No part of conduct asks for skill more nice,
Tho' none more common, than to give advice:
Misers themselves in this will not be saving,
Unless their knowledge makes it worth the having,
And where's the wonder, when we will obtrude
An useless gift, it meets ingratitude?
Shun then, unask'd, this arduous task to try;
But if consulted, use sincerity;
Too sacred is the welfare of a friend,
To give it up for any selfish end.
But use one caution, sift him o'er and o'er,
To find if all be not resolv'd before,
If such the case, in spight of all his art,
Some word will give the soundings of his heart;
And why should you a bootless freedom use,
That serves him not, and may his friendship lose?
Yet still on truth bestow this mark of love,
Ne'er to commend the thing you can't approve.
Sincerity has such resistless charms,
She oft the fiercest of our foes disarms:
No art she knows, in native whiteness dress'd,
Her thoughts all pure, and therefore all express'd:
She takes from error its deformity;
And without her, all other virtues die.
Bright source of goodness! to my aid descend,
Watch o'er my heart, and all my words attend:
If still thou deign to set thy foot below,
Among a race quite polish'd into show,
Oh! save me from the jilt's dissembling part,
Who grants to all all favours, but her heart:
Perverts the end of charming, for the fame;
To fawn, her business; to deceive, her aim:
She smiles on this man, tips the wink on that,
Gives one a squeeze, another a kind pat;
Now jogs a foot, now whispers in an ear;
Here slips a letter, and there casts a leer;
Till the kind thing, the company throughout,
Distributes all its pretty self about;
While all are pleas'd, and wretched soon or late,
All but the wise, who see and shun the bait.