And lie without a blush, without a smile,
Exalt each trifle, every vice adore,
Your taste in snuff, your judgment in a whore,
Can Balbo's eloquence applaud, and swear 150
He gropes his breeches with a monarch's air.

For arts like these preferr'd, admired, caress'd,
They first invade your table, then your breast;
Explore your secrets with insidious art,
Watch the weak hour, and ransack all the heart;
Then soon your ill-placed confidence repay,
Commence your lords, and govern or betray.

By numbers here from shame and censure free,
All crimes are safe, but hated poverty.
This, only this, the rigid law pursues, 160
This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse;
The sober trader, at a tatter'd cloak,
Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke;
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze,
And turn the various taunt a thousand ways.
Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, 170
No pathless waste or undiscover'd shore;
No secret island in the boundless main;
No peaceful desert yet unclaim'd by Spain?[5]