Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/120

Let wine, and frequent converse with the stews,
Reform the fop, and shame it out of use,
Unteach the puling folly by degrees,
And train him to a well-bred shamelessness.
Get that great gift, and talent, impudence,
Accomplished mankind's highest excellence:
'Tis that alone prefers, alone makes great,
Confers alone wealth, titles, and estate,
Gains place at court, can make a fool a peer,
An ass a bishop, vilest blockheads rear
To wear red hats, and sit in porphyry chair.
'Tis learning, parts, and skill, and wit, and sense,
Worth, merit, honour, virtue, innocence.
’Next for religion, learn what's fit to take,
How small a dram does the just compound make,
As much as is by crafty statesmen worn
For fashion only, or to serve a turn.
To bigot fools its idle practice leave,
Think it enough the empty form to have.
The outward show is seemly, cheap, and light,
The substance cumbersome, of cost, and weight;
The rabble judge by what appears to the eye,
None, or but few, the thoughts within descry.
Make it an engine to ambitious power
To stalk behind, and hit your mark more sure;
A cloak to cover well-hid knavery,
Like it, when used, to be with ease thrown by;
A shifting card, by which your course to steer,
And taught with every changing wind to veer.
Let no nice, holy, conscientious ass
Amongst your better company find place,
Me, and your foundation to disgrace.
Let truth be banished, ragged virtue fly,
And poor unprofitable honesty;
Weak idols, who their wretched slaves betray,
To every rook, and every knave a prey:
These lie remote, and wide from interest,
Farther than heaven from hell, or east from west,
Far, as they e'er were distant from the breast.