Who, in your lofty paradise,
See aldermanic banquets rise--
And though the duns around you troop,
Still float in seas of turtle soup.
I here forsake the tuneful trade,
Where none but lordlings now are paid,
Or where some northern rogue sits puling,
(The curse of universal schooling)--
A ploughman to his country lost,
An author to his printer's cost--
A slave to every man who'll buy him,
A knave to every man who'll try him--
Yet let him take the pen, at once
The laurel gathers round his sconce!

On every subject superseded,
My favorite topics all invaded,
I scarcely dip my pen in praise,
When fifty bardlings grasp my bays;
Or let me touch a drop of satire,
(I once knew something of the matter),
Just fifty bardlings take the trouble,
To be my tuneful worship's double.
Fine similies that nothing fit,
Joe Miller's, that _must_ pass for wit;
The dull, dry, brain-besieging jokes,
The humour that no laugh provokes--
The nameless, worthless, witless rancours,
The rage that souls of scribblers cankers--
(Administer'd in gall go thick,