Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry | Page 8

that his name.?This is the sovereign recipe, be sure,?To win men's hearts, and having won, secure.
But WE put virtue down to vice's score,?And foul the vessel that was clean before:?See, here's a modest man, who ranks too low?In his own judgment; him we nickname slow:?Another, ever on his guard, takes care?No enemy shall catch him unaware,?(Small wonder, truly, in a world like this,?Beset with dogs that growl and snakes that hiss);?We turn his merit to a fault, and style?His prudence mere disguise, his caution guile.?Or take some honest soul, who, full of glee,?Breaks on a patron's solitude, like me,?Finds his Maecenas book in hand or dumb,?And pokes him with remarks, the first that come;?We cry "He lacks e'en common tact." Alas!?What hasty laws against ourselves we pass!?For none is born without his faults: the best?But bears a lighter wallet than the rest.?A man of genial nature, as is fair,?My virtues with my vices will compare,?And, as with good or bad he fills the scale,?Lean to the better side, should that prevail:?So, when he seeks my friendship, I will trim?The wavering balance in my turn for him.?He that has fears his blotches may offend?Speaks gently of the pimples of his friend:?For reciprocity exacts her dues,?And they that need excuse must needs excuse.
Now, since resentment, spite of all we do,?Will haunt us fools, and other vices too,?Why should not reason use her own just sense,?And square her punishments to each offence??Suppose a slave, as he removes the dish,?Licks the warm gravy or remains of fish,?Should his vexed master gibbet the poor lad,?He'd be a second Labeo, STARING mad.?Now take another instance, and remark?A case of madness, grosser and more stark.?A friend has crossed you:--'tis a slight affair;?Not to forgive it writes you down a bear:--?You hate the man and his acquaintance fly,?As Ruso's debtors hide from Ruso's eye;?Poor victims, doomed, when that black pay-day's come,?Unless by hook or crook they raise the sum,?To stretch their necks, like captives to the knife,?And listen to dull histories for dear life.?Say, he has drunk too much, or smashed some ware,?Evander's once, inestimably rare,?Or stretched before me, in his zeal to dine,?To snatch a chicken I had meant for mine;?What then? is that a reason he should seem?Less pleasant, less deserving my esteem??How could I treat him worse, were he to thieve,?Betray a secret, or a trust deceive?
Your men of words, who rate all crimes alike,?Collapse and founder, when on fact they strike:?Sense, custom, all, cry out against the thing,?And high expedience, right's perennial spring.?When men first crept from out earth's womb, like worms,?Dumb speechless creatures, with scarce human forms,?With nails or doubled fists they used to fight?For acorns or for sleeping-holes at night;?Clubs followed next; at last to arms they came,?Which growing practice taught them how to frame,?Till words and names were found, wherewith to mould?The sounds they uttered, and their thoughts unfold;?Thenceforth they left off fighting, and began?To build them cities, guarding man from man,?And set up laws as barriers against strife?That threatened person, property, or wife.?'Twas fear of wrong gave birth to right, you'll find,?If you but search the records of mankind.?Nature knows good and evil, joy and grief,?But just and unjust are beyond her brief:?Nor can philosophy, though finely spun,?By stress of logic prove the two things one,?To strip your neighbour's garden of a flower?And rob a shrine at midnight's solemn hour.?A rule is needed, to apportion pain,?Nor let you scourge when you should only cane.?For that you're likely to be overmild,?And treat a ruffian like a naughty child,?Of this there seems small danger, when you say?That theft's as bad as robbery in its way,?And vow all villains, great and small, shall swing?From the same tree, if men will make you king.
But tell me, Stoic, if the wise, you teach,?Is king, Adonis, cobbler, all and each,?Why wish for what you've got? "Tou fail to see?What great Chrysippus means by that," says he.?"What though the wise ne'er shoe nor slipper made,?The wise is still a brother of the trade.?Just as Hennogenes, when silent, still?Remains a singer of consummate skill,?As sly Alfenius, when he had let drop?His implements of art and shut up shop,?Was still a barber, so the wise is best?In every craft, a king's among the rest."?Hail to your majesty! yet, ne'ertheless,?Rude boys are pulling at your beard, I guess;?And now, unless your cudgel keeps them off,?The mob begins to hustle, push, and scoff;?You, all forlorn, attempt to stand at bay,?And roar till your imperial lungs give way.?Well, so we part: each takes his separate path:?You make your progress to your farthing bath,?A king, with ne'er a follower in your train,?Except Crispinus, that distempered brain;?While I find pleasant friends to screen me, when?I chance to err, like other foolish men;?Bearing and borne with, so the change we ring,?More blest as private folks