The Man of Taste

And chuse a female Doctor for the gout.
Thus would I live, with no dull pedants curs'd,
Sure, of all blockheads, Scholars are the worst.
Back to your Universitys, ye fools,
And dangle Arguments on strings in schools:
Those schools which Universitys they call,
'Twere well for England were there none at all.
With ease that loss the nation might sustain,
Supply'd by Goodman's Fields and Drury-lane.
Oxford and Cambridge are not worth one farthing,
Compar'd to Haymarket, and Convent-garden:
Quit those, ye British Youth, and follow these,
Turn players all, and take your 'Squires degrees.
Boast not your incomes now, as heretofore,
Ye book-learn'd Seats! the Theatres have more:
Ye stiff-rump'd heads of Colleges be dumb,
A singing Eunuch gets a larger Sum.
Have some of you three hundred by the Year,
Booth, Rich, and Cibber, twice three thousand clear.
Should Oxford to her sister Cambridge join
A Year's Rack-rent, and Arbitrary fine:
Thence not one winter's charge would be defray'd,
For Playhouse, Opera, Ball, and Masquerade.
Glad I congratulate the judging Age,
The players are the world, the world the stage.
I am a Politician too, and hate
Of any party, ministers of state:
I'm for an Act, that he, who sev'n whole Years
Has serv'd his King and Country, lose his ears.
Thus from my birth I'm qualified you find,
To give the laws of Taste to humane kind.
Mine are the gallant Schemes of Politesse,
For books, and buildings, politicks, and dress.
This is True Taste, and whoso likes it not,
Is blockhead, coxcomb, puppy, fool, and sot.

notes

1

Although the imprint on the title page reads "London," this edition was probably printed in Edinburgh. For a reassessment of the number and order of editions of The Man of Taste, see D. F. Foxon, English Verse 1701-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming 1975), I, 78 (B396-401).

2

The Library, 5th series, VIII (1953), 186-87. Todd here summarizes the evidence about publication.

3

Points in Eighteenth-Century Verse (London: Constable, 1934), pp. 67-69.

4

Bently's Milton, Book 9. Ver. 439.