Pay to be read, yet find but few will read;
And chief th’ illustrious race, whose drops and pills
Have patent powers to vanquish human ills: 
These, with their cures, a constant aid remain,
To bless the pale composer’s fertile brain;
Fertile it is, but still the noblest soil
Requires some pause, some intervals from toil;
And they at least a certain ease obtain
From Katterfelto’s skill, and Graham’s glowing strain. 
   I too must aid, and pay to see my name
Hung in these dirty avenues to fame;
Nor pay in vain, if aught the Muse has seen,
And sung, could make these avenues more clean;
Could stop one slander ere it found its way,
And give to public scorn its helpless prey. 
By the same aid, the Stage invites her friends,
And kindly tells the banquet she intends;
Thither from real life the many run,
With Siddons weep, or laugh with Abingdon;
Pleased in fictitious joy or grief, to see
The mimic passion with their own agree;
To steal a few enchanted hours away
From self, and drop the curtain on the day. 
   But who can steal from self that wretched wight
Whose darling work is tried some fatal night? 
Most wretched man! when, bane to every bliss,
He hears the serpent-critic’s rising hiss;
Then groans succeed; nor traitors on the wheel
Can feel like him, or have such pangs to feel. 
Nor end they here:  next day he reads his fall
In every paper; critics are they all: 
He sees his branded name with wild affright,
And hears again the cat-calls of the night. 
   Such help the Stage affords:  a larger space
Is fill’d by puffs and all the puffing race. 
Physic had once alone the lofty style,
The well-known boast, that ceased to raise a smile: 
Now all the province of that tribe invade,
And we abound in quacks of every trade. 
   The simple barber, once an honest name,
Cervantes founded, Fielding raised his fame: 
Barber no more—­a gay perfumer comes,
On whose soft cheek his own cosmetic blooms;
Here he appears, each simple mind to move,
And advertises beauty, grace, and love. 
“Come, faded belles, who would your youth renew,
And learn the wonders of Olympian dew;
Restore the roses that begin to faint,
Nor think celestial washes vulgar paint;
Your former features, airs, and arts assume,
Circassian virtues, with Circassian bloom. 
Come, battered beaux, whose locks are turned to gray,
And crop Discretion’s lying badge away;
Read where they vend these smart engaging things,
These flaxen frontlets with elastic springs;
No female eye the fair deception sees,
Not Nature’s self so natural as these.” 
   Such are their arts, but not confined to them,
The muse impartial most her sons condemn: 
For they, degenerate! join the venal throng,
And puff a lazy Pegasus along: 
More guilty these, by Nature less design’d