Time was, a sober Englishman would knock His servants up, and rise by five o'clock, Instruct his family in every rule, And send his wife to church, his son to school. To worship like his fathers, was his care; To teach their frugal virtues to his heir; To prove that luxury could never hold; And place, on good security, his gold. Now times are changed, and one poetic itch Has seized the court and city, poor and rich: Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays, Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays, To theatres, and to rehearsals throng, And all our grace at table is a song. I, who so oft renounce the muses, lie, Not ----'s self e'er tells more fibs than I; When sick of Muse, our follies we deplore, And promise our best friends to rhyme no more; We wake next morning in a raging fit, And call for pen and ink to show our wit. He served a prenticeship, who sets up shop; Ward tried on puppies, and the poor, his drop; Even Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance. Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? (Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile;) But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. Yet, Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great; These madmen never hurt the church or state: Sometimes the folly benefits mankind; And rarely avarice taints the tuneful mind. Allow him but his plaything of a pen, He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men: Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never mind; And knows no losses while the Muse is kind. To cheat a friend, or ward, he leaves to Peter, The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre, Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet; And then--a perfect hermit in his diet. Of little use the man you may suppose Who says in verse what others say in prose; Yet let me show, a poet's of some weight, And (though no soldier) useful to the state. What will a child learn sooner than a song? What better teach a foreigner the tongue? What's long or short, each accent where to place, And speak in public with some sort of grace? I scarce can think him such a worthless thing, Unless he praise some monster of a king; Or virtue, or religion turn to sport, To please a lewd, or unbelieving Court. Unhappy Dryden!--In all Charles's days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays; And in our own (excuse some courtly stains) No whiter page than Addison remains. He, from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, And sets the passions on the side of truth, Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, And pours each human virtue in the heart. Let Ireland tell, how wit upheld her cause, Her trade supported, and supplied her laws; And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved, 'The rights a court attacked, a poet saved.' Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure,