branches shoot! | |
| No tender scions springing at the root. | |
| Whilst lofty Pope erects his laurell’d head, | |
| No lays, like mine, can live beneath his shade: | 10 |
| Nothing but weeds and moss, and shrubs are found: | |
| Cut, cut them down, why cumber they the ground? | |
| And yet you’d have me write? For what? for whom? | |
| To curl a favourite in a dressing room? | |
| To mend a candle when the snuff’s too short? | 15 |
| Or save rappee for chamber-maids at court? | |
| Glorious ambition! noble thirst of fame! | |
| No, but you’d have me write—to get a name. | |
| Alas! I’d live unknown, unenvy’d too; | |
| ’Tis more than Pope with all his wit can do; | 20 |
| ’Tis more than you, with wit and beauty join’d, | |
| A pleasing form and a discerning mind. | |
| The world and I are no such cordial friends; | |
| I have my purpose, they their various ends. | |
| I say my prayers, and lead a sober life, | 25 |
| Nor laugh at Cornus, or at Cornus’ wife. | |
| What ’s fame to me, who pray, and pay my rent? | |
| If my friends know me honest, I’m content. | |
| Well, but the joy to see my works in print! | |
| Myself too pictur’d in a mezzo-tint! | 30 |
| The preface done, the dedication fram’d, | |
| With lies enough to make a lord asham’d! | |
| Thus I step forth; an authoress in some sort: | |
| My patron’s name? ‘O choose some lord at court. | |
| ‘One that has money which he does not use, | 35 |
| ‘One you may flatter much, that is, abuse. | |
| ‘For if you’re nice, and cannot change your note, | |
| ‘Regardless of the trimm’d or untrimm’d coat, | |
| ‘Believe me, friend, you’ll ne’er be worth a groat.’ | |
| Well then, to cut this mighty matter short, | 40 |
| I’ve neither friend, nor interest, at court. | |
| Quite from St. James’s to thy stairs, Whitehall, | |
| I hardly know a creature, great or small, | |
| Except one maid of honour, worth them all. | |
| I have no business there—Let those attend | 45 |
| The courtly levee, or the courtly friend, | |
| Who more than fate allows them dare to spend. | |
| Or those whose avarice, with much, craves more, | |
| The pension’d beggar, or the titled poor. | |
| These are the thriving breed, the tiny great! | 50 |
| Slaves! wretched slaves! the journeymen of state! | |
| Philosophers! who calmly bear disgrace, | |
| Patriots who sell their country for a place! | |
| Shall I for these disturb my brains with rhyme? | |
| For these, like Bavius, creep, or Glencus, climb? | 55 |
| Shall I go late to rest, and early rise, | |
| To be the very creature I despise? | |
| With face unmov’d, my poem in my hand, | |
| Cringe to the porter, with the footman stand? | |
| Perhaps my lady’s maid, if not too proud, | 60 |
| Will stoop, you’ll say, to wink me from the crowd; | |
| Will entertain me till his lordship ’s drest, | |
| With what my lady eats, and how she rests: | |
| How much she gave for such a birth-day gown, | |
| And how she trampt to every shop in town. | 65 |
| Sick at the news, impatient for my lord, | |
| I’m forced to hear, nay smile, at every word. | |
| Tom raps at last,—‘his lordship begs to know | |
| ‘Your name? your business?’—Sir, I’m not a foe; | |
| I come to charm his lordship’s listening ears | 70 |
| With verses, soft as music of the spheres. | |
| ‘Verses!—alas! his lordship seldom reads: | |
| ‘Pedants indeed with learning stuff their heads; | |
| ‘But my good lord, as all the world can tell, | |
| ‘Reads not even tradesmen’s bills, and scorns to spell. | 75 |
| ‘But trust your lays with me—some things I’ve read, | |
| ‘Was born a poet, tho’ no poet bred: | |
| ‘And if I find they’ll bear my nicer view, | |
| ‘I’ll recommend your poetry—and you.’ | |
| Shock’d at his civil impudence, I start, | 80 |
| Pocket my poem, and in haste depart; | |
| Resolv’d no more to offer up my wit, | |
| Where footmen in the seat of critics sit. | |
| Is there a Lord whose great unspotted soul, | |
| Not places, pensions, ribbons can controul; | 85 |
| Unlac’d, unpowder’d, almost unobserv’d, | |
| Eats not on silver while his train are starv’d; | |
| Who, tho’ to nobles or to kings ally’d, | |
| Dares walk on foot, while slaves in coaches ride; | |
| With merit humble, and with greatness free, | 90 |
| Has bow’d to Freeman, and has din’d with me; | |
| Who, bred in foreign courts, and early known, | |
| Has yet to learn the cunning of his own; | |
| To titles born, yet heir to no estate, | |
| And harder still, too honest to be great? | 95 |
| If such an one there be, well-bred, polite, | |
| To him I’ll dedicate, for him I’ll write. | |
| Peace to the rest—I can be no man’s slave; | |
| I ask for nothing, tho’ I nothing have. | |
| By fortune humbled, yet not sunk so low | 100 |
| To shame a friend, or fear to meet a foe. | |
| Meanness, in ribbons or in rags, I hate; | |
| And have not learnt to flatter, even the great. | |
| Few friends I ask, and those who love me well; | |
| What more remains, these artless lines shall tell. | 105 |
| Of honest parents, not of great, I came; | |
| Not known to fortune, quite unknown to fame, | |
| Frugal and plain, at no man’s cost they eat, | |
| Nor knew a baker’s or a butcher’s debt. | |
| O be their precepts ever in my eye! | 110 |
| For one has learnt to live, and one to die. | |
| Long may her widow’d age by Heaven be lent | |
| Among my blessings! and I’m well content. | |
| I ask no more, but in some calm retreat, | |
| To sleep in quiet, and in quiet eat. | 115 |
| No noisy slaves attending round my room; | |
| My viands wholesome, and my waiters dumb. | |
| No orphans cheated, and no widow’s curse, | |
| No household lord, for better or for worse. | |
| No monstrous sums to tempt my soul to sin, | 120 |
| But just enough to keep me plain and clean. | |
| And if sometimes, to smooth the rugged way, | |
| Charlotte should smile, or you approve my lay, | |
| Enough for me—I cannot put my trust | |
| In lords; smile lies, eat toads, or lick the dust. | 125 |
| Fortune her favours much too dear may hold: | |
| An honest heart is worth its weight in gold. | |
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