Whom Drink Made Wits, Though Nature Made

The Stage I Chose--a Subject Fair And Free-- 'tis Yours--'tis Mine--'tis Public Property. All Common Exhibitions Open Lie, For Praise Or Censure, To The Common Eye. Hence Are A Thousand Hackney Writers Fed; Hence Monthly Critics Earn Their Daily Bread. This Is A General Tax Which All Must Pay, From Those Who Scribble, Down To Those Who Play.

Drawn By Conceit From Reason's Plan How Vain Is That Poor Creature Man; How Pleas'd In Ev'ry Paltry Elf To Grate About That Thing Himself.

The Rigid Saint, By Whom No Mercy's Shown To Saints Whose Lives Are Better Than His Own.

When Satire Flies Abroad On Falsehood's Wing, Short Is Her Life, And Impotent Her Sting; But When To Truth Allied, The Wound She Gives Sinks Deep, And To Remotest Ages Lives.

Nor Waste Their Sweetness In The Desert Air.