A fool oft speaks a seasonable truth.
Unless you will be so witty as to object that this makes no apology for me, because the word aunp signifies a man, not a woman, and consequently my sex debars me from the benefit of that observation.
I perceive now, that, for a concluding treat, you expect a formal epilogue, and the summing up of all in a brief recitation; but I will assure you, you are grossly mistaken if you suppose that after such a hodge-podge medley of speech I should be able to recollect anything I have delivered. Beside, as it is an old proverb, I hate a pot-companion with a good memory; so indeed I may as truly say, I hate a hearer that will carry any thing away with him. Wherefore, in short:—
Farewell! live long, drink deep, be jolly,
Ye most illustrious votaries of folly!
A POEM ON THE FOREGOING WORK.
THERE'S ne'er a blade of honour in the town,
But if you chance to term him fool and clown,
Straight satisfaction cries, and then with speed
The time, the place, and rapier's length's decreed.
Prodigious fops, I'll swear, which can't agree
To be call'd what's their happiness to be:
Blest Idiots! That in an humble sphere securely move,
And there the sweets of a safe dulness prove,
Nor envy the proud heights of those who range above.
Folly, sure friend of a misguided will,
Affords a kind excuse for doing ill;
And Socrates, that prudent, thinking tool,
Had the gods lik'd him would have prov'd a fool.
Methinks our author, when without a flaw,
The graces of his mistress he does draw,
Wishes (if Metempsychosis be true,
And souls do change their case, and act anew),
In his next life he only might aspire
To the few brains of some soft country squire,
Whose head with such like rudiments is fraught,
As in his youth his careful grannum taught.
And now (dear friend) how shall we to thy brow
Pay all those laurels which we justly owe?
For thou fresh honours to the work dost bring,
And to the theme: nor seems that pleasing thing,
Which he so well in Latin has express'd,
Less comical in English garments dress'd;
Thy sentences are all so clearly wrought,
And so exactly plac'd in every thought,
That, which is more oblig'd we scarce can see
The subject by thine author, or himself by thee.
FINIS