Though Folly, robed in purple, shines, Though Vice exhausts Peruvian mines, Yet shall they tremble, and turn pale, When Satire wields her mighty flail; Or should they, of rebuke afraid, With Melcombe[239] seek hell's deepest shade, Satire, still mindful of her aim, Shall bring the cowards back to shame. 930 Hated by many, loved by few, Above each little private view, Honest, though poor, (and who shall dare To disappoint my boasting there?) Hardy and resolute, though weak, The dictates of my heart to speak, Willing I bend at Satire's throne; What power I have be all her own. Nor shall yon lawyer's specious art, Conscious of a corrupted heart, 940 Create imaginary fear To damp us in our bold career. Why should we fear? and what? The laws? They all are arm'd in Virtue's cause; And aiming at the self-same end, Satire is always Virtue's friend. Nor shall that Muse, whose honest rage, In a corrupt degenerate age, (When, dead to every nicer sense, Deep sunk in vice and indolence, 950 The spirit of old Rome was broke Beneath the tyrant fiddler's yoke) Banish'd the rose from Nero's cheek, Under a Brunswick fear to speak. Drawn by Conceit from Reason's plan, How vain is that poor creature, Man! How pleased is every paltry elf To prate about that thing, himself! After my promise made in rhyme, And meant in earnest at that time, 960 To jog, according to the mode, In one dull pace, in one dull road, What but that curse of heart and head To this digression could have led? Where plunged, in vain I look about, And can't stay in, nor well get out. Could I, whilst Humour held the quill, Could I digress with half that skill; Could I with half that skill return, Which we so much admire in Sterne, 970 Where each digression, seeming vain, And only fit to entertain, Is found, on better recollection, To have a just and nice connexion, To help the whole with wondrous art, Whence it seems idly to depart; Then should our readers ne'er accuse These wild excursions of the Muse; Ne'er backward turn dull pages o'er To recollect what went before; 980 Deeply impress'd, and ever new, Each image past should start to view, And we to Dulman now come in, As if we ne'er had absent been. Have you not seen, when danger's near, The coward cheek turn white with fear? Have you not seen, when danger's fled, The self-same cheek with joy turn red? These are low symptoms which we find, Fit only for a vulgar mind, 990 Where honest features, void of art, Betray the feelings of the heart; Our Dulman with a face was bless'd, Where no one passion was express'd; His eye, in a fine stupor caught, Implied a plenteous lack of thought; Nor was one line that whole face seen in Which could be justly charged with meaning. To Avarice by birth allied,