University of Virginia Library

Whoever looks on life will see
How strangely mortals disagree:
This reprobates what that approves,
And Tom dislikes what Harry loves;
The soldier's witty on the sailor,
The barber drolls upon the taylor,
And he who makes the nation's wills,
Laughs at the doctor and his pills.

Yet this antipathy we find
Not to the sons of earth confin'd;
Each school-boy sees, with half an eye,
The quarrels of the Pagan sky:
For all the poets fairly tell us
That gods themselves are proud and jealous,
And will, like mortals, swear, and hector,
When mellow'd with a cup of nectar.

But waving these, and such like fancies,
We meet with in the Greek romances,
Say, shall th' historic muse retail
A little allegoric tale?
Nor stole from Plato's mystic of tome, nor
Translated from the verse of Homer,
But copied, in a modern age,
From nature, and her fairest page.

Olympian Jove, whose idle trade is
Employ'd too much among the ladies,
Tho' not of manners mighty chaste,
Was certainly a god of taste,
Would often to his feasts admit
A deity, whose name was Wit;
And, to amuse the more discerning,
Would ask the company of Learning.

Learning was born, as all agree,
Of Truth's half-sister, Memory,
A nymph who rounded in her shape was
By that great artist Esculapius.

Euphrosine, the younger grace,
Matchless in feature, mien, and face,
Who, like the beauties of these late days,
Was fond of operas, and cantatas,
Would often to a grot retire
To listen to Apollo's lyre:
And thence became, so Ovid writ,
A mother to the god of Wit.

Wit was a strange unlucky child,
Exceeding sly, and very wild;
Too volatile for truth, or law,
He minded but his top, or taw;
And, ere he reach'd the age of six,
Had play'd a thousand waggish tricks—
He drill'd a hole in Vulcan's kettles,
He strew'd Minerva's bed with nettles,
Climb'd up the solar car to ride in't,
Broke off a prong: from Neptune's trident,
Stole Amphitrite's fav'rite sea-knot,
And urin'd in Astrea's tea-pot.

Learning, a lad of sober mien,
And half a pedant at fifteen,
Had early thrown away his corals
To study nature, and her morals;
Was always, let who would oppose it,
Fast by Minerva in her closet:
And, while gay Wit, as black as soot all,
Was kicking up and down a foot-ball,
Learning, with philosophic eye,
Rang'd ev'ry corner of the sky,
Spent many a play-day to unriddle
The music of Apollo's fiddle;
And, if he ever chanc'd to meet
His uncle Merc'ry in the street,
Or on his flight, th' audacious brat
Stopp'd him to ask of this or that:
As how the moon was evanescent,
Was now an orb, and now a crescent?
Why of the graces each undrest was?
Why Pallas never wore a cestus?
Why Ceres reign'd o'er corn and sallads?
And why the Muses dealt in ballads?

With these discordant tastes and manners,
And listed under diff'rent banners,
Learning and wit, as says the fable,
Appear'd at Jove's imperial table,
And threw out all their force and fire
Obedient to th' ethereal sire.

Wit, with his sly satyric vein,
Was always sure to entertain:
He rallied with a tongue as keen,
As Rab'lais, or the Irish dean;
And told his tale with such a grace,
With such an eye, and such a face,
As made the nectar flow each cup o'er,
And set the Synod in an uproar.

Learning had not the skill to hit
The comic cast, and life of Wit;
With look morose, and aukward air,
He sat ungraceful in his chair:
With diffidence and blushes spoke,
And had no relish for a joke;
So that the little urchin, Cupid,
Thought him insensible, and stupid;
And Hebe, tho' a well-bred lass,
Would scarcely offer him his glass.

However, when the sprightly bowl
Had thaw'd the ice about his soul,
He then, with majesty, began
To talk of letters, and of man;
Correct, sententious, cool, severe,
He gain'd upon the attentive ear,
Charm'd all the Gods, but Wit, and Comus,
And that abusive cynic, Momus.

In length of time, as oft the case is,
In many sublunary places,
These demigods with jealous eye
Began to look a little shy;
And oft, to wound each other's breast,
Let off a keen sarcastic jest.
Learning, with many a stroke, wou'd hit
The pert vivacity of Wit:
And Wit threw all his keenest satire
On Learning's slow, pedantic nature.

It happen'd once when Jove had made
A feast in Ida's holy shade,
And all the Gods, whose heads could bear it,
Had emptied each a flask of claret;
Wit, who from his celestial liquor
Wagg'd his free tongue a little quicker,
Began, with many a bitter scoff,
To play his brother Learning off;
Ask'd him if yet his pains and care
Had learnt to make the circle square?
If all his visionary ravings
Cou'd weave brocade from walnut shavings?
If his mechanic skill cou'd catch
Perpetual motion in a watch?
Or forge a pendulum endued
With power to tell the longitude?

Learning had much ado to sit,
And hear the petulance of Wit:
A ghastly paleness spread his look,
His nerves with quick convulsions shook:
At length, in accents, loud, and high,
Vesuvius flaming in his eye,
He burst,—“And dar'st thou, wayward chit!
Thou ideot God of ideot Wit!
Untaught as yet to know thy letters,
Affront, thou insolent! thy betters?
Here, puppy! with this penny get
A hornbook, or an alphabet;
And see if that licentious eye
Can tell a great A from an I?
Throw but another jest on me
I'll lay thee, miscreant! on my knee,
And print such welks thy naked seat on
As never truant felt at Eaton.

Wit, with resentment raving wild,
Thus call'd an ideot and a child,
Without preambles, or excuses,
Seiz'd upon Mercury's caduceus,
And with such force the weapon throws
It flatted half his rival's nose.
While he, Minerva's boast, and care,
Pluck'd a large bodkin from her hair,
And aim'd the steely pointed dart
With such dexterity of art
That, had not beauty's lovely queen,
Fair Venus, spread her fan between,
And taught the flying death to fix
Guiltless among the iv'ry sticks,
Wit's future triumphs had been o'er,
And Europe heard his name no more.

Jove, who had no supreme delight in
Domestic brawls, or civil fighting,
Since first he heard the nuptial tune flow
So sweetly from the tongue of Juno,
Vex'd that these two illiberal guests
Should dare to violate his feasts,
In a tremendous fit of choler,
Seiz'd both their worships by the collar,
And, minding not their meek submitting,
Kick'd them from Ida down to Britain.

Poor Learning had the luck to fall
Plump in the area of Clare-hall,
Just as old Wilcox, from a slope,
Was gazing thro' his telescope,
To find a comet whose bright tail is
Eccentric from the time of Thales,
Pleas'd with his scientific look
He sent him first to Sam the cook:
And having fill'd his empty belly
With mutton-broth, and meagre Jelly,
Gave him a robe of sleek prunella,
And very wisely made him fellow.

Wit, as his destiny decrees,
Dropp'd in the court of Common-Pleas,
Upon a truss of briefs and bills,
And took the shape of justice Willes:
But soon observing round the columns
Reports in half a thousand volumes;
And, finding all those earth-worm souls
Who hold th' exchequer, or the rolls,
He left the law, and all its drudges,
With curses, to my lords the judges,
Call'd for a coach, and went to dwell
At Robin Dodsley's in Pall-Mall.

'Twas right—for now where-e'er he came
He busied all the tongues of fame,
Was welcome to the festal board,
And had his footman, and his lord:
Would often visit in a chair
The noble Stanhope in May-fair;
Or dine, when business would permit,
With that great statesman William Pitt
'Tis said too he was sometimes seen
On G---s visionary seene:
But G---, who prefers a guinea
To all the eloquence of Pliny,
Observing this unlucky railer
Was neither mechanist, nor taylor,
That half the audience of the day
Came not to hear, but see, a play,
That many a squire, and many a cit,
Were pleas'd with any thing but Wit;
Shut out, with much indecent rage,
The genius of the comic stage,
And open'd his theatric inn
To Scaramouch, and Harlequin.

Learning would sometimes drop his gown,
And take a winter-jaunt to town;
Often call'd in at Hitch's shop,
And din'd at Dolly's on a chop:
On Thursday met the grave resort
Of spider merchants in Crane-court,
To rack a cockle, or to see
The nice dissection of a flea;
But having never chanc'd to wear
A bag-wig or a solitaire,
And dressing in a kersey, thicker
Than that which cloaths a Cornish vicar.
He seldom had the luck to eat
In Berkeley-square, or Grosvenor-street.

'Twas written in the book of fate
These rivals should each other hate,
No wonder then that each proud imp was
As wayward here as on Olympus.
Wit look'd on Learning, as he grew great,
Just as a felon looks on Newgate:
While Learning, who could never hide
His haughty academic pride,
Had such a keen contempt for Wit
He call'd him nothing but the chit;
And, if he met him at noon-day,
Would turn his face another way.

However on some festal nights
By chance they both dropp'd in at White's
With learned lords, and noble bards,
Who had no appetite for cards,
And could decide whene'er they met
Momentous truths without a bett.
Wit with vivacity of tongue
First led th' admiring ear along,
His fancy active, wild, and free as
Conception when she breeds ideas,
Flew o'er each undiscover'd part
Of nature, and the worlds of art,
And brought, with such a nice decorum
A group of images before him,
So genuine, yet so uncommon,
With such a glow of tints upon 'em,
That all was spirit, force, and sense,
Loose as the zone of negligence,
Simple as truth's fair handmaid nature,
And deadly as the sting of satire.
Dejected Learning sat oppress'd;
Around him flew the taunt and jest:
Whatever just remarks he made,
Or to demonstrate, or persuade,
Wit, by some sly malicious comment,
Took off, or routed in a moment.
However, when a pause appear'd,
And sober reason could be hear'd,
He then in all his thunder rises,
Strips off his rival's thin disguises,
Shews where his misconceiving sense
Led to a groundless consequence,
Mistook an error for a wonder,
A demonstration for a blunder,
Or, having a delusive scent got,
Affirm'd the very thing he meant not.

Yet after all, since mirth and drinking
Are priz'd above sedater thinking,
Tho' Learning got a world of praise,
And added splendor to his bays,
Their lordships: frighten'd at th' expence
Of list'ning to exalted sense,
And deeming that the taint of knowledge
Would make the coffee-house a college,
Determin'd in a full committee
That man's great end was to be witty:
And therefore order'd, every soul,
Wit shou'd be enter'd on the roll,
And be allow'd, to raise his vein,
A weekly present of champaigne:
That if proud Learning should presume
To set his foot within the room,
Arthur should shew him to the door,
And bid the pedant come no more.

Learning thus kick'd from ev'ry palace,
And left a victim to the gallows,
Began to see that skill in letters
Would ne'er advance him with his betters;
That tho' he led them thro' the dark
With all the lights of Locke, and Clarke,
And made his heart, and head, and eyes ach
With reading nature, and Sir Isaac,
Yet all that wisdom could not be
Priz'd like a lively repartee:
He therefore, in a gloomy fit,
Resolv'd to set up for a Wit,
But found, alas! howe'er he drest her,
That science was a wretched jester;
That tho' he jok'd from moon to moon
He made a very dull buffoon;
For all his jocular narrations
Smelt of his algebra equations,
And came upon the tortur'd ear
Stiff as the periods of Dacier.
Wit, too, whose excellence and merit
Was meer vivacity of spirit,
Observing that your graver folk
Had little value for a joke,
Wou'd needs, in nature's bold defiance,
Mount the tremendous chair of science:
And dar'd to argue pro and con
As gravely as the grave Sorbonne;
But wanting all that fine discerning
Which marks the character of Learning,
And all the elemental rules
Of erudition, and the schools,
The gay professor oft mistook
Alike his question and his book;
Dropp'd a conundrum out of season,
And jested when he ought to reason.

Thus on the world's wild billows tost,
And half their moments idly lost,
Tir'd of applause, and sick of strife,
They each resolv'd to take a wife.
Learning who often went to see
Lady Anne Bentinck at her tea,
Met there a maid as fair as chaste,
In life's full bloom, whose name was Taste.
'Twas then his heart began to move
With the first tender throb of love,
And often heav'd, it knew not why,
With something softer than a sigh;
He gaz'd, he blush'd, he courted, prest,
And was at length completely blest:
For she, who had not learnt to doat
On folly in a scarlet coat,
To Learning's blissful arms resign'd
Her graceful form, and lovely mind.
Wit too, when past the fire of youth,
Was married to the vestal, Truth,
A nymph whose awful air and mien
Display'd the beauty, and the queen.

Tradition tells us Hymen swore
That, till this bright auspicious hour,
There never in his holy house was
So fine a group of noble spouses;
For both the bridegrooms, on their marriage,
Improv'd in temper, sense, and carriage.
Learning, his charming wife to please,
Assum'd her elegance and ease;
And Wit, to humour Truth, agreed
To pause, to doubt, reflect, and read.
In short they led delicious lives,
Belov'd, and honour'd by their wives;
And, happy in their nuptial duties,
Each had a progeny of beauties,
Matchless in feature, form, and parts,
Distinguish'd by the name of Arts.