And told you so at Will’s[3] but t’other night. 
  Thus are the lives of fools a sort of dreams,
Rendering shades things, and substances of names;
Such high companions may delusion keep,
Lords are a footboy’s cronies in his sleep. 
As a fresh miss, by fancy, face, and gown,
Render’d the topping beauty of the town,
Draws every rhyming, prating, dressing sot,
To boast of favours that he never got;
Of which, whoe’er lacks confidence to prate,
Brings his good parts and breeding in debate;
And not the meanest coxcomb you can find,
But thanks his stars, that Phillis has been kind;
Thus prostitute my Congreve’s name is grown
To every lewd pretender of the town. 
Troth, I could pity you; but this is it,
You find, to be the fashionable wit;
These are the slaves whom reputation chains,
Whose maintenance requires no help from brains. 
For, should the vilest scribbler to the pit,
Whom sin and want e’er furnish’d out a wit;
Whose name must not within my lines be shown,
Lest here it live, when perish’d with his own;[4]
Should such a wretch usurp my Congreve’s place,
And choose out wits who ne’er have seen his face;
I’ll bet my life but the dull cheat would pass,
Nor need the lion’s skin conceal the ass;
Yes, that beau’s look, that vice, those critic ears,
Must needs be right, so well resembling theirs. 
  Perish the Muse’s hour thus vainly spent
In satire, to my Congreve’s praises meant;
In how ill season her resentments rule,
What’s that to her if mankind be a fool? 
Happy beyond a private Muse’s fate,
In pleasing all that’s good among the great,[5]
Where though her elder sisters crowding throng,
She still is welcome with her innocent song;
Whom were my Congreve blest to see and know,
What poor regards would merit all below! 
How proudly would he haste the joy to meet,
And drop his laurel at Apollo’s feet! 
  Here by a mountain’s side, a reverend cave
Gives murmuring passage to a lasting wave: 
’Tis the world’s watery hour-glass streaming fast,
Time is no more when th’utmost drop is past;
Here, on a better day, some druid dwelt,
And the young Muse’s early favour felt;
Druid, a name she does with pride repeat,
Confessing Albion once her darling seat;
Far in this primitive cell might we pursue
Our predecessors’ footsteps still in view;
Here would we sing—­But, ah! you think I dream,
And the bad world may well believe the same;
Yes:  you are all malicious slanders by,
While two fond lovers prate, the Muse and I.
  Since thus I wander from my first intent,
Nor am that grave adviser which I meant,
Take this short lesson from the god of bays,
And let my friend apply it as he please: 
Beat not the dirty paths where vulgar feet have trod,
      But give the vigorous fancy room. 
  For when, like stupid alchymists, you try
      To fix this nimble