The following piece represents the first dialogue in the Epilogue to the Satires.  Huggins mentioned in the poem was the jailer of the Fleet Prison, who had enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled.  Jekyl was Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a man of great probity, who, though a Whig, frequently voted against the Court, which drew on him the laugh here described.  Lyttleton was George Lyttleton, Secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished for his writings in the cause of liberty.  Written in 1738, and first published in the following year.

  Fr[iend].  Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,
  And when it comes, the court see nothing in ’t. 
  You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
  And are, besides, too moral for a wit. 
  Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel—­
  Why now, this moment, don’t I see you steal? 
  ’Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
  Said, “Tories called him Whig, and Whigs a Tory”;
  And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
  “To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter”. 
    But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;
  Bubo observes, he lashed no sort of vice: 
  Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown,
  Blunt could do business, Huggins knew the town;
  In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
  In reverend bishops note some small neglects,
  And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
  Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king. 
  His sly, polite, insinuating style
  Could please at court, and make Augustus smile: 
  An artful manager, that crept between
  His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen. 
  But ’faith your very friends will soon be sore: 
  Patriots there are, who wish you’d jest no more—­
  And where’s the glory? ’twill be only thought
  The great man never offered you a groat. 
  Go see Sir Robert—­
    P[ope].  See Sir Robert!—­hum—­
  And never laugh—­for all my life to come? 
  Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
  Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power;
  Seen him, uncumbered with the venal tribe,
  Smile without art, and win without a bribe. 
  Would he oblige me? let me only find,
  He does not think me what he thinks mankind. 
  Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
  The only difference is, I dare laugh out.
    F.  Why yes:  with Scripture still you may be free: 
  A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty;
  A joke on Jekyl, or some odd old Whig
  Who never changed his principle or wig. 
  A patriot is a fool in every age,
  Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage: 
  These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,
  And wear their strange old virtue, as they will. 
  If any ask you, “Who’s the man, so near
  His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?”