Classic Poem

The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
I cannot but envy the pride of her wit.
Which thus she will venture profusely to throw,
On so mean a design, and a subject so low.
For mean's her design, and her subject as mean,
The first but a rebus, the last but a Dean.
A Dean's but a person, and what is a rebus?
A thing never known to the muses or Phoebus:
The corruption of verse, for when all is done,
It is but a paraphrase made on a pun;
But a genius like hers no subject can stifle,
It shows and discovers itself through a trifle.
By reading this trifle I quickly began
To find her a great wit, but the Dean a small man.
Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff,
Which others for manteaus would think fine enough;
So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here,
Might furnish a second-rate poet a year:
Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next,
Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text:
Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season,
And what she describes to be merit is treason:
The changes which faction has made in the state,
Have put the Dean's politics quite out of date:
Now no one regards what he utters with freedom,
And should he write pamphlets, no great man would read 'em:
And should want or desert stand in need of his aid,
This racer would prove but a dull foundered jade.