To show their parts, will scold and rail,
Like porters o'er a pot of ale.
Such is that clan of boisterous bears,
Always together by the ears;
Shrewd fellows and arch wags, a tribe
That meet for nothing but a gibe;
Who first run one another down,
And then fall foul on all the town;
Skill'd in the horselaugh and dry rub,
And call'd by excellence The Club.
I mean your Butler, Dawson, Car,
All special friends, and always jar.
The mettled and the vicious steed
Differ as little in their breed;
Nay, Voiture is as like Tom Leigh,
As rudeness is to repartee.
If what you said I wish unspoke,
'Twill not suffice it was a joke:
Reproach not, though in jest, a friend
For those defects he cannot mend;
His lineage, calling, shape, or sense,
If nam'd with scorn, gives just offence.
What use in life to make men fret,
Part in worse humour than they met?
Thus all society is lost,
Men laugh at one another's cost;
And half the company is teaz'd,
That came together to be pleas'd:
For all buffoons have most in view
To please themselves, by vexing you.
You wonder now to see me write
So gravely on a subject light;
Some part of what I here design
Regards a friend[1] of yours and mine;
Who,
