Truth! rouse some genuine Bard, and guide his hand To drive this pestilence from out the land. E'en I--least thinking of a thoughtless throng, Just skilled to know the right and choose the wrong, 690 Freed at that age when Reason's shield is lost, To fight my course through Passion's countless host, [104] Whom every path of Pleasure's flow'ry way Has lured in turn, and all have led astray-- E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal: Altho' some kind, censorious friend will say, "What art thou better, meddling fool, [105] than they?" And every Brother Rake will smile to see That miracle, a Moralist in me. 700 No matter--when some Bard in virtue strong, Gifford perchance, shall raise the chastening song, Then sleep my pen for ever! and my voice Be only heard to hail him, and rejoice, Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I May feel the lash that Virtue must apply. As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals From silly HAFIZ up to simple BOWLES, [106] Why should we call them from their dark abode, In Broad St. Giles's or Tottenham-Road? 710 Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the Square? [l] If things of Ton their harmless lays indite, Most wisely doomed to shun the public sight, What harm? in spite of every critic elf, Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself; MILES ANDREWS [107] still his strength in couplets try, And live in prologues, though his dramas die. Lords too are Bards: such things at times befall, And 'tis some praise in Peers to write at all. 720 Yet, did or Taste or Reason sway the times, Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes? [108] ROSCOMMON! [109] SHEFFIELD! [110] with your spirits fled, [111] No future laurels deck a noble head; No Muse will cheer, with renovating smile, The paralytic puling of CARLISLE. [li] [112] The puny schoolboy and his early lay Men pardon, if his follies pass away; But who forgives the Senior's ceaseless verse, Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse? 730 What heterogeneous honours deck the Peer! Lord, rhymester, petit-maître, pamphleteer! [113] So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age, His scenes alone had damned our sinking stage; But Managers for once cried, "Hold, enough!" Nor drugged their audience with the tragic stuff. Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, [lii] And case his volumes in congenial calf; Yes! doff that covering, where Morocco shines, And hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines. [114] 740