While silly I, all thriving arts refuse, }
And all my hopes, and all my vigour lose, }
In service of the worst of jilts a muse. }
* * * * *
Oft I remember, did wise friends dissuade,
And bid me quit the trifling barren trade. 
Oft have I tryed (heaven knows) to mortify
This vile and wicked bent of poetry;
But still unconquered it remains within,
Fixed as a habit, or some darling sin. 
In vain I better studies there would sow;
Oft have I tried, but none will thrive or grow. 
All my best thoughts, when I’d most serious be,
Are never from its foul infection free: 
Nay God forgive me when I say my prayers,
I scarce can help polluting them with verse. 
The fab’lous wretch of old revers’d I seem,
Who turn whatever I touch to dross of rhime.

Our author had not been long in London, before he was found out by the noblemen who visited him at Croyden, and who now introduced him to the acquaintance of Mr. Dryden.  But amongst the Men of quality he was most affectionately caressed by William Earl of Kingston, who made him an offer of becoming his chaplain; but he declined an employment, to which servility and dependence are so necessarily connected.  The writer of his life observes, that our author in his satire addressed to a friend, who was about to quit the university, and came abroad into the world, lets his friend know, that he was frighted from the thought of such an employment, by the scandalous sort of treatment which often accompanies it.  This usage deters men of generous minds from placing themselves in such a station of life; and hence persons of quality are frequently excluded from the improving, agreeable conversation of a learned and obsequious friend.  In this satire Mr. Oldham writes thus,

  Some think themselves exalted to the sky,
  If they light on some noble family. 
  Diet and horse, and thirty-pounds a year,
  Besides the advantage of his lordship’s ear. 
  The credit of the business and the state,
  Are things that in a youngster’s sense found great. 
  Little the unexperienced wretch does know,
  What slavery he oft must undergo;
  Who tho’ in silken stuff, and cassoc drest,
  Wears but a gayer livery at best. 
  When diner calls, the implement must wait,
  With holy words to consecrate the meat;
  But hold it for a favour seldom known,
  If he be deign’d the honour to sit down. 
  Soon as the tarts appear, Sir Crape withdraw,
  Those dainties are not for a spiritual maw. 
  Observe your distance, and be sure to stand
  Hard by the cistern, with your cap in hand: 
  There for diversion you may pick your teeth,
  Till the kind voider comes for your relief,
  For meer board wages, such their freedom sell,
  Slaves to an hour, and vassals to a bell: 
  And if th’ employments of one day be stole,
  They are but prisoners out upon parole: