GAY[1]
1731
How could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse's train,
To serve a tasteless court twelve years in vain![2]
Fain would I think our female friend [3] sincere,
Till Bob,[4] the poet's foe, possess'd her ear.
Did female virtue e'er so high ascend,
To lose an inch of favour for a friend?
Say, had the court no better place to choose
For triee, than make a dry-nurse of thy Muse?
How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,
To squire a royal girl of two years old:
In leading strings her infant steps to guide,
Or with her go-cart amble side by side![5]
But princely Douglas,[6] and his glorious dame,
Advanced thy fortune, and preserved thy fame.
Nor will your nobler gifts be misapplied,
When o'er your patron's treasure you preside:
The world shall own, his choice was wise and just,
For sons of Phoebus never break their trust.
Not love of beauty less the heart inflames
Of guardian eunuchs to the sultan's dames,
Their passions not more impotent and cold,
Than those of poets to the lust of gold.
With Paean's purest fire his favourites glow,
The dregs will serve to ripen ore below:
His meanest work: for, had he thought it fit
That wealth should be the appanage of wit,
The god of light could ne'er have been so blind
To deal it to the worst of human kind.
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