I reverence misfortune, not deride;
I pity poverty, but laugh at pride:
For who so sad, but must some mirth confess
At gay Castruchio's miscellaneous dress?
Though there's but one of the dull works he wrote,
There's ten editions of his old lac'd coat.
These, nature's commoners, who want a home,
Claim the wide world for their majestic dome;
They make a private study of the street;
And, looking full on every man they meet,
Run souse against his chaps; who stands amaz'd
To find they did not see, but only gaz'd.
How must these bards be rapt into the skies!
you need not read, you feel their ecstasies.
Will they persist? 'Tis Madness; Lintot, run,
See them confin'd--"O that's already done."
Most, as by leases, by the works they print,
Have took, for life, possession of the mint.
If you mistake, and pity these poor men,
est Ulubris, they cry, and write again.
Such wits their nuisance manfully expose,
And then pronounce just judges learning's foes;
O frail conclusion; the reverse is true;
If foes to learning, they'd be friends to you:
Treat them, ye judges! with an honest scorn,
And weed the cockle from the generous corn:
There's true good nature in your disrepect;
In justice to the good, the bad neglect:
For immortality, if hardships plead,
It is not theirs who write, but ours who read.
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