And let others carve for us;
To discourse, and to attend,
Is, to help yourself and friend. 
Conversation is but carving;
Carve for all, yourself is starving: 
Give no more to every guest,
Than he’s able to digest;
Give him always of the prime;
And but little at a time. 
Carve to all but just enough: 
Let them neither starve nor stuff: 
And, that you may have your due,
Let your neighbours carve for you. 
This comparison will hold,
Could it well in rhyme be told,
How conversing, listening, thinking,
Justly may resemble drinking;
For a friend a glass you fill,
What is this but to instil? 
  To conclude this long essay;
Pardon if I disobey,
Nor against my natural vein,
Treat you in heroic strain. 
I, as all the parish knows,
Hardly can be grave in prose: 
Still to lash, and lashing smile,
Ill befits a lofty style. 
From the planet of my birth
I encounter vice with mirth. 
Wicked ministers of state
I can easier scorn than hate;
And I find it answers right: 
Scorn torments them more than spight. 
All the vices of a court
Do but serve to make me sport. 
Were I in some foreign realm,
Which all vices overwhelm;
Should a monkey wear a crown,
Must I tremble at his frown? 
Could I not, through all his ermine,
’Spy the strutting chattering vermin;
Safely write a smart lampoon,
To expose the brisk baboon? 
  When my Muse officious ventures
On the nation’s representers: 
Teaching by what golden rules
Into knaves they turn their fools;
How the helm is ruled by Walpole,
At whose oars, like slaves, they all pull;
Let the vessel split on shelves;
With the freight enrich themselves: 
Safe within my little wherry,
All their madness makes me merry: 
Like the waterman of Thames,
I row by, and call them names;
Like the ever-laughing sage,[2]
In a jest I spend my rage: 
(Though it must be understood,
I would hang them if I could;)
If I can but fill my niche,
I attempt no higher pitch;
Leave to d’Anvers and his mate
Maxims wise to rule the state. 
Pulteney deep, accomplish’d St. Johns,
Scourge the villains with a vengeance;
Let me, though the smell be noisome,
Strip their bums; let Caleb[3] hoise ’em;
Then apply Alecto’s[4] whip
Till they wriggle, howl, and skip. 
  Deuce is in you, Mr. Dean: 
What can all this passion mean? 
Mention courts! you’ll ne’er be quiet
On corruptions running riot. 
End as it befits your station;
Come to use and application;
Nor with senates keep a fuss. 
I submit; and answer thus: 
  If the machinations brewing,
To complete the public ruin,
Never once could have the power
To affect me half an hour;
Sooner would I write in buskins,
Mournful elegies on Blueskins.[5]
If I laugh at Whig and Tory;
I conclude a fortiori,