At Will's you hear a poem read, Where Battus from the table-head, Reclining on his elbow-chair, Gives judgment with decisive air; To whom the tribes of circling wits As to an oracle submits. He gives directions to the town, To cry it up, or run it down; Like courtiers, when they send a note, Instructing members how to vote. He sets the stamp of bad and good, Though not a word he understood. Your lesson learned, you'll be secure To get the name of connoisseur: And, when your merits once are known, Procure disciples of your own. For poets, (you can never want 'em,) Spread through Augusta Trinobantum, Computing by their pecks of coals, Amount to just nine thousand souls. These o'er their proper districts govern, Of wit and humour judges sovereign. In every street a city-bard Rules, like an alderman, his ward; His undisputed rights extend Through all the lane, from end to end; The neighbours round admire his shrewdness For songs of loyalty and lewdness; Outdone by none in rhyming well, Although he never learned to spell. Two bordering wits contend for glory; And one is Whig, and one is Tory: And this for epics claims the bays, And that for elegiac lays: Some famed for numbers soft and smooth, By lovers spoke in Punch's booth; And some as justly Fame extols For lofty lines in Smithfield drolls. Bavius in Wapping gains renown, And Mavius reigns o'er Kentish-town; Tigellius, placed in Phoebus' car, From Ludgate shines to Temple-bar: Harmonious Cibber entertains The court with annual birth-day strains; Whence Gay was banished in disgrace; Where Pope will never show his face; Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension. But these are not a thousandth part Of jobbers in the poet's art; Attending each his proper station, And all in due subordination, Through every alley to be found, In garrets high, or under ground; And when they join their pericranies, Out skips a book of miscellanies. Hobbes clearly proves that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature; The greater for the smallest watch, But meddle seldom with their match. A whale of moderate size will draw A shoal of herrings down his maw; A fox with geese his belly crams; A wolf destroys a thousand lambs: But search among the rhyming race, The brave are worried by the base. If on Parnassus' top you sit, You rarely bite, are always bit. Each poet of inferior size On you shall rail and criticise, And strive to tear you limb from limb; While others do as much for him.