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For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despight.
Ben. old and poor, as little seem'd to heed
The life to come in ev'ry poet's creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit:
Forgot his Epic, nay, Pindaric art;
But still I love the language of his heart;

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"Yet surely, surely these were famous men! "What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben.? "In all debates where critics bear a part, "Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art, "Of Shakespeare's nature and of Cowley's wit; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher "How Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow; [writ; "But for the passion, Southern, sure, and Rowe! 86 "These, only these, support the crowded stage, "From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age." All this may be; the people's voice is odd; It is, and it is not, the voice of God. To Gammer Gurton if it gives the bays, And yet deny the Careless Husband praise, Or say our fathers never broke a rule, Why then, I say the public is a fool.

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But let them own that greater faults than we
They had, and greater virtues I'll agree.

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Spenser himself affects the obsolete,

And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet; Milton's strong pinion now not heav'n can bound, Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground; In quibble angel and archangel join,

And God the Father turns a school-divine.

Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,

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Like slashing Bentley with his desp❜rate hook;
Or damn all Shakespeare, like the affected fool 105
At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.
But for the wits of either Charles's days,

The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more,
(Like twinkling stars the miscellanies o'er ;)
One simile that solitary shines

In the dry desert of a thousand lines,

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Or lengthen'd thought, that gleams thro' many a page, Has sanctify'd whole poems for an age.

I lose my patience, and I own it too,

When works are censur'd not as bad, but new ;
While if our elders break all Reason's laws,
These fools demand not pardon but applause.
On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow,
If I but ask if any weed can grow;
One tragic sentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignify'd,

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Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims,
[Tho' but perhaps a muster roll of names ]
How will our fathers rise up in a rage,
And swear all shame is lost in George's age!
You'd think no fools disgrac'd the former reign,
Did not some grave examples yet remain,
Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill,
And having once been wrong will be so still.
He who, to seem more deep than you or I,
Extols old bards, or Merlin's Prophesy,
Mistake him not; he envies, not admires;
And to debase the sons exalts the sires.
Had ancient times conspir❜d to disallow

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What then was new, what had been ancient now? Or what remain'd so worthy to be read

By learned critics of the mighty dead?

In days of ease, when now the weary sword

Was sheath'd, and Luxury with Charles restor❜d, 140 In ev'ry taste of foreign courts improv❜d,

"All by the king's example liv'd and lov'd.”

Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excel,
Newmarket's glory rose as Britons' fell;
The soldier breath'd the gallantries of France,
And ev'ry flow'ry courtier writ romance.
Then marble soften'd into life, grew warm,

And yielding metal flow'd to human form;

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Lely on animated canvas stole
The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.
No wonder then, when all was love and sport,
The willing Muses were debauch'd at Court;
On each enervate string they taught the note
To pant, or tremble thro' an eunuch's throat.
But Britain, changeful as a child at play,
Now calls in princes, and now turns away.
Now Whig, now Tory, what we lov'd we hate;
Now all for pleasure, now for church and state;
Now for prerogatives, and now for laws :
Effects unhappy! from a noble cause.

Time was a sober Englishman would knock
His servants up, and rise by five o'clock;
Instruct his family in ev'ry rule,

And send his wife to church, his son to school.

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To worship like his fathers was his care;

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To teach their frugal virtues to his heir;

To prove that luxury could never hold,
And place on good security his gold.

Now times are chang'd, and one poetic itch
Has seiz'd the Court and City, poor and rich:

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Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays;

Our wives read Milton, and our daughters Ipays;

To theatres and to rehearsals throng,

And all our grace at table is a song.

I, who so oft' renounce the Muses lie,
Not-'self e'er tells more fibs than I,
When sick of Muse our follies we deplore,

And promise our best friends to rhyme no more;
We wake next morning in a raging fit,

And call for pen and ink to show our wit.

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He serv'd a 'prenticeship who sets up shop; Ward try'd on puppies and the poor his drop; Ev'n Radcliff's doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practice till they've learn❜d to dance. Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? [Should Ripley venture, all the world should smile:] But those who cannot write, and those who can,

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All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
Yet, Sir, reflect; the mischief is not great:
These madmen never hurt the church or state: 190
Sometimes the folly benefits mankind,

And rarely av'rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a pen,

He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men :
Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never mind,
And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.
To cheat a friend or ward he leaves to Peter;
The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,
Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet;

And then-a perfect hermit in his diet,

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