While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry-- 'Nothing is sacred now but villany.' 170 Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show, there was one who held it in disdain. * * * * * VARIATIONS. After VER. 2 in the MS.-- You don't, I hope, pretend to quit the trade, Because you think your reputation made: Like good Sir Paul, of whom so much was said, That when his name was up, he lay a-bed. Come, come, refresh us with a livelier song, Or, like Sir Paul, you'll lie a-bed too long. _P_. Sir, what I write, should be correctly writ. _F_. Correct! 'tis what no genius can admit. Besides, you grow too moral for a wit. VER. 112 in some editions--'Who starves a mother.' DIALOGUE II. _Fr_. 'Tis all a libel--Paxton[203] (sir) will say. _P_. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow, faith, it may; And for that very cause I print to-day. How should I fret to mangle every line, In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine! Vice with such giant strides comes on amain, Invention strives to be before in vain; Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong, Some rising genius sins up to my song. _F_. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash; 10 Ev'n Guthrie[204] saves half Newgate by a dash. Spare then the person, and expose the vice. _P_. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice? Come on then, Satire! general, unconfined, Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind. Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all! Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall! Ye reverend atheists---- _F_. Scandal! name them, who? _P_. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do. Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, 20 I never named; the town's inquiring yet. The poisoning dame---- _F_. You mean---- _P_. I don't. _F_. You do. _P_. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! The bribing statesman---- _F_. Hold, too high you go. _P_. The bribed elector---- _F_. There you stoop too low. _P_. I fain would please you, if I knew with what; Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not? Must great offenders, once escaped the crown, Like royal harts, be never more run down? Admit, your law to spare the knight requires, 30 As beasts of nature may we hunt the 'squires? Suppose I censure--you know what I mean-- To save a bishop, may I name a dean? _F_. A dean, sir? no: his fortune is not made, You hurt a man that's rising in the trade. _P_. If not the tradesman who set up to-day, Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may. Down, down, proud Satire! though a realm be spoil'd, Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;[205] Or, if a court or country's made a job, 40 Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.