No More Learning

The modern language of corrupted peers,
Or what was spoke at Cressy and Poitiers?
Who counsels best? who whispers, "Be but great,
With praise or infamy leave that to fate;
Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place--"
For what? to have a box where eunuchs sing,
And foremost in the circle eye a king.
Or he, who bids thee face with steady view }
Proud fortune, and look shallow greatness through: }
And, while he bids thee, sets th' example too? }
If such a doctrine, in St. James's air,
Should chance to make the well-dressed rabble stare;
If honest S * z take scandal at a spark,
That less admires the palace than the park:
Faith I shall give the answer Reynard gave:
"I cannot like, dread sir, your royal cave:
Because I see, by all the tracks about,
Full many a beast goes in, but none come out. "
Adieu to virtue, if you're once a slave:
Send her to Court, you send her to her grave.
Well, if a king's a lion, at the least,
The people are a many-headed beast:
Can they direct what measures to pursue,
Who know themselves so little what to do?
Alike in nothing but one lust of gold,
Just half the land would buy, and half be sold:
Their country's wealth our mightier misers drain,
Or cross, to plunder provinces, the main;
The rest, some farm the poor-box, some the pews;
Some keep assemblies, and would keep the stews;
Some with fat bucks on childless dotards fawn;
Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn;
While with the silent growth of ten per cent.
In dirt and darkness, hundreds stink content.
Of all these ways, if each pursues his own,
Satire be kind, and let the wretch alone:
But show me one who has it in his power
To act consistent with himself an hour.
Sir Job sailed forth, the evening bright and still,
"No place on earth," he cried, "like Greenwich Hill! "
Up starts a palace; lo, th' obedient base }
Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace, }
The silver Thames reflects its marble face. }
Now let some whimsy, or that devil within }
Which guides all those who know not what they mean, }
But give the knight (or give his lady) spleen; }
"Away, away!
take all your scaffolds down,
For snug's the word: my dear! we'll live in town. "
At amorous Flavio is the stocking thrown?
That very night he longs to lie alone.
The fool, whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter,
For matrimonial solace dies a martyr.
Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch, }
Transform themselves so strangely as the rich? }
Well, but the poor--the poor have the same itch; }
They change their weekly barber, weekly news,
Prefer a new japanner to their shoes,
Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run
(They know not whither) in a chaise and one;
They hire their sculler, and when once aboard,
Grow sick, and damn the climate--like a lord.
You laugh, half beau, half sloven if I stand,
My wig all powder, and all snuff my band;
You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,
White gloves, and linen worthy Lady Mary!
But when no prelate's lawn with hair-shirt lined,
Is half so incoherent as my mind,
When (each opinion with the next at strife,
One ebb and flow of follies all my life)
I plant, root up; I build, and then confound;
Turn round to square, and square again to round;
You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this madness but a common case,
Nor once to Chancery, nor to Hale apply;
Yet hang your lip, to see a seam awry!
Careless how ill I with myself agree,
Kind to my dress, my figure, not to me.
Is this my guide, philosopher, and Friend?
This, he who loves me, and who ought to mend?
Who ought to make me (what he can, or none),
That man divine whom wisdom calls her own;
Great without title, without fortune blessed;
Rich even when plundered, honoured while oppressed;
Loved without youth, and followed without power;
At home, though exiled; free, though in the Tower;
In short, that reasoning, high, immortal thing,
Just less than Jove, and much above a king,
Nay, half in heaven--except (what's mighty odd)
A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god.



THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.


EPISTLE VI. TO MR.