Why sure 'tis some comfort that heroes should slay us,
If I fall, I would fall by the hand of AEneas;
And who by the Drapier would not rather damn'd be,
Than demigoddized by madrigal Namby?[1]
A man is no more who has once lost his breath;
But poets convince us there's life after death.
They call from their graves the king, or the peasant;
Re-act our old deeds, and make what's past present:
And when they would study to set forth alike,
So the lines be well drawn, and the colours but strike,
Whatever the subject be, coward or hero,
A tyrant or patriot, a Titus or Nero;
To a judge 'tis all one which he fixes his eye on,
And a well-painted monkey's as good as a lion.
[Footnote 1: Ambrose Philips. See _ante_, vol. i, p. 288.--_W. E. B._]
AN EPIGRAM
The scriptures affirm (as I heard in my youth,
For indeed I ne'er read them, to speak for once truth)
That death is the wages of sin, but the just
Shall die not, although they be laid in the dust.
They say so; so be it, I care not a straw,
Although I be dead both in gospel and law;
In verse I shall live, and be read in each climate;
What more can be said of prime sergeant or primate?
While Carter and Prendergast both may be rotten,
And damn'd to the bargain, and yet be forgotten.
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