knew 470
  What ’twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
  To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
  That even on tripe and carrion could rebel? 
  But though Heaven made him poor (with reverence speaking),
  He never was a poet of God’s making;
  The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
  With this prophetic blessing—­Be thou dull;
  Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
  Fit for thy bulk—­do anything but write: 
  Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men, 480
  A strong nativity—­but for the pen! 
  Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
  Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink. 
  I see, I see, ’tis counsel given in vain,
  For treason botch’d in rhyme will be thy bane;
  Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
  ’Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck: 
  Why should thy metre good king David blast? 
  A psalm of his will surely be thy last. 
  Dar’st thou presume in verse to meet thy foes, 490
  Thou whom the penny pamphlet foil’d in prose? 
  Doeg, whom God for mankind’s mirth has made,
  O’ertops thy talent in thy very trade;
  Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
  A poet is, though he’s the poet’s horse. 
  A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
  For writing treason, and for writing dull;
  To die for faction is a common evil,
  But to be hang’d for nonsense is the devil: 
  Hadst thou the glories of thy king express’d, 500
  Thy praises had been satire at the best;
  But thou in clumsy verse, unlick’d, unpointed,
  Hast shamefully defied the Lord’s anointed: 
  I will not rake the dunghill for thy crimes,
  For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes? 
  But of king David’s foes, be this the doom,
  May all be like the young man Absalom;
  And, for my foes, may this their blessing be,
  To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee!

   Achitophel, each rank, degree, and age, 510
  For various ends neglects not to engage;
  The wise and rich, for purse and counsel brought,
  The fools and beggars, for their number sought: 
  Who yet not only on the town depends,
  For even in court the faction had its friends;
  These thought the places they possess’d too small,
  And in their hearts wish’d court and king to fall: 
  Whose names the muse disdaining, holds i’ the dark,
  Thrust in the villain herd without a mark;
  With parasites and libel-spawning imps, 520
  Intriguing fops, dull jesters, and worse pimps. 
  Disdain the rascal rabble to pursue,
  Their set cabals are yet a viler crew: 
  See where, involved in common smoke, they sit;
  Some for our mirth, some for our satire fit: 
  These, gloomy, thoughtful, and on mischief bent,
  While those, for mere good-fellowship,