Next, Dick, if Chance herself should vary,
Obferve how matter would miscarry :
Acrofs your eyes, Friend, place your shoes,
Your fpectacles upon your toes,
Then you and Memmius fhall agree
How nicely men would walk or fee.
But wifdom, peevifh, and cross-grain'd
Must be oppos'd to be fuftain'd;
And still your knowledge will increase,
As you make other people's lefs.
In arms and science 'tis the fame;
Our rival's hurts create our fame.
At Faubert's, if difputes arife
Among the champions for the prize,
who the fairer butt,
gave
John fhows the chalk on Robert's coat.
So for the honour of your book,
It tells where other folks miftook,
And as their notions you confound,
Those you invent get farther ground.
The commentators on old Ari-
Stotle ('tis urg'd) in judgment vary:
They to their own conceits have brought
The image of his general thought,
Juft as the melancholic eye
Sees fleets and armies in the fky,
And to the poor apprentice ear
The bells found Whittington Lord May❜r.
The conj'rer thus explains his fcheme;
Thus fpirits walk and prophets dream;
North Britons thus have fecond fight,
And Germans free from gunshot fight.
Theodoret and Origen,
And fifty other learned men,
Atteft that if their comments find
The traces of their mafter's mind,
Aima can ne'er decay nor die :
This flatly th' other fect deny,
Simplicius, Theophraft, Durand,
Great names, but hard in verfe to stand:
They wonder men fhould have mistook
The tenets of their master's book,
And hold that Alma yields her breath,
O'ercome by age and feiz'd by death.
'Now which were wife, and which were fools? Poor Alma fits between two ftools;
The more fhe reads the more perplext,
The comment ruining the text:
Now fears, now hopes her doubtful fate:
But, Richard, let her look to that
Whilft we our own affairs purfüe.
Thefe diff'rent fyftems old or new,
A man with half an eye may fee
Were only form'd to difagree.
Now to bring things to fair conclufion,
The flips and bounds of Alma's flight.
My fimple fyftem shall suppose
That Alma enters at the toes;
That then the mounts, by juft degrees,
Up to the ancles, legs, and knees:
Next as the fap of life does rife,
She lends her vigour to the thighs;
And, all thefe under regions paft,
She neftles fomewhere near the waift;
Gives pain or pleasure, grief or laughter,
As we fhall fhow at lage hereafter:
Mature, if not improv'd by time,
Up to the heart fhe loves to climb:
From thence, compell'd by craft and age,
She makes the head her latest stage.
From the feet upward to the head,
Pithy, and fhort, fays Dick, proceed.
Dick, this is not an idle notion;
Obferve the progrefs of the motion:
First, I demonftratively prove
That feet were only made to move,
And legs defire to come and go,
For they have nothing elfe to do.
Hence, long before the child can crawl,
He learns to kick, and wince, and sprawl,
To hinder which, your midwife knows
To bind thofe parts extremely close,
Left Alma, newly enter'd in,
And stunn'd at her own christ'ning's din,
Fearful of future grief and pain,
Should filently fneak out again.
Full piteous feems young Alma's cafe,
As in a lucklefs gamefter`s place,
She would not play, yet muft not pafs.
Again, as he grows fomething stronger,
And mafter's feet are fwath'd no longer,
If in the night too oft he kicks,
Or fhows his loco-motive tricks,
Thefe firft affaults fat Kate repays him,
When half-afleep the overlays him.
Now mark, dear Richard, from the age
That children tread this worldly ftage,
Broomstaff or poker they beftride,
And round the parlour love to ride,
Till thoughtful father's pious care
Provides his brood, next Smithfield fair,
Hence for fome years they ne'er fland fill;
Their legs you fee direct their will;
From op'ning morn till fetting fun
Around the fields and woods they run,
They frifk, and dance, and leap, and play,
Nor heed what Friend or Snape can fay;
To her next tage as Alma flies,
And likes, as I have faid, the thighs,
With fympathetic pow'r the warms
Their good allies and friends the arms;
While Betty dances on the green,
And Sufan is at ftoolball feen;
While John for ninepins does declare,
And Roger loves to pitch the bar,
Both legs and arms fpontaneous move,
Which was the thing I meant to prove.
Another motion now fhe makes:
O need I name the feat fhe takes?
His thought quite chang'd the ftripling finds;
The fport and race no more he minds;
Neglected Tray and Pointer lie,
And covies unmolefted fly :
Sudden the jocund plain he leaves,
And for the nymph in fecret grieves :
In dying accents he complains
Of cruel fires and raging pains.
The nymph, too, longs to be alone,
Leaves all the fwains and fighs for one:
The nymph is warm'd with young defire,
And feels, and dies to quench his fire.
They meet each ev'ning in the
grove;
Their parley but augments their love:
So to the priest their case they tell;
He ties the knot, and all goes well.
But, O my Muse, just distance keep,
Thou art a maid, and muft not peep.
In nine months time the bodice loofe,
And petticoats too short, disclose
That at this age the active mind
About the waift lies moft confin'd,
And that young life, and quick'ning fenfe
Spring from his influence darted thence :
So from the middle of the world
The fun's prolific rays are hurl'd;
"Tis from that feat he darts thofe beams
Which quicken earth with genial flames.
Dick, who thus long had paffive fat, Here ftrok'd his chin and cock'd his hat, Then flapp'd his hand upon the board, And thus the youth put in his word.
Love's advocates, fweet Sir, would find him
A higher place than you affign'd him.
Love's advocates, Dick, who are those ?-
The poets, you may well fuppofe.
I'm forry, Sir, you have difcarded
The men with whom till now you herded.
Profemen alone, for private ends,
I thought forfook their ancient friends.
In cor ftillavit, cries Lucretius,
If he may be allow'd to teach us.
The felfsame thing foft Ovid fays,
(A proper judge in fuch a cafe.)
Horace his phrafe is torret jecur,
And happy was that curious speaker.
Here Virgil too has plac'd this paffion;
What fignifies too long quotation?
In ode and epic plain the cafe is,
That Love holds one of these two places.
Dick, without paffion or reflection,
I'll ftraight demolish this objection.
Firft, poets, all the world agrees,
Write half to profit half to please ;
Matter and figure they produce,
For garnish this, and that for ufe;
And, in the ftructure of their fealts,
They feek to feed and please their guests:
But one may baulk this good intent,
And take things otherwife than meant.
Thus, if you dine with my Lord May❜r,
Roaft beef and ven'fon is
your fare,
Thence you proceed to fwan and bustard,
And perfevere in tart and cuftard:
But tulip-leaves and lemon-peel
Help only to adorn the meal;
And painted flags, fuperb and neat,
Proclaim you welcome to the treat.
|