Malebranche and Locke, and such grave fellows,
Who were abstracted reasoners, tell us
Much that relates to Man. When you have read
All these philosophers have said,
You'll give them credit for their perspicacity;
And after that (if you should have a head
Of no great ontological capacity)
You'll know as much
About the matter as I know of Dutch.

For when a metaphysic chain
Once gets entangled in your brain,
The more you rattle it the more you rave,
And curse and swear and misbehave,
Coming to no conclusion;
And if at last you lose the smallest link,
You may as well go whistle as go think
Of mending the confusion.

Then, leaving spiritual truths to those
Who, taking pleasure in the study,
O'er Thoughts on Human Understanding doze,
Till human understanding grows quite muddy,
One proposition only I advance
(It will not lead philosophy a dance)
Respecting Man — videlicet ,
I never met with any yet,
However thick his pericranium's density —
Let it be thicker than a post —
Who has not some astonishing propensity
Of which he makes a pother and a boast.

He'll either tell you he can drink or smoke,
Or play at whist, or on the pipe and tabor,
Or cut a throat, a caper, or a joke,
Much better than his neighbour.

Many will say they'll settle you the nation,
And make a peace, solid and good
(I wish they would),
Sooner than the Administration.

One tells you how a town is to be taken,
A second o'er the fair sex boasts his power,
Another brags he'll eat six pounds of bacon,
For half a crown, in half an hour.

Thus nature always brings, in Fortune's spite,
Man's " ruling passion, " as Pope says, to light.

And I maintain that all these " ruling passions. "
Divide them how you will, and subdivide —
I care not how they're ramified
Into their different forms and fashions —
I say they all proceed from pride;
And this same pride is founded on ambition,
Shades varying with talents and condition.

Look at that rope-dancer; observe!
Gods! how he vaults! 'tis all to get a name;
Risking his limbs and straining every nerve
To jump himself, poor devil, into fame.
Mark with what majesty he wields the pole,
While the buffoon (his vassal) chalks his sole!

Sir, 'tis his poor ambition's richest hope
To reign elastic emperor and lord
O'er all who ever capered on a cord,
And be the Bonaparte of the rope.

In short, an itching for renown
Makes some dance ropes and others storm a town;
And an observer must be very dull
If a Jack-Pudding or a Pierrot
Don't sometimes seem to him as great a hero
As a Grand Signior or a Great Mogul.

That lowly men aspire to lowly glory,
Here followeth (exempli gratia) a story: —

Goddess! whose frolic humour glads the sky;
Who oft with dimpled cheek to Momus listen;
Within the lustre of whose lucid eye
Laughter's gay drops, like dew in sunshine, glisten!

Come, sweet Euphrosyne! luxuriant Mirth!
Leave all the heathen deities behind;
Descend and help ('twill be but kind)
One of the poorest poets upon earth!

O! now descend! while I devote my page
To one who flourished on a London stage.

She comes! I sing the man ycleped Daw,
Whose mother dressed the tragic queens;
She in the candle-snuffer raised a flame,
Then quenched it like a liberal dame;
And the first light my hero ever saw
Was that his father snuffed behind the scenes.

Born to the boards, as actors say, this wight
Was oft let out at half a crown per night,
By tender parents, after he was weaned;
At three years old, squab, chubby-cheeked, and stupid,
Sometimes he was a little extra fiend,
Sometimes a supernumerary Cupid.

When Master Daw full fourteen years had told,
He grew, as it is termed, hobbedyhoyish —
For Cupidons and fairies much too old,
For Calibans and devils much too boyish.

This state, grave fathers say, behind the scenes,
Often embarrasses their ways and means;
And Master Daw was out of size
For raising the supplies.
He was a perfect lout, a log;
You never clapped your eyes
Upon an uglier dog!

His voice had broken to a gruffish squeak;
He had grown blear-eyed, baker-kneed, and gummy;
And though he hadn't been too hoarse to speak,
He was too ugly even for a dummy.

But hoodwinked Fortune, goddess of misprision,
Soon gave her bandeau's knot a tighter twist;
Or else, that she might have no chance of vision,
She certainly employed an oculist.

Had she but seen no better than the fowl
The chaste Minerva loves — yclept an owl —
Or had of seeing the least notion,
She never, never could have found
In Master Daw, that chubby stupid hound,
A subject for theatrical promotion.

But lo! 'twas at a ballet's night rehearsal,
Performed at last, as playbills often show,
Whether the ballet have been hissed or no,
To overflows and plaudits universal.

The prompter's boy, a pickled thoughtless knave,
Playing a game at marbles in the sea,
Happened to break his leg upon a wave,
And Master Daw was made his deputy.

The office of a prompter's boy perchance
May not be generally known.
I'll sketch it. Would I could enhance
The outline with some touches of my own!

The prompter's boy, messieurs! must stand
Near the stage door, close at the prompter's hand,
Holding a nomenclature that's numerical,
Which tallies with the book prompterical:

And as the prompter calls, " One, Two, Three, Four, "
Marked accurately in the prompt-book page,
These numbers mean the boy must leave the door,
To call the folks referred to for the stage.

In this capacity, as record saith,
Young Master Daw
Both heard and saw
As much (if not as two ) as any one can.
He saw the actor murdering Macbeth,
Whom he had only called to murder Duncan.

He saw Anne Boleyn in the green-room grant
A kiss to Wolsey, dangling at her crupper;
Heard an archbishop damn a figurante,
And Shylock order sausages for supper.

During his time (or Master Daw's a liar),
Three Virgins of the Sun grew wondrous round;
Pluto most narrowly escaped from fire,
And Neptune in a water-tub was drowned.

During his time, from the proscenium ta'en,
Thalia and Melpomene both vanished;
The lion and the unicorn remain,
Seeming to hint to a capricious age,
" Suffer the quadrupeds to keep the stage,
The Muses to be banished. "

During his time — pshaw! let me turn Time's glass.
Reader, old Time (depend on't) will kill thee;
But should I grow prolix, alas!
Thou never wouldst kill time by reading me.

Yet here will I apostrophize thee, Time!
If not in reason, why in crambo rhyme: —