What though proud ministers of state
Did at your antichamber wait;
What though your Oxfords and your St. Johns,
Have at your levee paid attendance,
And Peterborough and great Ormond,
With many chiefs who now are dormant,
Have laid aside the general's staff,
And public cares, with you to laugh;
Yet I some friends as good can name,
Nor less the darling sons of fame;
For sure my Pollio and Maecenas
Were as good statesmen, Mr. Dean, as
Either your Bolingbroke or Harley,
Though they made Lewis beg a parley;
And as for Mordaunt,[2] your loved hero,
I'll match him with my Drusus Nero.
You'll boast, perhaps, your favourite Pope;
But Virgil is as good, I hope.
I own indeed I can't get any
To equal Helsham and Delany;
Since Athens brought forth Socrates,
A Grecian isle, Hippocrates;
Since Tully lived before my time,
And Galen bless'd another clime.
You'll plead, perhaps, at my request,
To be admitted as a guest,
"Your hearing's bad!"--But why such fears?
I speak to eyes, and not to ears;
And for that reason wisely took
The form you see me in, a book.
Attack'd by slow devouring moths,
By rage of barbarous Huns and Goths;
By Bentley's notes, my deadliest foes,
By Creech's[3] rhymes, and Dunster's[4] prose;
I found my boasted wit and fire
In their rude hands almost expire:
Yet still they but in vain assail'd;
For, had their violence prevail'd,
And in a blast destroy'd my frame,
They would have partly miss'd their aim;
Since all my spirit in thy page
Defies the Vandals of this age.
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