sketch in verse

inscribed to the right hon. c. j. fox.

how wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite,

how virtue and vice blend their black and their white,

how genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,

confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,

i sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle,

i care not, not i—let the critics go whistle!

but now for a patron whose name and whose glory,

at once may illustrate and honour my story.

thou first of our orators, first of our wits;

yet whose parts and acquirements seem just lucky hits;

with knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,

no man with the half of 'em e'er could go wrong;

with passions so potent, and fancies so bright,

no man with the half of 'em e'er could go right;

a sorry, poor, misbegot son of the muses,

for using thy name, offers fifty excuses.

good lord, what is man! for as simple he looks,

do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks;

with his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,

all in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil.

on his one ruling passion sir pope hugely labours,

that, like th' old hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours:

mankind are his show-box—a friend, would you know him?

pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him,