While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main defign.

More cannot be by, mortal art exprest;
But venerable age shall add the rest.
For time shall with his ready pencil stand;
Retouch your figures with his ripening hand';
Mellow your colors, and imbrown the teint;
Add every grace, which time alone can grant ;
To future
And give more beauties than he takes

ages fhall your fame convey,

away.

TH

Where all the excrements of wit are thrown,

For fonnet, fatyr, bawdry, blafphemy,
Are emptied, and disburden'd all in thee:
The choleric wight untruffing all in rage
Finds thee, and lays his load upon thy page:

Thou Julian, or thou wife Vefpafian rather,
Doft from this dung thy well pickt guineas gather,
All mischief's thine, tranfcribing thou wilt ftoop,
From lofty Middlefex to lowly Scroop.
What times are these, when in the hero's room,
Bow-bending Cupid doth with ballads come,
And little Afton offers to the bum?

Can two fuch pigmies fuch a weight fupport,
Two fuch Tom-Thumbs of fatyr in a court?
Poor George grows old, his mufe worn out of
fashion,

Hoarfly he fung Ephelia's lamentation.

Lefs art thou help'd by Dryden's bed-rid age,
That drone has loft his fting upon the stage:
Refolve me, poor apoftate, this my doubt,
What hope haft thou to rub this winter out?
Know, and be thankful then, for Providence.
By me hath fent thee this intelligence.

A knight there is, if thou can'ft gain his grace,
Known by the name of the hard-favor'd face,
For prowess of the pen renown'd is he,
From Don Quixote defcended lineally,
And tho like him unfortunate he prove,
Undaunted in attempts of wit and love.
Of his unfinish'd face, what fhall I say?
But that 'twas made of Adam's own red clay,

That much much oaker was on it bestow'd,
God's image 'tis not, but fome Indian god :
Our christian earth can no resemblance bring
But ware of Portugal for fuch a thing;
Such carbuncles his fiery face confefs,
As no Hungarian water can redress.

A face which fhould he fee (but heaven was kind,
And to indulge his felf, Love made him blind.)
He durft not ftir abroad for fear to meet
Curfes of teeming women in the street:
The best could happen from this hideous fight,
Is that they should miscarry with the fright-
Heaven guard them from the likeness of the
knight.

Such is our charming Strephon's outward man,
His inward parts let those disclose who can:
One while he honoreth Birtha with his flame,
And now he chants no lefs Lovifa's name;
For when his paffion hath been bubbling long,
The fcum at laft boils up into a fong;
And fure no mortal creature at one time,
Was e'er fo far o'ergone with love and rhime.
To his dear felf of poetry he talks,

His hands and feet are scanning as he walks ;
His writhing looks his pangs of wit accuse,
The airy fymptoms of a breeding muse,

And all to gain the great Lovifa's grace,
But never pen did pimp for fuch a face;
There's not a nymph in city, town, of court,
But Strephon's billet-doux has been their sport:
Still he loves on, yet ftill he's fure to mifs,
As they who wash an Ethiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend?
Never to get a mistress, nor a friend.
Strephon alike both wits and fools deteft;
'Cause he's like Esop's batt, half bird half beaft;
For fools to poetry have no pretence,
And common wit fuppofes common fenfe,
Not quite fo low as fool, nor quite a top,
He hangs between them both, and is a fop.
His morals like his wit are motley too,
He keeps from arrant knave with much ado.
But vanity and lying fo prevail,

That one grain more of each would turn the fcale:
He would be more a villain had he time,
But he's fo wholly taken up with rhyme,

That he mistakes his talent; all his care
Is to be thought a poet fine and fair.
Small-beer, and gruel, are his meat and drink,
The diet he prescribes himself to think;
Rhyme next his heart he takes at the morn peep,
Some love-epiftles at the hour of fleep;

So betwixt elegy and ode we fee

Strephon is in a course of poetry:

This is the man ordain'd to do thee good,
The pelican to feed thee with his blood;
Thy wit, thy poet, nay thy friend, for he
Is fit to be a friend to none but thee.

Make fure of him, and of his muse betimes,
For all his study is hung round with rhimes.
Laugh at him, justle him, yet still he writes,
In rhyme he challenges, in rhyme he fights;
Charg'd with the last, and basest infamy,
His business is to think what rhymes to lye,
Which found in fury he retorts again,
Strephon's a very dragon at his

pen;

His brother murder'd, and his mother's whor'd, His mistress loft, and yet his pen's his sword.