And, if I take Dan Congreve right;
Pudding and beef make Britons fight.
Tokay and Coffee caufe this work,
Between the German and the Turk:
And both, as they provifions want,
Chicane, avoid, retire, and faint.

Hunger and thirft, or guns and fwords
Give the fame death in diff'rent words.
To push this argument no further;
To starve a man, in law, is murder.
As in a watch's fine machine,
Though many artful fprings are feen;
The added movements, which declare
How full the moon, how old the year,
Derive their secondary pow'r

From that, which fimply points the hour,
For, though these gim-cracks were away
(Quare would not fwear; but Quare would say)
However more reduc'd and plain,

The watch would ftill a watch remain :
But if the Heral orbit ceases;

The whole ftands ftill, or breaks to pieces ;

Is now no longer what it was;

And you may e'en go fell the cafe ;-
So if unprejudic'd you scan

The goings of this clock-work, man;

You find a hundred movements made-
By fine devices in his head:
But 'tis the ftomach's folid ftroke,
That tells his being, what's a clock.
If you take off his Rhet'ric-trigger;
He talks no more in mode and figures.

Or clog his Mathematic wheel:

His buildings fall; his fhip ftands ftill,
Or laftly, break his Politic weight;
His voice no longer rules the ftate.
Yet if these finer whims were gone;
Your clock, though plain, would still go on
But fpoil the engine of digeftion;
And you entirely change the question;
Alma's affairs no pow'r can mend;
The jest alas is at an end :
Soon ceases all this worldly bustle;
And you confign the corps to Ruffel

Now make your Alma come or goj. From leg to hand, from top to toe t Your System, without my addition,

Is in a very fad condition.

So Harlequin extoll'd his horfe.

Fit for the war, or road, or courfe;

His mouth was foft; his eye was good;

His foot was fure as ever trod :

One fault he had, a fault indeed;

And what was that? the horse was dead.
Dick, from these instances and fetches,
Thou mak'st of horses, clocks, and watches,
Quoth Mat, to me thou feem'ft to mean,.
That Alma is a mere machine:

That telling others what's a clock,
She knows not what herself has ftruck ;
But leaves to ftanders-by the trial,
Of what is mark'd upon her dial.

Here hold a blow, good friend, quoth Di And rais'd his voice exceeding quick :

Fight fair, Sir: what I never meant
Don't you infer. In argument,
Similies are like fongs in love:

They much defcribe; they nothing prove.
Mat, who was here a little gravell'd;
Toft up his nofe, and would have cavil'd:
But, calling Hermes to his aid,
Half-pleas'd, half angry, thus he said:
Where mind ('tis for the author's fame)
That Matthew call'd, and Hermes came.
In danger heroes, and in doubt
Poets find gods to help 'em out.

Friend Richard, I begin to fee,
That you and I fhall fcarce agree.
Obferve how odly you behave:
The more I grant, the more you crave..
But, comrade, as I said just now,
I should affirm, and you allow,
We System-makers can sustain

The Thefis, which you grant, was plain;
And with remarks and comments teaze ye;

In cafe the thing before was eafy.

But in a point obfcure and dark,

We fight as Leibnitz did with Clarke;
And when no reafon we can show,
Why matters this or that way go,
The shortest way the thing we try,.
And what we know not, we deny :
True to our own o'erbearing pride,
And falfe to all the world befide.

That old philofopher grew cross,
Who could not tell what motion was g

Because he walk'd against his will;

He fac'd men down, that he stood still.
And he who reading on the heart
(When all his quodlibets of art

Could not expound its pulfe and heat)
Swore, he had never felt it beat.
Chryfippus, foil'd by Epicurus,

Makes bold (Jove bless him!) to affure us,
That all things which our mind can view,
May be at once both falfe, and true.
And Malebranche has an odd conceit,
As ever enter'd Frenchman's pate:
Says he, fo little can our mind
Of matter, or of fpirit find,

That we by guess, at least, may gather
Something, which may be both, or neither.
Faith, Dick, I must confefs, 'tis true

(But this is only entre nous)

That many knotty points there are,
Which all discuss, but few are clear.
As nature lily had thought fit,
For fome by-ends, to cross-bite wit,
Circles to fquare, and cubes to doublé,
Would give a man exceffive trouble:
The longitude uncertain roams,
In fpite of Wh-n and his bombs.
What fyftem, Dick, has right aver'd
The caufe, why woman has no beard;
Or why, as years our frame attack,
Our hair grows white, our teeth grow black?
In points like thefe, we must agree,
Our barber knows as much as we.

Yet ftill unable to explain,

We must perfift the best we can ;
With care our systems ftill renew,
And prove things likely, though not true.

I could, thou fee'ft, in quaint difpute,
By dint of Logic ftrike thee mute;
With learned fkill, now pufh, now parry,
From Dariisto Bocardo vary,

And never yield, or, what is worst,
Never conclude the point difcours'd.
Yet, that you hic et nunc may know,
How much you to my candor owe;
I'll from the difputant defcend,
To fhow thee, I affume the friend:
I'll take thy notion for my own-
(So most philofophers have done)
It makes my fyftem more compleat:
Dick, can it have a nobler fate?
Take what thou wilt, faid Dick, dear friends
But bring thy matter to an end.

I find, quoth Mat, reproof is vain:
Who firft offend will first complain.
Thou wifheft, I should make to shoar;
Yet ftill put'ft in thy thwarting oar.
What I have told thee fifty times
In profe, receive for once in rhimes:
A huge fat man in country-fair,
Or city church, (no matter where)
Labour'd and push'd amidst the croud,
Still bauling out extremely loud;
Lord fave us! why do people prefs!
Another marking his diftrefs,