AN EXCLAMATION Against JULIAN, Secretary to the Muses; With the Character of a LIBELER.  By a Person of Quality. 
THou Common Shore of this Poetic Town,  
Where all our Excrements of Wit are thrown;  
For Sonnet, satire, Bawdry, Blasphemy,  
Are emptied and disburdened all on thee:  
The Choleric wight, untruffing in a rage,  
Finds thee, and leaves his load upon thy page.  
Thou, Julian, (Oh, thou wise Vespasian rather!)  
Dost from this Dung thy well-picked Guineas gather.  
All mischief's thine: Transcribing thou wilt stoop  
From lofty Middlesex, to lowly Scroop.  

What times are these, when, in that Hero's room  
Bow-bending Cupid doth with Ballads come,  
And little Ashton offers to the Bum?   
Can two such Pigmies such a wight support?  
Two such Tom Thumbs of satire in a Court!  
Poor George grows old; his Muse worn out of fashion;  
Hoarsly she sung Euphelia's Lamentation:  
Less art thou helped by Dryden's Bedrid Age;  
That Drone has left his Sting upon the Stage.  
Resolve me, poor Apostate, this main Doubt;  
What hope hast thou to rub this Summer out?  
Know, and be thankful then; for Providence,  
By me, has sent thee this Intelligence:  
A Knight there is, if thou canst gain his Grace,  
Known by the Name of the Hard-favoured Face;  
For Prowess of the Pen renowned is he;  
From Don Quixot descended lineally:  
And though, like him, unfortunate he prove,  
Undaunted in Attempts of Wit and Love.  
Of his unfinished Face, what shall I say,  
But that 'twas made of Adam's own Red Clay;  
That much, much Ochre was on it bestowed?  
God's Image 'tis not, but some Indian God:  
Our Christian Earth can no resemblance bring  
But Ware of Portugal for such a thing.  
Such Carbuncles his fiery Face confess,  
As no Hungarian Water can redress.  
A Face which should he see-But Heaven was kind,  
And, to indulge his Self-love, made him blind.  
He dares not stir abroad, for fear to meet  
Curses of teeming Women in the street:  
The least could happen from that hideous sight,  
Is, that they should miscarry with the fright;  
Heaven guard'em from the likeness of the Knight  
Such is our charming Strephon's outward man:  
His inward parts, Let those describe who can;  
But, by the monthly flowers discharged abroad,  
'Tis full, brim full of Pastoral and Ode.  
Frewhile he honoured Bertha with his flame;  
And now, he courts no less Louvisa's Name:  
For, when his Passion has been boiling long,  
The scum at last boils up into a Song:  
And sure no mortal creature, at one time,  
Was e'er so far o'ergone with Love and Rhyme.  
To his dear self of Poetry he talks;  
His hands and feet are scanning as he walks:  
His squinting look his pangs of Wit accuse  
The very symptoms of a breeding Muse:  
And all to gain the great Louvisa's grace;  
But never Pen did pimp for such a Face.  
There's not a Nymph, in City, Town, or Court,  
But Strephon's Billet Douxes have made sport:  
Still he Loves on; yet still as sure to miss  
As they who wash an Aethiop's face, or his.  
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend,  
Never to got a Mistress, or a Friend?  
Strephon alike both Wit and Fools detest;  
Because, like Aesop's Bat, half Bird, half Beast:  
For Fools, to Poetry have no pretence;  
And common Wit supposes common Sense:  
Not quite so low as Fools, nor quite o'top;  
But hangs between 'em both, and is a Fop.  
His Morals, like his Wit, are motley too:  
He keeps from arrant Knave, with much ado;  
But Vanity and Lying so prevail,  
That one grain more of each would turn the scale.  
He would be more a Villain, had he time;  
But he's so wholly taken up with Rhyme,  
That he mistakes his Talon: all his care  
Is to be thought a Poet, fine, and fair.  
Small Beer and Gruel, are his meat and drink;  
The Diet he prescribes himself, to think.  
Rhyme next his heart he takes at morning peep;  
Some Love-●pistles at his hour of sleep:  
So, between Elegy and Ode, we see  
Strephon is in a course of Poetry.  
This is the Man ordained to do thee good;  
The Pelican, to feed thee with his Blood:  
Thy Wit, thy Poet; nay, thy Friend; for he  
Is fit to be a Friend to none, but Thee.  
Make sure of him, and of his Muse betimes;  
For all his Study is hung round with Rhymes:  
Laugh at him, justle him, yet still he writes;  
In Rhyme he Challenges, in Rhyme he Fights:  
Charged with the last, and basest Infamy,  
His business is to think what Rhymes to Lie;  
Which found, in fury he retorts again.  
Strephon's a very Dragon at his Pen:  
His Brother murdered, and his Mother whored,  
his Mistress lost; yet still his Pen's his Sword.  
FINIS.