MR. WALLER.
I can allow for the satire of this reproof, in a man of ancient and bookish manners. But, to shew my disinterestedness still more, you may recollect, if you please, that I embalmed his memory, when neither his favour nor his smile were to be apprehended.
DR. MORE.
In the short reign of his son.—But what then? you made amends for all, by the congratulation on the happy return of his present majesty. You know who it was that somebody complimented in these lines:
“He best can turn, enforce and soften things,
To praise great conquerors, and flatter kings.”
MR. WALLER.
Was it for me to stem the torrent of a nation’s joys by a froward and unseasonable silence? Did not Horace, who fought at Philippi, do as much for Augustus? And should I, who had suffered for his cause, not embrace the goodness, and salute the returning fortunes, of so gracious, so accomplished a master? His majesty himself, as I truly say of him, in the poem you object to me,
“with wisdom fraught,
Not such as books, but such as practice, taught,”
did me the justice to understand my address after another manner. He, who had so often been forced by the necessities of his affairs to make compliances with the time, never resented it from me, a private man and a poet, that I had made some sacrifices of a like nature. All this might convince you of the great truth I meant to inculcate by this long recital, that not a sullen and inflexible Sincerity, but a fair and seasonable accommodation of one’s self, to the various exigencies of the times, is the golden virtue that ought to predominate in a man of life and business. All the rest, believe me, is the very cant of philosophy and unexperienced wisdom.