Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/220

As puffing auctioneers collect a throng,
Rich poets bribe false friends to hear their song:
Who can resist the lord of so much rent,
Of so much money at so much per cent.?
Is there a wight can give a grand regale,
Act as a poor man's counsel or his bail?
Blest though he be, his wealth will cloud his view,
Nor suffer him to know false friends from true.
Don't ask a man whose feelings overflow
For kindness that you've shown or mean to show
To listen to your verse: each line you read,
He'll cry, "Good! bravo! exquisite indeed!"
He'll change his colour, let his eyes run o'er
With tears of joy, dance, beat upon the floor.
Hired mourners at a funeral say and do
A little more than they whose grief is true:
'Tis just so here: false flattery displays
More show of sympathy than honest praise.
'Tis said when kings a would-be friend will try,
With wine they rack him and with bumpers ply:
If you write poems, look beyond the skin
Of the smooth fox, and search the heart within.
Read verses to Quintilius, he would say,
"I don't like this and that: improve it, pray:"
Tell him you found it hopeless to correct;
You'd tried it twice or thrice without effect:
He'd calmly bid you make the three times four,
And take the unlicked cub in hand once more.
But if you chose to vindicate the crime,
Not mend it, he would waste no further time,