No More Learning

Names, which I long have loved, nor loved in vain,
Ranked with their friends, not numbered with their train;
And if yet higher the proud list should end,
Still let me say: No follower, but a friend.
Yet think not, friendship only prompts my lays;
I follow Virtue: where she shines, I praise:
Point she to priest or elder, Whig or Tory,
Or round a Quaker's beaver cast a glory.
I never (to my sorrow, I declare)
Dined with the Man of Ross, or my Lord Mayor.
Some in their choice of friends (nay, look not grave)
Have still a secret bias to a knave:
To find an honest man I beat about,
And love him, court him, praise him, in or out.
F. Then why so few commended?
P. Not so fierce!
Find you the virtue, and I'll find the verse.
But random praise--the task can ne'er be done;
Each mother asks it for her booby son,
Each widow asks it for the best of men,
For him she weeps, and him she weds again.
Praise cannot stoop, like satire, to the ground;
The number may be hanged, but not be crowned.
Enough for half the greatest of these days
To 'scape my censure, not expect my praise.
And they not rich? what more can they pretend?
Dare they to hope a poet for their friend?
What Richelieu wanted, Louis scarce could gain,
And what young Ammon wished, but wished in vain.
No power the muse's friendship can command;
No power when virtue claims it, can withstand:
To Cato, Virgil paid one honest line;
O let my country's friends illumine mine!
What are you thinking?
F. 'Faith, the thought's no sin:
I think your friends are out, and would be in.
P. If merely to come in, sir, they go out,
The way they take is strangely round about.
F. They too may be corrupted, you'll allow?
P. I only call those knaves who are so now.
Is that too little? Come, then, I'll comply--
Spirit of Arnall! aid me while I lie.
Cobham's a coward, Polwarth is a slave,
And Littelton a dark, designing knave,
St. John has ever been a wealthy fool--
But let me add, Sir Robert's mighty dull,
Has never made a friend in private life,
And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife.