No More Learning

F. What? always Peter? Peter thinks you mad;
You make men desperate if they once are bad:
Else might he take to virtue some years hence--
P. As S---k, if he lives, will love the prince.
F. Strange spleen to S---k!
P. Do I wrong the man?
God knows, I praise a courtier where I can.
When I confess, there is who feels for fame,
And melts to goodness, need I Scarb'row name?
Please let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove
(Where Kent and Nature vie for Pelham's love),
The scene, the master, opening to my view,
I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!
Even in a bishop I can spy desert;
Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart,
Manners with candour are to Benson given,
To Berkeley, every virtue under Heaven.
But does the Court a worthy man remove?
That instant, I declare, he has my love:
I shun his zenith, court his mild decline;
Thus Somers once, and Halifax, were mine.
Oft, in the clear, still mirror of retreat,
I studied Shrewsbury, the wise and great:
Carleton's calm sense, and Stanhope's noble flame,
Compared, and knew their generous end the same;
How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour!
How shined the soul, unconquered in the tower!
How can I Pulteney, Chesterfield forget,
While Roman spirit charms, and attic wit:
Argyll, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field:
Or Wyndham, just to freedom and the throne,
The master of our passions, and his own?
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?