Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance
but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and
they may escape being laughed at, if they please.
I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the
learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as
free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this
advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any
abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by
mine, since a nameless character can never be found out, but by its
truth and likeness.
_P_. Shut, shut the door, good John![94] fatigued, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The Dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide,
By land, by water, they renew the charge,
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. 10
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Even Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint[95] walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at dinner-time.
Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?
Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darken'd walls? 20
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
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