AN EPISTLE TO ROBERT LLOYD.
WHEN foes insult, and prudent friends dispense,
In pity's strains, the worst of insolence.
Oft' with thee, Lloyd! I steal an hour from grief,
And in thy social converse find relief.
The mind, of solitude impatient grown,
Loves any sorrows rather than her own.
Let slaves to bus'ness, bodies without soul,
Important blanks in Nature's mighty roll,
Solemnize nonsense in the day's broad glare,
We Night prefer, which heals or hides our care. 10
Rogues justify'd, and by success made bold,
Dull fools and coxcombs sanctify'd by gold,
Freely may bask in Fortune's partial ray,
And spread their feather's op'ning to the day;
But thread-bare Merit dares not shew the head 15
Till vain Prosperity retires to bed.
Misfortunes, like the owl, avoid the light;
The sons of Care are always sons of Night.
The wretch bred up in Method's drowsy school,
Whose only merit is to err by rule,
This poem was written in defence of our Poet's moral character, and the irregular life of which his ene mies accused him.
Who ne'er thro' heat of blood was tripping caught, Nor guilty deem'd of one eccentric thought,
Whose soul directed to no use is seen,
Unless to move the body's dull machine,
Which, clockwork like, with the same equal pace 25
Still travels on thro' life's insipid space,
Turns up his eyes to think that there should be
Among God's creatures two such things as we,
Then for his nightcap calls, and thanks the pow'rs
Which kindly gave him grace to keep good hours.30
Good hours!-fine words-bnt was it ever seen
That all men could agree in what they mean?
Florio, who many years a course hath run
In downright opposition to the sun,
Expatiates on good hours, their cause defends 35
With as much vigour as our prudent friends.
Th' uncertain term no settled notion brings,
But still in diff'rent mouths mean diff'rent things >
Each takes the phrase in his own private view;
With Prudence it is ten, with Florio two.
Go on, ye fools! who talk for talking sake,
Without distinguishing, distinctions make;
Shine forth in native folly, native pride,
Make yourselves rules to all the world beside;
Reason, collected in herself, disdains
The slavish yoke of arbitrary chains;
Steady and true each circumstance she weighs,
Nor to bare words inglorious tribute pays.
Men of sense live exempt from vulgar awe,
And Reason to herself alone is law:
That freedom she enjoys with lib'ral mind,
Which she as freely grants to all mankind:
No idol-titled name her rev'reuce stirs,
No hour she blindly to the rest prefers ;
All are alike, if they're alike employ'd,
And all are good if virtuously enjoy'd.
Let the sage Doctor (think him one we know) With scraps of ancient learning overflow,
In all the dignity of wig declare.
The fatal consequence of midnight air,
How damps and vapours, as it were by stealth,.
Undermine life, and sap the walls of health:
For me let Galen moulder on the shelf,
I'll live, and be physician to myself.
Whilst soul is join'd to body, whether Fate
Allot a longer or a shorter date,
I'll make them live as brother should with brother, And keep them in good humour with each other.. The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.
Hence to old women with your boasted rules!
Stale traps, and only sacred now to fools;
As well may sons of Physic hope to find
One medicine as one hour for all mankind.
If Rupert after ten is out of bed
The fool next morning can't hold up his head;
What reason this which me to bed must call,
Whose head, thank Heav'n, never akes at all? 80
In diff'rent courses diff'rent tempers run;
He hates the moon, I sicken at the sun :
Wound up at twelve at noon his clock goes right,
Mine better goes wound up at twelve at night.
Then in oblivion's grateful cup I drown
The galling sneer, the supercilious frown,
The strange reserve, the proud affected state
Of upstart knaves grown rich and fools grown great;
No more that abject wretch disturbs my rest
Who meanly overlooks a friend distrest.
Purblind to poverty the worldling goes,
And scarce sees rags an inch beyond his nose,
But from a crowd can single out his Grace,
And cringe and creep to fools who strut in lace.
Whether those classic regions are survey'd 95
Where we in early youth together stray'd,
Where hand in hand we trod the flow'ry shore,
Tho' now thy happier genius runs before,
When we conspir'd a thankless wretch to raise,
And taught a stump to shoot with pilfer'd praise, 100
Who once for Rev'rend merit famous grown
Gratefully strove to kick his maker down;
Or if more gen'ral arguments engage,
The court or camp, the pulpit, bar, or stage,
If half-bred surgeons; whom men Doctors call, 105
And lawyers, who were never bred at all,
Those mighty letter'd monsters of the earth,
Our pity move or exercise our mirth,
Or if in tittle-tattle, tooth-pick way,
Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray,110
A gainer still thy friend himself must find,
His grief suspended, and improv'd his mind.
Whilst peaceful slumbers bless the homely bed
Where Virtue self-approv'd reclines her head,
Whilst Vice beneath imagin'd horrors mourns, 115
And conscience plants the villain's bed with thorns,
Impatient of restraint the active mind,
No more by servile prejudice confin'd,
Leaps from her seat as waken'd from a trance,
And darts thro' Nature at a single glance,
Then we our friends, our foes, ourselves, survey,
And see by Night what fools we are by day.
Stripp'd of her gaudy plumes and vain disguise, See where Ambition mean and loathsome lies! Reflection with relentless hand pulls down The tyrant's bloody wreath and ravish'd crown. In yain he tells of battles bravely won, Of nations conquer'd and of worlds undone; Triumphs like these but ill with manhood suit, And sink the conqueror beneath the brute. But if, in searching round the world, we find Some gen'rous youth, the friend of all mankind,
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