PREST by the load of life, the weary mind

Surveys the general toil of human kind;
With cool fubmiffion joins the lab'ring train,
And focial forrow lofes half its pain:
Our anxious bard, without complaint, may
This bustling feafon's epidemic care.
Like Cæfar's pilot, dignify'd by fate,

fhare

Toft in one common florm with all the great;
Diftreft alike, the statesman and the wit,

When one a borough courts, and one the pit.
The bufy candidates for power and fame,

Have hopes, and fears, and wishes just the same;
Difabled both to combat, or to fly,

Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply.
Uncheck'd on both, loud rabbles vent their rage,
As mongrels bay the lion in a cage.

Th' offended burgefs hoards his angry tale,
For that bleft year when all that vote may rail;
Their fchemes of fpite the poet's foes dismiss,
Till that glad night, when all that hate may hiss.

This day the powder'd curls and golden coat,
Says fwelling Crifpin, begg❜d a cobler's vote.
This night, our wit, the pert apprentice cries,
Lies at my feet, I hiss him, and he dies.

The great, 'tis true, can charm th' electing tribe;
The bard may fupplicate, but cannot bribe.
Yet judg'd by those, whofe voices ne'er were fold,
He feels no want of ill-perfuading gold;

But confident of praise, if praise be due,
Trusts without fear, to merit, and to you.

THE

GOOD-NATUR'D MAN.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE, an Apartment in YOUNG HONEYWOOD's house.

Enter SIR WILLIAM HONEYWOOD, JARVIS.

Sir William.

GOOD Jarvis, make no apologies for this honeft

bluntnefs. Fidelity, like yours, is the best excufe for every freedom.

Jar. I can't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear you talk of difinheriting fo good, fo worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my mafter. All the world loves him.

Sir Will. Say rather, that he loves all the world ; that is his fault.

Jar. I am fure there is no part of it more de to him than you are, tho' he has not feen you fince he was a child.

Sir Will. What fignifies his affection to me, or how can I be proud of a place in a heart where every sharper and coxcomb find an eafy entrance ?

F

Jar. I grant you that he's rather too good natur'd ; that he's too much every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another: but whofe inftructions may he thank for all this?

Sir Wil. Not mine, fure? My letters to him during my employment in Italy, taught him only that philofophy which might prevent, not defend his errors.

far. Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm forry they taught him any philosophy at all; it has only ferv'd to fpoil him. This fame philofophy is a good horfe in the ftable, but an errant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on't, I'm always fure he's going to play the fool.

Sir Wil. Don't let us afcribe his faults to his philofophy, I entreat you. No, Jarvis, his good-nature arifes rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his defire of making the deserving happy.

Jar. What it arises from, I don't know. But, to be fure, every body has it, that afks it.

Sir Wil. Ay, or that does not afk it. I have been now for fome time a concealed fpectator of his follies, and find them as boundlefs as his diffipation.

Far. And yet, faith, he has fome fine nanie or other for them all. He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trufting every body, univerfal benevolence. It was but last week he went fecurity for a fellow whose face he fcarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted mu-mu-munificence; ay, that was the name he

gave it.

Sir Wil. And upon that I proceed, as my last effort, tho' with very little hopes to reclaim him. That very

fellow has just abfconded, and I have taken up the security. Now, my intention is to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity. Toarreft him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him fee which of his friends will come to his relief.

Jar. Well, if I could but any way fee him thoroughly vexed, every groan of his would be mufic to me; yet faith, I believe it impoffible. I have tried to fret him myself every morning thefe three years; but, inftead of being angry, he fits as calmly to hear me fcold, as he does to his hair-dreffer.

Sir Wil. We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this inftant to put my fcheme into execution; and I don't despair of fucceeding, as, by your means, I can have frequent opportunities of being about him, without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good will to others fhould produce fo much neglect of himself, as to require correction. Yet, we must touch his weakneffes with a delicate hand. There are fome faults fo nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. [Exit.

far. Well, go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without reason that the world allows thee to be the best of men. But here comes his hopeful nephew; the strange, good-natur'd, foolish, open-hearted -And yet all his faults are fuch that one loves him ftill the better for them.