Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/426

Thus are the lives of fools a sort of dreams,
Rend'ring shades, things, and substances of names;
Such high companions may delusion keep,
Lords are a footboy's cronies in his sleep.
As a fresh miss, by fancy, face, and gown,
Render'd the topping beauty of the town,
Draws ev'ry rhyming, prating, dressing sot,
To boast of favours that he never got;
Of which, whoe'er lacks confidence to prate,
Brings his good parts and breeding in debate;
And not the meanest coxcomb you can find,
But thanks his stars, that Phillis has been kind;
Thus prostitute my Congreve's name is grown
To ev'ry lewd pretender of the town.
'Troth I could pity you; but this is it,
You find, to be the fashionable wit;
These are the slaves whom reputation chains,
Whose maintenance requires no help from brains.
For, should the vilest scribbler to the pit,
Whom sin and want e'er furnish'd out a wit;
Whose name must not within my lines be shown.
Lest here it live, when perish'd with his own^[1];
Should such a wretch usurp my Congreve's place,
And choose out wits who ne'er have seen his face;
I'll be my life but the dull cheat would pass,
Nor need the lion's skin conceal the ass;
Yes, that beau's look, that vice, those critick ears,
Must needs be right, so well resembling theirs.

1. To this resolution Swift ever after adhered; for of the infinite multitude of libellers who personally attacked him, there is not the name mentioned of any one of them throughout his works ; and thus, together with their writings, have they been consigned to eternal oblivion.

Perish