Be answered thus:--If I by chance succeed In what I write, (and that's a chance indeed,) Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard, Not to feel praise, or fame's deserved reward; But this I cannot grant, that thy applause Is my work's ultimate, or only cause. Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize; For mark what vanity within it lies. Like Labeo's Iliads, in whose verse is found Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound; Such little elegies as nobles write, Who would be poets, in Apollo's spite. Them and their woeful works the Muse defies; Products of citron beds,[182] and golden canopies. To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart } To make a supper, with a fine desert, } And to thy thread-bare friend a cast old suit impart. } Thus bribed, thou thus bespeak'st him--Tell me, friend, (For I love truth, nor can plain speech offend,) What says the world of me and of my muse? The poor dare nothing tell but flattering news; But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched rhyme, And all thy labours are but loss of time. Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high; Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry. All authors to their own defects are blind; Hadst thou but, Janus-like,[183] a face behind, To see the people, what splay-mouths they make; To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back; Their tongues lolled out, a foot beyond the pitch, When most athirst, of an Apulian bitch: But noble scribblers are with flattery fed, For none dare find their faults, who eat their bread. To pass the poets of patrician blood, What is't the common reader takes for good? The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow, Soft without sense, and without spirit slow; So smooth and equal, that no sight can find The rivet, where the polished piece was joined; So even all, with such a steady view, As if he shut one eye to level true. Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings, The people's riots, or the rage of kings, The gentle poet is alike in all; His reader hopes no rise, and fears no fall. FRIEND.