But if in noble minds some dregs remain, Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain; Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes, Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times. 530 No pardon vile obscenity should find, Though wit and art conspire to move your mind; But dulness with obscenity must prove As shameful sure as impotence in love. In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease, Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase: When love was all an easy monarch's care;[21] Seldom at council, never in a war: Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ; Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit; 540 The fair sat panting at a courtier's play, And not a mask went unimproved away: The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blush'd before. The following license of a foreign reign Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain; Then unbelieving priests reform'd the nation, And taught more pleasant methods of salvation; Where Heaven's free subjects might their rights dispute, Lest God himself should seem too absolute: 550 Pulpits their sacred satire learn'd to spare, And vice admired to find a flatterer there! Encouraged thus, wit's Titans braved the skies, And the press groan'd with licensed blasphemies. These monsters, critics! with your darts engage, Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage! Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice, Will needs mistake an author into vice; All seems infected that the infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. 560 * * * * * VARIATIONS. VER. 225-228:-- So pleased at first the towering Alps to try, Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy, The traveller beholds with cheerful eyes The lessening vales, and seems to tread the skies. VER. 447. Between this and ver. 448:-- The rhyming clowns that gladded Shakspeare's age, No more with crambo entertain the stage. Who now in anagrams their patron praise, Or sing their mistress in acrostic lays? Even pulpits pleased with merry puns of yore; Now all are banish'd to the Hibernian shore! Thus leaving what was natural and fit, The current folly proved their ready wit; And authors thought their reputation safe, Which lived as long as fools were pleased to laugh. PART THIRD. Learn, then, what MORALS critics ought to show, For 'tis but half a judge's task to know. 'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join; In all you speak, let truth and candour shine: That not alone what to your sense is due All may allow; but seek your friendship too. Be silent always when you doubt your sense; And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence: Some positive, persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; 570 But you, with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last.