Returned from travel to your native shore,
Again to make us laugh or cry,
To turn your back, we hope, no more,
Nor from your colours fly;

Whether you fled for health or quiet,
Harassed with rule or sick of not,
Or whether you have kept us lean,
As slander says,
With lenten plays,
To make our appetites more keen;
Whether it be or this or that,
No matter what —
For we before the curtain see but blindly —
Now you are come
To us and home,
We greet you, sir, and greet you kindly.

My Muse is honest as she's bold,
A forward miss
Who loves to prate — but hold —
I quite forgot;
Before I tell you what she is,
I'll tell you what she's not.

No bird of prey with wild uproar,
Like Churchill, to disturb the grove;
Nor comes she, like the harmless dove,
To bill and coo and love,
And nothing more.

In short, to speak more plainly,
Nor be it thought I speak it vainly,
Averse to flattery and spite,
She is a modest, sober dame —
I wish all females were the same —
And will not scratch or bite.

She is not one of those
Who show their genius in their dress,
Whose inky fingers, unpinned clothes,
The slipshod shoe and snuffy nose,
Denote her wit and sluttishness;
Who with a play, like pistol cocked, in hand,
Bid managers to stand:

" Deliver, sir,
Your thoughts on this
Before you stir. "
" But, madam — miss — "
" Your answer straight;
I will not wait. "
" 'Tis fit you know — "
" I'll hear no reason —
This very season —
Ay or no? "

Not to kill more precious time,
In dropping sense to pick up rhyme,
Or, like friend Shandy, rattle,
And lose my matter in my prattle;
Without much wit digression's tame,
So I shall give it o'er,
And beat about the bush no more,
But start my game.

The critic's pen has various uses,
It praises now, and now abuses,
Does this and that
Or both together,
As fancy strikes or rhymes come pat,
Stabs with the point or tickles with the feather.

Authors, like bees, buzz round and round
Dramatic ground,
For all they meet
Have sharp and sweet;
They do no ill,
Would fools sit still —
Provoke 'em and they're dangerous things;
And every player
Should equally beware
Their honey as their stings.

Garrick, thou mighty chief of kings and queens,
Despotic tyrant of the scenes,
Think'st thou all human race to mock
In buskin and in sock,
And will not fools
Thy mock'ry ridicules,
From Chalkstone's Lord to dainty Fribble,
Rave, chatter, write,
In various ways display their spite?
For all can talk, and some can scribble.

Others again
Take up the pen,
In panegyric's gaudy colours paint thee;
As humour flows,
Now friends, now foes,
In prose and verse and verse and prose,
Bedevil thee and saint thee.

And can such critics tease thee?
And can such praises please thee?
O, if they can,
Alas, poor man,
No more deride
Thy neighbour's weakness, folly, pride,
But cure thy own
If thou art able,
While I make known
My friendship to thee in a fable.

An ape there was, an ape of merit,
A lively, sportive, pleasant thing,
Had so much fancy, whim, and spirit,
And made such sport
He got to court
And showed his tricks before the lion king.

Such honour gave him fame
And raised his name;
From far and near they came to see
This monkey prodigy.
Though none were more expert and quick
In tumbling backward o'er a stick;
Though none with a more lordly pride
And happy ease did e'er bestride
The rugged Russian bear;
Though he could skip it up and down,
And pick the pocket of a clown,
Or whip away his hat,
Or fondle with a cat,
The wonder of the fair;
This was not all, he had the art
Of acting still a higher part:
To each profession that he saw,
Physic, divinity or law,
He ludicrously shaped him —
So much possessed of all their notions,
Their humours, oddities and motions,
That not a soul escaped him.

In ridicule's enchanted glass
Whatever forms are shown,
We all can see another's face
But never find our own.
To flatter self we all incline,
For self we plan and labour:
" Pluck not, good sir, a hair of mine,
And you may scalp my neighbour. "

Each laughed to see his friend the rest,
And praised the monkey highly,
Not openly but slily —
At court you find a thousand such —
But what was best,
Though there were none
By turns he did not fall upon,
Each thought himself the only one
The mimic could not touch.
Blest fools, who boast your happy lot
From ridicule secure,
Though leopard-stained, you see no spot,
Inimitably pure.
Whether the jackanapes was clever,
Or the court not over nice,
By various tricks he crept in favour,
And for those tricks had double price.
Thus Fortune, in a whim,
Resolved to turn his brain,
And filled his cup up to the brim,
The intoxicating cup of joy,
Which better heads than his destroy —
No wonder he was vain.

Whenever gossip Fame prates loud,
Envy, in turn, as loud will tattle,
And scribblers to her standard crowd,
Cry " Havoc! " and prepare for battle.
Malevolence, with lynx's eye,
The most minute defects will spy;
And even Friendship — shame upon our kind —
Is to those faults not always blind.

The looking up fatigues the sight,
And mortals when they soar,
Should they once reach a certain height,
All wish to have them lower;
And friends there are in this good town
Will lend a hand to help them down.

About, about my pen,
Nor lose the fable in thy railing,
But to our monkey back again,
Who found that brutes as well as men,
Have this same cursed failing.

The moment he got fame and wealth
(How ill exchanged for ease and health!)
The envious crew
Poor Pug pursue,
Abuse his active, pliant spirit;
But chiefly those
Were marked his foes,
Who felt a satire in his merit.

The dull and sluggish were the first
To show their teeth, if not to bite;
The hog, the bear, the ass had burst,
Had they not grunted, roared, and brayed their spite.
This furious stir
Awaked the critic cur —
Hound, greyhound, mastiff, answer to the call,
The little dogs and all.
The game's in view:
For man and beast
Scandal's a feast,
Where both with appetite fall to.

The bloated toad in silence stole
To gather poison in her hole,
As mischief never knows delay,
She roused the viper in her way,
A neighbour, and her bosom friend;
For though she crawled and could not run,
She kept this maxim strictly
(Ye sons of Law, attend!)
That mischief, if it must be done,
'Twere well it were done quickly.

But then his friends — did they oppose?
(A luke-warm friend's the worst of foes.)
The goat looked wise and wagged his beard;
The spaniel shook his ears;
The fox turned up his pointed nose;
Thoughtful and dull the cat appeared,
Or else in whispers purred her fears;
The steed alone was firm and fast,
The generous steed stood by him to the last.

Pug sickens, mopes, and looks like death,
Speaks faintly and scarce draws his breath;
Some call it megrim, some the spleen —
Words often used that little mean;
But Scandal, with her face demure,
Hints it is heat of blood,
By which is understood
An old amour:
In short, they ransack all diseases,
And give him that their fancy pleases.
Among the rest,
That fits him best
Which best the doctor serves,
Of which he most avails him
When knowledge fails him,
And, with a face of wisdom, calls it — nerves.

The horse, who saw his friend's distress,
Did thus his honest mind express:
" Come, prithee rouse; this life's the devil.
What, sigh and sob and keep within?
What you, who used to frisk and revel,
For ever chatter and for ever grin?
Zounds, it would make a parson swear!
Get on my back and take the air. "
Away they went, and as they pass
The hog, the dog, the bear, the ass,
Pug's different foes in different places,
If in the least they showed their spite,
The horse would whinny, snort, and bite,
And throw the dirt into their faces.

For all this care,
This exercise and air,
Yet still the monkey pined;
For well we are assured
That when the grief is in the mind,
'Tis sooner got than cured.

In this condition,
What to prescribe him? A physician.
There is a certain way of life
Which all must take
For fashion's sake,
Or be with all the world at strife:
The rich must to the doctor give,
The poor to Nature trust, and live.

It must be so — or could the tribe
Of those who quack, or who prescribe,
In folly find such ample gain?
Could nostrums swell the Advertiser ,
Or the wise heads of Warwick Lane
Buy wig enough to make them wiser?
Our patient cannot wait.
" Send for a doctor straight. "
But not a formal, half-bred fool,
Who cures by chance and kills by rule,
A periwig-pated block.
Physicians for the brutes were fowls,
And though the sworn practitioners were owls,
They chose a neighbouring cock.

He enters with a stately tread,
His comb and wattles dignify his head:
No outward sign was ever seen
That promised half so much within;
And yet (ye sons of Physic, blush!)
The wine was better than the bush.
His learning, backed by penetration,
A kind of Radcliffe-inspiration,
Bound by no partial, pedant laws,
Shot through each symptom to its cause —
A rarity without dispute.
He was an honest cock to boot.
Yet with this genius, worth and knowledge,
He had a stain, a deep disgrace
No mortal merit could efface —
He was not of the College.

But hold — our hero out of sight,
Must now again be brought to light.
We left him in the doctor's care,
Who with a serious face
Attending to the case,
Did thus his mind declare:

" I could, like any learned brother,
With a hard name my ignorance smother.
'Tis one of our established laws,
Which daily we fulfil,
Whene'er our skill can't find a cause,
To make a cause to suit our skill.
Thus we seldom meet disgrace;
We only can mistake the case.
What are these papers by your side? "
" 'Tis physic, sir, to cure my pride:
This heap of papers, verse and prose,
Is the joint malice of my foes;
There's not a day but something's sent me,
To fret me and torment me. "

This said, the conversation stops,
For Pug was faint and calls for drops.
With rage subdued, the patient panted,
Which struck a light the doctor wanted,
Who thus pronounced: " I know your ail;
'Tis not in your heart or head,
As some have said. "
" Where then, good Doctor? " " In your tail. "

His tail of most uncommon make,
In action like the serpent kind,
A thousand different forms could take,
Twirl, twist and vary to his mind.
If lords were aped, this pliant queue
Was cross his breast a ribbon blue,
Or green, or red; and then, slap-dash,
A chaplain's scarf or colonel's sash.
Whene'er the city struck his brain,
'Twas round his neck a lord mayor's chain;
Or were his part to lisp and trip it,
Hey presto, 'twas a lady's tippet!
But now deprived of spirit, life, and strength,
It lies a languid, lank, inanimated length.

The Doctor paused, then silence broke:
" I'll strike a master stroke.
This tail of yours we must amend,
Give it new life and force,
And if we gain that end,
The rest will come of course.
With that same malice of your foes,
Both verse and prose,
Curl it each night and morning;
But then take warning
Never again to cast your eyes
On what is wrote, or may be writ,
Whether it is or is not wit —
For there the magic lies. "
'Tis best by craft and not by book,
To cure these mental fevers.
The monkey all for gospel took —
The sick are great believers.
So well the doctor's words he noted,
His tail that night was papilloted;
His greedy eyes, to cure his head,
No more on paper-diet fed.

The cause removed, effects will cease:
Deprived of oil the flame goes out.
Our ape began to be at peace,
His tail to move about.
The more 'twas curled,
The more it twirled;
With head and heart
The tail took part,
Life frisks in every vein:
Pug was himself again.

The monkey got his health,
The doctor wealth —
Of patients he had plenty;
For though the cure was half a joke,
'Twas wondered at by silly folk,
And that's nineteen in twenty.
To fix his cure, historians say,
That, like Sir Wilful in the play,
He talked of foreign parts;
Left all his griefs and cares behind,
Sailed with the first fair wind,
And hey for Italy and arts!

What he got there no creature knows,
Nor he himself can tell us;
What lightly comes as lightly goes
With all such pretty fellows.
He skipped the country o'er,
And then returned
With what he learned,
A greater monkey than before.

The fable told, the moral comes:
Garrick, don't fret and bite your thumbs,
But take the monkey's place;
The same's your case;
The same prescription we advise.
Should spleen and spite —
Nay, though critic truth should write
(For who is always in the right?) —
Shut your ears and close your eyes.
Whate'er is published, buy the heap —
You'll have it cheap —
But not to read or hear it read:
Would you strike detraction dead,
The doctor's method cannot fail;
Keep the poison from your head,
And clap it to your tail.