All your eloquence will scarce
Drive me from my favourite farce. 
This I must insist on; for, as
It is well observed by Horace,[6]
Ridicule has greater power
To reform the world than sour. 
Horses thus, let jockeys judge else,
Switches better guide than cudgels. 
Bastings heavy, dry, obtuse,
Only dulness can produce;
While a little gentle jerking
Sets the spirits all a-working. 
  Thus, I find it by experiment,
Scolding moves you less than merriment. 
I may storm and rage in vain;
It but stupifies your brain. 
But with raillery to nettle,
Sets your thoughts upon their mettle;
Gives imagination scope;
Never lets your mind elope;
Drives out brangling and contention. 
Brings in reason and invention. 
For your sake as well as mine,
I the lofty style decline. 
I should make a figure scurvy,
And your head turn topsy-turvy. 
  I who love to have a fling
Both at senate-house and king: 
That they might some better way tread,
To avoid the public hatred;
Thought no method more commodious,
Than to show their vices odious;
Which I chose to make appear,
Not by anger, but by sneer. 
As my method of reforming,
Is by laughing, not by storming,
(For my friends have always thought
Tenderness my greatest fault,)
Would you have me change my style? 
On your faults no longer smile;
But, to patch up all our quarrels,
Quote you texts from Plutarch’s Morals,
Or from Solomon produce
Maxims teaching Wisdom’s use? 
  If I treat you like a crown’d head,
You have cheap enough compounded;
Can you put in higher claims,
Than the owners of St. James? 
You are not so great a grievance,
As the hirelings of St. Stephen’s. 
You are of a lower class
Than my friend Sir Robert Brass. 
None of these have mercy found: 
I have laugh’d, and lash’d them round. 
  Have you seen a rocket fly? 
You would swear it pierced the sky: 
It but reach’d the middle air,
Bursting into pieces there;
Thousand sparkles falling down
Light on many a coxcomb’s crown. 
See what mirth the sport creates! 
Singes hair, but breaks no pates. 
Thus, should I attempt to climb,
Treat you in a style sublime,
Such a rocket is my Muse: 
Should I lofty numbers choose,
Ere I reach’d Parnassus’ top,
I should burst, and bursting drop;
All my fire would fall in scraps,
Give your head some gentle raps;
Only make it smart a while;
Then could I forbear to smile,
When I found the tingling pain
Entering warm your frigid brain;
Make you able upon sight
To decide of wrong and right;
Talk with sense whate’er you please on;
Learn to relish truth and reason! 
  Thus we both shall gain our prize;
I to laugh, and you grow wise.

[Footnote 1: 
  “Beside, he was a shrewd Philosopher,
  And had read ev’ry Text and Gloss over.”
                  Hudibras.]