An Essay on Man Part 15

Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach, You go to church to hear these flatterers preach.

Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit, A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit, The wisest man might blush, I must agree, If D*** loved sixpence more than he.

If there be truth in law, and use can give A property, that's yours on which you life.

Delightful Abs Court, if its fields afford Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord; All Worldly's hens, nay partridge, sold to town: His venison too, a guinea makes your own: He bought at thousands, what with better wit You purchase as you want, and bit by bit; Now, or long since, what difference will be found?

You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln fen, Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat, Buy every pullet they afford to eat.

Yet these are wights, who fondly call their own Half that the Devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.

The laws of G.o.d, as well as of the land, Abhor, a perpetuity should stand: Estates have wings and hang in fortune's power Loose on the point of every wavering hour, Ready, by force, or of your own accord, By sale, at least by death, to change their lord.

Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have?

Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.

All vast possessions (just the same the case Whether you call them villa, park, or chase).

Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail?

Join Cotswold hills to Saperton's fair dale, Let rising granaries and temples here, There mingled farms and pyramids appear, Link towns to towns with avenues of oak, Enclose whole downs in walls, 'tis all a joke!

Inexorable death shall level all, And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.

Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high, Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye, There are who have not-and thank heaven there are, Who, if they have not, think not worth their care, Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find, Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.

Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun; The other slights, for women, sports, and wines, All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's mines; Why one like Bu-with pay and scorn content, Bows and votes on, in Court and Parliament; One, driven by strong benevolence of soul, Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole; Is known alone to that directing power, Who forms the genius in the natal hour; That G.o.d of Nature, who, within us still, Inclines our action, not constrains our will: Various of temper, as of face or frame.

Each individual: His great end the same.

Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap, A part I will enjoy, as well as keep.

My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace A man so poor would live without a place; But sure no statute in his favour says How free, or frugal, I shall pa.s.s my days: I, who at some times spend, at others spare, Divided between carelessness and care.

'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store; Another, not to heed to treasure more!

Glad, like a boy, to s.n.a.t.c.h the first good day, And pleased, if sordid want be far away.

What is't to me (a pa.s.senger, G.o.d wot) Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?

The s.h.i.+p itself may make a better figure, But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger, I neither strut with every favouring breath, Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.

In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed Behind the foremost and before the last.

"But why all this of avarice? I have none."

I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone; But does no other lord it at this hour, As wild and mad: the avarice of power?

Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appal?

Not the black fear of death, that saddens all?

With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne, Despise the known, nor tremble at the unknown?

Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire, In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?

Pleased to look forward, pleased to look behind, And count each birthday with a grateful mind?

Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?

Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?

Has age but melted the rough parts away, As winter fruits grow mild ere they decay?

Or will you think, my friend, your business done, When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've played, and loved, and ate, and drank your fill: Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age Comes t.i.ttering on, and shoves you from the stage; Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Where folly pleases, and whose follies please.

THE SATIRES OF DR. JOHN DONNE, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.

VERSIFIED.

"Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes Mollius?"

Hor. (Sat. lx. 56-9).

SATIRE II.

Yes; thank my stars! as early as I knew This town, I had the sense to hate it too; Yet here; as even in h.e.l.l, there must be still One giant-vice, so excellently ill, That all beside, one pities, not abhors; As who knows Sappho, smiles at other wh.o.r.es.

I grant that poetry's a crying sin; It brought (no doubt) the excise and army in: Catched like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how, But that the cure is starving, all allow.

Yet like the Papist's, is the poet's state, Poor and disarmed, and hardly worth your hate!

Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give Himself a dinner, makes an actor live: The thief condemned, in law already dead, So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.

Thus, as the pipes of some carved organ move, The gilded puppets dance and mount above.

Heaved by the breath the inspiring bellows blow: The inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

One sings the fair; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love: In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold, And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold.

These write to lords, some mean reward to get, As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.

Those write because all write, and so have still Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

Wretched, indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others' wit: 'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before; His rank digestion makes it wit no more: Sense, past through him, no longer is the same; For food digested takes another name.

I pa.s.s o'er all those confessors and martyrs Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres, Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir, Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear; Wicked as pages, who in early years Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears.

Even those I pardon, for whose sinful sake Schoolmen new tenements in h.e.l.l must make; Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell In what Commandment's large contents they dwell.

One, one man only breeds my just offence; Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence: Time brings all natural events to pa.s.s, And made him an attorney of an a.s.s.

No young divine, new beneficed, can be More pert, more proud, more positive than he.

What further could I wish the fop to do, But turn a wit, and scribble verses too; Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear With rhymes of this per cent. and that per year?

Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts, Like nets or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts; Call himself barrister to every wench, And woo in language of the pleas and bench?

Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold More rough than forty Germans when they scold.

Cursed be the wretch, so venal and so vain: Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury Lane.

'Tis such a bounty as was never known, If Peter deigns to help you to your own: What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies, And what a solemn face if he denies!

Grave, as when prisoners shake the head and swear 'Twas only suretys.h.i.+p that brought 'em there.

His office keeps your parchment fates entire, He starves with cold to save them from the fire; For you he walks the streets through rain or dust, For not in chariots Peter puts his trust; For you he sweats and labours at the laws, Takes G.o.d to witness he affects your cause, And lies to every lord in every thing, Like a king's favourite-or like a king.

These are the talents that adorn them all, From wicked waters even to G.o.dly * *

Not more of simony beneath black gowns, Nor more of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy in heirs to crowns.

In s.h.i.+llings and in pence at first they deal; And steal so little, few perceive they steal; Till, like the sea, they compa.s.s all the land, From Scots to Wight, from mount to Dover strand: And when rank widows purchase luscious nights, Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's, Or City-heir in mortgage melts away; Satan himself feels far less joy than they.

Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that, Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.

Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law, Indentures, covenants, articles thy draw, Large as the fields themselves, and larger far Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are; So vast, our new divines, we must confess, Are fathers of the Church for writing less.

But let them write for you, each rogue impairs The deeds, and dexterously omits, ses heires; No commentator can more slily pa.s.s O'er a learned, unintelligible place; Or, in quotation, shrewd divines leave out Those words, that would against them clear the doubt.

So Luther thought the Paternoster long, When doomed to say his beads and even-song; But having cast his cowl, and left those laws, Adds to Christ's prayer, the Power and Glory clause.

The lands are bought; but where are to be found Those ancient woods, that shaded all the ground?

We see no new-built palaces aspire, No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.

Where are those troops of poor, that thronged of yore The good old landlord's hospitable door?

Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes Some beasts were killed, though not whole hecatombs; That both extremes were banished from their walls, Carthusian fasts, and fulsome baccha.n.a.ls; And all mankind might that just mean observe, In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.

These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow; But oh! these works are not in fas.h.i.+on now: Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare, Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence; Let no Court sycophant pervert my sense, Nor sly informer watch these words to draw Within the reach of treason, or the law.

SATIRE IV.

Well, if it be my time to quit the stage, Adieu to all the follies of the age!

I die in charity with fool and knave, Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.

I've had my purgatory here betimes, And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.

The poet's h.e.l.l, its tortures, fiends, and flames, To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fired, Nor the vain itch to admire, or be admired; I hoped for no commission from his Grace; I bought no benefice, I begged no place; Had no new verses, nor new suit to show; Yet went to Court!-the Devil would have it so.

But, as the fool that in reforming days Would go to Ma.s.s in jest (as story says) Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd, Since 'twas no formed design of serving G.o.d; So was I punished, as if full as proud As p.r.o.ne to ill, as negligent of good, As deep in debt, without a thought to pay, } As vain, as idle, and as false, as they } Who live at Court, for going once that way! } Scarce was I entered, when, behold! there came A thing which Adam had been posed to name; Noah had refused it lodging in his Ark, Where all the race of reptiles might embark: A verier monster, that on Afric's sh.o.r.e The sun e'er got, or slimy Nilus bore, Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain, Nay, all that lying travellers can feign.

The watch would hardly let him pa.s.s at noon, At night, would swear him dropped out of the moon.

One whom the mob, when next we find or make A Popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take, And the wise Justice starting from his chair Cry: "By your priesthood tell me what you are?"

Such was the wight; the apparel on his back Though coa.r.s.e, was reverend, and though bare, was black: The suit, if by the fas.h.i.+on one might guess, Was velvet in the youth of good Queen Bess, But mere tuff-taffety what now remained; So time, that changes all things, had ordained!

Our sons shall see it leisurely decay, First turn plain rash, then vanish quite away.

This thing has travelled, speaks each language too, And know what's fit for very state to do; Of whose best phrase and courtly accent joined, He forms one tongue, exotic and refined, Talkers I've learned to bear; Motteux I knew, Henley himself I've heard, and Budgel too.

The doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs, The whole artillery of the terms of war, And (all those plagues in one) the bawling bar: These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil, Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil.

A tongue that can cheat widows, cancel scores, Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest w***es, With royal favourites in flattery vie, And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

He spies me out, I whisper: "Gracious G.o.d!

What sin of mine could merit such a rod?

That all the shot of dulness now must be From this thy blunderbuss discharged on me!"

"Permit" (he cries) "no stranger to your fame To crave your sentiment, if ----'s your name.