Proceed and riot, you may sing and swill

If Bath and Wells admit and listen still*,

* Watch'd at each corner, by the race unpaid

Of

every artizan, of every trade,

Dennis still thinks the world's sole good a treat,

Nor eats to live, but lives alone to eat †;

Without a meal his creditors may pine,

He still must nobly drink and nobly dine:

› And as the meteor glares more broad and bright, Just as it bursts and melts away in night.

Thus, in the jaws of famine and a jail,

Hesse sends him still her hog, and France her quail; Still must he seek what swells his debts the most, Despise the value and esteem the cost.

"The Jews are soon his friends, and soon they fly;
But Christie's arts one dinner more supply:

Coins, plate, and pictures, some tit-bit procure,
And e'en his grandsire goes to buy liqueur.

"Bath and Wells." Two cities in the west of England; also the title of one bishop.

"Nor eats to live, but lives alone to eat." A sentence from L'Avare of Moliere.

Fictile: 7 Sic veniunt ad miscellanea ludi

Refert ergo quis hæc eadem paret: in Rutilo nam Luxuria est, in Ventidio laudabile nomen

Sumit, et a censu famam trahit. Illum ego jure Despiciam, qui scit quanto sublimior Atlas

Omnibus in Libiâ sit montibus, hic tamen idem

Ignoret quantum ferratâ distet ab arcâ

Sacculus. 1 E coelo descendit γνῶθι σεαυ]όν

Figendum et memori tractandum pectore, sive

7 What then must he, if scap'd the Bench and Fleet,

Who cannot treat himself, whom none will treat?

Ah! whither then from fate and famine fly,
Denied his borough and his Bellamy*?

By what new art his hunger then assuage?
Or beg or follow Caulfield to the stage.
•Expense in some is just, in some a shame,
In Hope we praise it, but in Bur—hs blame,
And you, dear Byron! if with all your taste,
And many hours of school, not idly past;
If you, who dare to taste the sacred springs,
And boast some knowledge both of men and things;

If you, who give to every dunce his due,

And measure merit with a line so true;

If you will live the bubble of the town,

How must I smile! ah! how I ought to frown! 10 or great or mean the purpose of thy life,

To rule a senate, or to rule a wife;

*Surely, if I pity any man in England, it is Mr. Bellamy, who is obliged to furnish steaks and claret to a congregation of customers, none of whom need, half of whom cannot, pay him for his timely cheer. V.

Conjugium quæras, vel sacri in parte Senatûs

Esse velis. Nec enim loricam poscit Achillis

Thersites, in quâ se traducebat Ulysses

Ancipitem. 2 Seu tu magno discrimine causam Protegere affectas, te consule, die tibi quis sis: Orator vehemens, Curtius, an Matho. 13 Buccæ Noscenda est mensura tuæ; spectandaque rebus

In summis, minimisque; etiam cum piscis emetu

To rise a lord of peers, or lord of pelf;

O mortal, hear this counsel-" know thyself!"

This came from heaven; to this mankind must owe
More than to all thy maxims, Rochfoucault!

"These words are weighty, these a dunce will hear,

Jones plays the fool in his peculiar sphere * ;

with eager

Nor grasps
A load that Scot resigns, and Erskine feels.
12 And you, my Lord! to this advice attend,
This from a firm, but no obtrusive friend;
Lest young ambition, eager of a name,
Should blast your talents with an early fame.
Ah! leave to longer toil and time the work,
And gradual rise, a Lansdowne or a Burke.

hand the mace and seals,

13 Your aim once fix'd, regard the means at first, Nor swell at all, if when you swell you burst. Another maxim, and that well may teach

Each striving mortal, for it suits with each;

"Jones plays the fool in his peculiar sphere." i. e. The H-se of Com―ns, a sphere which seems to have been chosen by many for the same purpose.

V.