To snatch the villain from his happiest lot,
In calm oblivion to remain forgot,
Give modest merit to a nobler fate,
And doom the guilty to eternal hate:
How vain, how foolish, in these blameless times,
Th’ unmeaning raving of satiric rhymes!
Auspicious muses grant your happier art,
With panegyric warm each grateful heart!
And foremost let the lank Pomposo stand,
To crush dissentions in a rising land,