Good honest Curio elbows the divine, And strives a social sinner how to shine; The dull quaint tale is his, the lengthen'd tale, That Wilton farmers give you with their ale, How midnight ghosts o'er vaults terrific pass, Dance o'er the grave, and slide along the grass; Or how pale Cicely within the wood Call'd Satan forth, and bargain'd with her blood. These, honest Curio, are thine, and these Are the dull treasures of a brain at peace; No wit intoxicates thy gentle skull, Of heavy, native, unwrought folly full: Bowl upon bowl in vain exert their force, The breathing spirit takes a downward course, Or mainly soaring upwards to the head, Meets an impenetrable fence of lead. Hast thou, oh reader! searched o'er gentle Gay, Where various animals their powers display? In one strange group a chattering race are hurl'd, Led by the monkey who had seen the world. Like him Fabricio steals from guardian's side, Swims not in pleasure's stream, but sips the tide: He hates the bottle, yet but thinks it right To boast next day the honours of the night; None like your coward can describe a fight. See him as down the sparkling potion goes, Labour to grin away the horrid dose; In joy-feigned gaze his misty eyeballs float, Th' uncivil spirit gurgling at his throat; So looks dim Titan through a wintry scene, And faintly cheers the woe-foreboding swain. Timon, long practised in the school of art, Has lost each finer feeling of the heart; Triumphs o'er shame, and, with delusive wiles, Laughs at the idiot he himself beguiles: So matrons, past the awe of censure's tongue, Deride the blushes of the fair and young. Few with more fire on every subject spoke, But chief he loved the gay immoral joke; The words most sacred, stole from holy writ, He gave a newer form, and called them wit. Vice never had a more sincere ally, So bold no sinner, yet no saint so sly; Learn'd, but not wise, and without virtue brave, A gay, deluding, philosophic knave. When Bacchus' joys his airy fancy fire, They stir a new, but still a false desire; And to the comfort of each untaught fool, Horace in English vindicates the bowl. "The man," says Timon, "who is drunk is blest, No fears disturb, no cares destroy his rest; In thoughtless joy he reels away his life, Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife." "Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women come, And thunders worse than thine afflict the room, Where one eternal nothing flutters round, And senseless titt'ring sense of mirth confound; Or lead me bound to garret, Babel-high, Where frantic poet rolls his crazy eye, Tiring the ear with oft-repeated chimes, And smiling at the never-ending rhymes: E'en here, or there, I'll be as blest as Jove, Give me tobacco, and the wine I love." Applause from hands the dying accents break, Of stagg'ring sots who vainly try to speak; From Milo, him who hangs upon each word, And in loud praises splits the tortured board, Collects each sentence, ere it's better known, And makes the mutilated joke his own.