Shall he be hanged who never could rebel? That's a preferment for Achitophel. The woman, that committed buggary, Was rightly sentenced by the law to die; But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led The dog, that never heard the statute read.[381] Railing in other men may be a crime, But ought to pass for mere instinct in him; Instinct he follows and no farther knows, For, to write verse with him is to _transprose_;[382] 'Twere pity treason at his door to lay, _Who makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key._ Let him rail on, let his invective muse Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse, Which if he jumbles to one line of sense, Indict him of a capital offence. In fire-works give him leave to vent his spite, Those are the only serpents he can write; The height of his ambition is, we know, But to be master of a puppet-show; On that one stage his works may yet appear, And a month's harvest keeps him all the year. Now stop your noses, readers, all and some, } For here's a tun of midnight-work to come, }[383] Og from a treason-tavern rolling home. } Round as a globe, and liquored every chink, Goodly and great he sails behind his link. With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og, For every inch, that is not fool, is rogue; A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter, As all the devils had spewed to make the batter. When wine has given him courage to blaspheme, He curses God, but God before curst him; And if man could have reason, none has more, That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor. With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knew What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew; To what would he on quail and pheasant swell, That even on tripe and carrion could rebel? But though heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking, He never was a poet of God's making; The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull, With this prophetic blessing--be thou dull; Drink, swear, and roar; forbear no lewd delight Fit for thy bulk; do any thing but write. Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men, A strong nativity--but for the pen; Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink, Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink. I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain, For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane; Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck, 'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck. Why should thy metre good king David blast? A psalm of his will surely be thy last. Darest thou presume in verse to meet thy foes, Thou, whom the penny pamphlet foiled in prose? Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made, O'er tops thy talent in thy very trade; Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse, A poet is, though he's the poet's horse. A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,