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*EPITAPH ON FRANCIS CHARTRES

HERE continueth to rot

The body of FRANCIS CHARTRES;
Who, with an INFLEXIBLE CONSTANCY,
And INIMITABLE UNIFORMITY of life,
PERSISTED,

In fpite of AGE and INFIRMITIES,
In the practice of EVERY HUMAN VICE;
Excepting PRODIGALITY and HYPOCRISY,
His infatiable AVARICE exempted him from the first,
His matchlefs IMPUDENCE from the fecond.

Nor was he more fingular

In the undeviating pravity of his manners,
Than fuccefsful

In accumulating WEALTH:

For, without TRADE OF PROFESSION,
Without TRUST of PUBLIC MONEY,
And without BRIBE-WORTHY service,
He acquired, or more properly created,
A MINISTERIAL ESTATE.

+FR. CHARTRES was a man infamous for all manner of vices. When he was an enfign in the army, he was drummed out of the regiment for a cheat; he was next banished Bruffels, and drummed out of Ghent, on the fame account. After a hundred tricks at the gaming-tables, he took to lending of money at exorbitant intereft, and on great penalties, accumulating premium, interest, and capital into a new capital, and feizing to a minute when the payments became due. In a word, by a conftant attention to the vices, wants, and follies of mankind, he acquired an immenfe fortune. His houfe was a perpetual bawdyhoufe. He was twice condemned for rapes, and pardoned; but the laft time not without imprifonment in Newgate, and large confifcations. He died in Scotland in 1731, aged 62. The populace at his funeral raised a great riot, almoft tore the body out of the coffin, and caff dead dogs, &c. into the grave along with it. This epitaph contains his character, very juftly drawn by Dr Arbuthnot--This gentleman was worth feven thousand pounds a year eftate in land, and about one hundred thoufand in money. Pope.

He was the only perfon of his time,
Who could CHEAT without the mask of HONESTY,
Retain his primeval MEANNESS

When poffefs'd of TEN THOUSAND a-year; And having daily deserved the GIBBET for what he did, Was at laft condemned to it for what he could not do.

Oh indignant reader !

Think not his life ufelefs to mankind! PROVIDENCE COnniv'd † at his execrable designs, To give to after

ages

A confpicuous PROOF and EXAMPLE,
Of how small eftimation is EXORBITANT WEALTH
In the fight of GOD,

By his bestowing it on the moft UNWORTHY Of ALL
MORTALS.

Joannes jacet hic Mirandulacætera norunt
Et Tagus et Ganges-forlan et Antipodes.

HE

Applied to FRANCIS CHARTRES.

ERE Francis Chartres lies- be civil!
The reft God knows-perhaps the devil.

* EPIGR

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M.

PETER complains that God has given

To his poor babe a life so short :

Confider, Peter, he's in heaven;
"Tis good to have a friend at court.

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You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there's no body at home.

EPI

+ See vol. iv. p. 7.

*ЕРІТАР Н.

WELL then, poor Glies under ground!

So there's an end of honest Jack.

So little juftice here he found,

"Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

* EPIGRAM, on the toafts of the Kit-kat club.

Anno 1716.

WHENCE deathlefs kit-kat took its name,

Few critics can unriddle;

Some fay from pastry-cook it came,
And fome from cat and fiddle.
From no trim beaux its name it boafts,

Grey statesmen, or green wits;

But from this pell-mell pack of toafts
Of old cats and young kits.

* To a LADY, with the Temple of Fame.

WHAT's fame with men, by cuftom of the nation
Is call'd in women only reputation :

About them both why keep we fuch a pother?
Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

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* VERSES to be placed under the picture of ENGLAND'S ARCH POET; containing a complete catalogue of his works.

EE who ne'er was nor will be half read!

SEE

Who first fung Arthur †, then fung Alfred ‡; Prais'd great Eliza || in God's anger,

Till all true Englishmen cry'd, Hang her!

Two heroic poems in folio, twenty books.
Heroic poems in twelve books.

Heroic poems in folio, ten books.

Made William's virtues wipe the bare a

And hang'd up Marlb'rough in arras* :

Then hifs'd from earth, grew heav'nly quite;
Made ev'ry reader curse the light † ;
Maul'd human wit in one thick fatire ‡;'
Next, in three books, funk human nature ||,
Undid creation

**

at a jerk,

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10

And of redemption †† made damn'd work.
Then took his mufe at once, and dipt her
Full in the middle of the Scripture:

What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself he out-Sternholded:

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Made David ‡‡ seem so mad and freakish,

All thought him juft what thought King Achish.

No mortal read his Solomon ||||,

But judg'd R'oboam his own fon.

Mofes *** he ferv'd as Mofes Pharaoh,

And Deborah as she Siserah;

Made +++ Jeremy full fore to cry,
And Job ‡‡‡ himself curfe God and die.

WHAT punishment all this muft follow?
Shall Arthur ufe him like King Tollo?
Shall David as Uriah flay him?

Or dext'rous Deb'rah Siferah him?
Or fhall Eliza lay a plot

To treat him like her fifter Scot?

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Inftructions to Vanderbank, a tapestry weaver.

Hymn to the light.

Satire against wit.

Of the nature of man.

Creation, a poem, in feven books.

tt The Redeemer, another heroic poem, in fix books. #Tranflation of all the Pfalms.

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Canticles and Ecclefiaftes.

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Paraphrafe of the canticles of Mofes and Deborah, &c. ttt The Lamentations.

### The whole book of Job, a poem, in folio.

Shall William dub his better end * ?

Or Marlb'rough serve him like a friend?
No, none of these heav'n fpare his life!
But fend him, honeft Job, thy wife.

Dr SWIFT to Mr POPE, while he was writing the DUNCIAD.

POPE has the talent well to speak,

But not to reach the ear;

His loudest voice is low and weak,

The Dean too deaf to hear.

A while they on each other look,

Then diff'rent ftudies chufe; The Dean fits plodding on a book,

Pope walks, and courts the muse.

Now backs of letters, tho' defign'd

For thofe who more will need 'em, Are fill'd with hints, and interlin'd,

Himself can hardly read 'em.

Each atom by fome other struck,

All turns and motions tries: Till in a lump together ftuck, Behold a poem rise :

Yet to the Dean his fhare allot;

He claims it by a canon;

That without which a thing is not,

Is caufa fine qua non.

Thus, Pope t, in vain you boaft your wit;

For, had our deaf divine

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Kick him on the breech, not knight him on the fhoulder. + A polite turn is given to this incident by Mr Pope, in his letter to Dr Sheridan, in vol, iv. let. 127. p. 260.

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