No More Learning

He past it o'er; affects an easy smile
At all my peevishness, and turns his style.
He asks, "What news? " I tell him of new plays,
New eunuchs, harlequins, and operas.
He hears, and as a still with simples in it
Between each drop it gives, stays half a minute,
Loth to enrich me with too quick replies,
By little and by little drops his lies.
Mere household trash! of birth-nights, balls, and shows,
More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes.
When the Queen frowned, or smiled, he knows; and what
A subtle minister may make of that;
Who sins with whom: who got his pension rug,
Or quickened a reversion by a drug;
Whose place is quartered out, three parts in four,
And whether to a bishop, or a w***e;
Who having lost his credit, pawned his rent,
Is therefore fit to have a Government;
Who in the secret, deals in stocks secure,
And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor;
Who makes a trust or charity a job,
And gets an Act of Parliament to rob;
Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown
Can gratis see the country, or the town;
Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole,
But some excising courtier will have toll.
He tells what strumpet places sells for life,
What 'squire his lands, what citizen his wife:
And last (which proves him wiser still than all)
What lady's face is not a whited wall.
As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore,
I puke, I nauseate--yet he thrusts in more:
Trims Europe's balance, tops the statesman's part,
And talks gazettes and post-boys o'er by heart.
Like a big wife at sight of loathsome meat
Ready to cast, I yawn, I sigh and sweat.
Then as a licensed spy, whom nothing can
Silence or hurt, he libels the great man;
Swears every place entailed for years to come,
In sure succession to the day of doom;
He names the price for every office paid,
And says our wars thrive ill, because delayed;
Nay hints, 'tis by connivance of the Court,
That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a port.
Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests,
To see themselves fall endlong into beasts,
Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise
Already half turned traitor by surprise.
I felt the infection slide from him to me,
As in the ---- some give it to get free;
And quick to swallow me, methought I saw
One of our giant statutes ope its jaw.
In that nice moment, as another lie
Stood just a-tilt, the minister came by.
To him he flies, and bows, and bows again,
Then, close as Umbra, joins the dirty train.
Not Fannius' self more impudently near,
When half his nose is in his Prince's ear.
I quaked at heart; and still afraid, to see
All the Court filled with stranger things than he,
Ran out as fast as one that pays his bail
And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail.
Bear me, some god! oh, quickly bear me hence
To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense:
Where Contemplation plumes her ruffled wings,
And the free soul looks down to pity kings!
There sober thought pursued the amusing theme,
Till fancy coloured it, and formed a dream.
A vision hermits can to hell transport,
And forced even me to see the damned at Court.
Not Dante dreaming all the infernal state,
Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.
Base fear becomes the guilty, not the free;
Suits tyrants, plunderers, but suits not me:
Shall I, the terror of this sinful town,
Care, if a liveried lord or smile or frown?
Who cannot flatter, and detest who can,
Tremble before a noble serving-man?
O, my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee
For huffing, braggart, puffed nobility?
Thou, who since yesterday hast rolled o'er all
The busy, idle blockheads of the ball,
Hast thou, oh, sun! beheld an emptier fort,
Than such who swell this bladder of a Court?
Now plague on those who show a Court in wax!
It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs:
Such painted puppets! such a varnished race
Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face!