My second (child of fortune!) waits
At Burlington's Palladian gates:
A third majestically stalks
(Happiest of dogs!) in Cobham's walks:
One ushers friends to Bathurst's door;
One fawns, at Oxford's, on the poor.
Nobles, whom arms or arts adorn,
Wait for my infants yet unborn.
None but a peer of wit and grace
Can hope a puppy of my race.
And, O would fate the bliss decree
To mine (a bliss too great for me!)
That two my tallest sons might grace.
Attending each with stately pace,
Iulus' side, as erst Evander's[1],
To keep oft flatterers, spies and panders,
To let no noble slave come near
And scare lord Fannys from his ear:
Then might a royal youth, and true,
Enjoy at least a friend — or two;
A treasure which, of royal kind,
Few but himself deserve to find.
Then Bounce ('tis all that Bounce can crave)
Shall wag her tail within the grave.
And though no doctors, whig or tory ones,
Except the sect of Pythagoreans,
Have immortality assign'd
To any beast but Dryden's hind[2]:
Yet master Pope, whom Truth and Sense
Shall call their friend some ages hence,
- ↑ Virgil, Æneid 8.
- ↑ "A milk white hind, immortal and unchang'd."
Hind and Panther, ver. 1.
