Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm,
And yielding metal flow'd to human form :
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 note1
To pant, or tremble through a 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 loved we hate;
Now all for pleasure, now for church and state;
Now for prerogative, 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 every rule,

And send his wife to church, his son to school.
To worship like his fathers, was his care;
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 changed, and one poetic itch
Has seized the court and city, poor and rich:
Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays,
Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays,
To theatres, and to rehearsals throng,
And all our grace at table is a song.
I, who so oft renounce the muses, lie,
Not -'s self e'er tells more fibs than I ;
When sick of muse, or 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.

He served a 'prenticeship, who sets up shop;
Ward' try'd on puppies, and the poor, his drop;
Even Radcliff's doctors travel first to France,
Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance.
Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile?
(Should Ripley venture, all the world would
smile)

But those who cannot write, and those who can,
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:
Sometimes the folly benefits mankind;
And rarely avarice 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.

Of little use the man you may suppose,
Who says in verse what others say in prose;
Yet let me show, a poet's of some weight,
And (though no soldier3) useful to the state.

The Siege of Rhodes, by Sir William Davenant, the first opera sung in England.

2 A famous empiric, whose pill and drop had several surprising effects, and were one of the principal subjects of writing and conversation at this time.

3 Horace had not acquitted himself much to his credit in this capacity (non bene relicta parmula) in the battle of Philippi. It is manifest he alludes to himself in this whole account of the poet's character, but with an intermixture of irony: Vivit siliquis et pane secundo, has a relation to his epicurism: Os tenerum pueri, is ridicule. The nobler

What will a child learn sooner than a song?
What better teach a foreigner the tongue ?
What's long or short, each accent where to place,
And speak in public with some sort of grace.
I scarce can think him such a worthless thing,
Unless he praise some monster of a king ;
Or virtue, or religion turn to sport,
To please a lewd, or unbelieving court.
Unhappy Dryden !- -In all Charles's days,
Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays;
And in our own (excuse some courtly stains)
No whiter page than Addison remains.
He, from the taste obscene reclaims our youth,
And sets the passions on the side of truth,
Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art,
And pours each human virtue in the heart.
Let Ireland tell, how wit upheld her cause,
Her trade supported, and supplied her laws;
And leave on SWIFT this grateful verse engraved,
"The rights a court attack'd, a poet saved."
Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure,
Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor',
Proud vice to brand, or injured worth adorn,
And stretch the ray to ages yet unborn.
Not but there are, who merit other palms;
Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms:
The boys and girls whom charity maintains,
Implore your help in these pathetic strains:
How could devotion touch the country pews,
Unless the Gods bestow'd a proper muse?
Verse cheers their leisure, verse assists their work,
Verse prays for peace, or sings down pope and Turk.
The silenced preacher yields to potent strain,
And feels that grace his prayer besought in vain;
The blessing thrills through all the labouring throng,
And Heaven is won by violence of song.

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and offerings, and a thankful strain:
The joy their wives, their sons, and servants share,
Ease of their toil, and partners of their care:
The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bowl,
Smoothed every brow, and open'd every soul:
With growing years the pleasing licence grew,
And taunts alternate innocently flew.

But times corrupt, and Nature, ill-inclined,
Produced the point that left a sting behind;
Till friend with friend, and families at strife,
Triumphant malice raged through private life.
Who felt the wrong, or fear'd it, took the alarm,
Appeal'd to law, and justice lent her arm.
At length, by wholesome dread of statutes bound,
The poets learn'd to please, and not to wound:
Most warp'd to flattery's side; but some, more nice,
Preserved the freedom, and forbore the vice.
Hence satire rose, that just the medium hit,
And heals with morals what it hurts with wit.
We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's

charms;

Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms;

office of a poet follows: Torquet ab obscænis-Mox etiam pectus-Recte facta refert, &c., which the imitator has applied where he thinks it more due than to himself. He hopes to be pardoned, if, as he is sincerely inclined to praise what deserves to be praised, he arraigns what deserves to be arraigned, in the 210, 211, and 212th verses.

A foundation for the maintenance of idiots, and a fund for assisting the poor, by lending small sums of money on

demand.

Britain to soft refinements less a foe,

Wit

grew polite, and numbers learn'd to flow.
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Though still some traces of our rustic vein,
And splay-foot verse, remain'd, and will remain.
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tired Nation breathed from civil war.
Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire,
Show'd us that France had something to admire.
Not but the tragic spirit was our own,
And full in Shakspeare, fair in Otway shone:
But Otway fail'd to polish or refine,
And fluent Shakspeare scarce effaced a line.
Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire
The humble muse of comedy require.
But in known images of life, I guess
The labour greater, as the indulgence less.
Observe how seldom even the best succeed:
Tell me if Congreve's fools are fools indeed?
What pert, low dialogue has Farquhar writ!
How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit!
The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
Who fairly puts all characters to bed!
And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,
To make poor Pinky eat with vast applause!
But fill their purse, our poets' work is done,
Alike to them, by pathos or by pun.

O you! whom vanity's light bark conveys
On Fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise,
With what a shifting gale your course you ply,
For ever sunk too low, or borne too high!
Who pants for glory finds but short repose,

breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows. Farewell the stage! if just as thrives the play, The silly bard grows fat, or falls away.

There still remains, to mortify a wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit:
A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd;
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the farce, the Bear, or the Black-joke.
What dear delight to Britons farce affords!
Ever the taste of mobs, but now of lords:
(Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies
From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.)
The play stands still; damn action and discourse,
Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse ;
Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn,
Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn;
The champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast 3.
With laughter sure Democritus had died,
Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.
Let bear or elephant be e'er so white,
The people, sure, the people are the sight!

Mr. Waller, about this time, with the Earl of Dorset,
Mr. Godolphin, and others, translated the Pompey of
Corneille, and the more correct French poets began to be

in reputation.

A name taken by Mrs. Behn, authoress of several obscene plays, &c.

3 The coronation of Henry VIII. and Queen Anne Boleyn, in which the playhouses vied with each other to represent all the pomp of a coronation. In this noble contention the armour of one of the kings of England was borrowed from the Tower, to dress the champion.

111

Ah luckless poet! stretch thy lungs and roar,
That bear or elephant shall heed thee more;
While all its throats the gallery extends,
And all the thunder of the pit ascends!
Loud as the wolves, on Orcas' stormy steep',
Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep.
Such is the shout, the long-applauding note,
At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;
Or when from court a birth-day suit bestow'd,
Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load.
Booth enters,-hark! the universal peal!
"But has he spoken?" Not a syllable.
"What shook the stage, and made the people

stare?"

Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquer'd
chair.

Yet, lest you think I rally more than teach,
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once presume to instruct the times,
To know the poet from the man of rhymes:
'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns;
Enrage, compose, with more than magic art,
With pity, and with terror, tear my heart;
And snatch me, o'er the earth, or through the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.
But not this part of the poetic state,
Alone, deserves the favour of the great:
Think of those authors, sir, who would rely
More on a reader's sense than gazer's eye.
Or who shall wander where the muses sing?
Who climb their mountain, or who taste their
How shall we fill a library with wit,
When Merlin's Cave is half-unfinish'd yet?
My liege! why writers little claim your thought,
I guess; and, with their leave, will tell the fault:
We poets are (upon a poet's word)

[spring

Of all mankind, the creatures most absurd:
The season, when to come, and when to go,
To sing, or cease to sing, we never know ;
And if we will recite nine hours in ten,
You lose your patience, just like other men.
Then too we hurt ourselves, when to defend
A single verse, we quarrel with a friend;
Repeat unask'd; lament, the wit's too fine
For vulgar eyes, and point out every line.
But most, when straining with too weak a wing,
We needs will write epistles to the king;
Expect a place, or pension from the crown;
And from the moment we oblige the town,
Or dubb'd historians by express command,
To enrol your triumphs o'er the seas and land,
Be call'd to court to plan some work divine,
As once for LOUIS, Boileau and Racine.

Yet think, great sir! (so many virtues shown)
Ah think, what poet best may make them known?
Or choose at least some minister of grace,
Fit to bestow the laureat's weighty place.
Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair,
Assign'd his figure to Bernini's care;
And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed;
So well in paint and stone they judged of merit:
But kings in wit may want discerning spirit.

4 The farthest northern promontory of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades.

5 Munus Apolline dignum. The Palatine Library, the building by Augustus.

A building in the Royal Gardens of Richmond, whero is a small but choice collection of books.

EC

Who there his muse, or self, or soul attends,
In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and
My counsel sends to execute a deed:
A poet begs me I will hear him read:
[friends?
In Palace-yard, at nine you'll find me there-
At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square—
Before the lords, at twelve, my cause comes on-
There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one.-

"Oh but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets."
Not quite so well, however, as one ought;

A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought;
And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?
And peers give way, exalted as they are,
Even to their own s-r-v-nce in a car?
Go, lofty poet! and in such a crowd,
Sing thy sonorous verse-but not aloud.
Alas! to grottoes and to groves we run,
To ease and silence, every muse's son:
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,
Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's-court1.
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?

How match the bards whom none e'er match'd
before?

The man, who stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives seven years complete,
See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on,
He walks, an object new beneath the sun!
The boys flock round him, and the people stare :
So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear,
Stept from its pedestal to take the air!

And here, while town, and court, and city roars,
With mobs, and duns, and soldiers, at their doors;
Shall I, in London, act this idle part?
Composing songs, for fools to get by heart?

The Temple late two brother serjeants saw,
Who deem'd each other oracles of law;
With equal talents, these congenial souls,
One lull'd the Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls;
Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at MURRAY, as a wit.
"Twas, sir, your law," and "Sir, your eloquence,"
"Yours, Cowper's manner," and "Yours, Talbot's

sense."

Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,
Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit.
Call Tibbald Shakspeare, and he'll swear the Nine,
Dear Cibber! never match'd one ode of thine.
Lord! how we strut through Merlin's Cave, to see
No poets there, but Stephen, you, and me.
Walk with respect behind, while we at ease
Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we
please.

"My dear Tibullus!" if that will not do,
"Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you:
Or, I'm content, allow me Dryden's strains,
And you shall rise up Otway for your pains."
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace

This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race;

And much must flatter,

To court applause by printing what I write :
But let the fit pass o'er, I'm wise enough

the whim should bite,

To stop

In vain, bad rhymers all mankind reject,

113

'Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue,
Each praised within, is happy all day long.
But how severely with themselves proceed

The men,

who write such verse as we can read?
Their own strict judges, not a word they spare
That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care,
Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place,
Nay, though at court (perhaps) it may find grace:
Such they'll degrade; and sometimes, in its stead,
In downright charity revive the dead;

Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years;
Command old words that long have slept, to wake,
Words, that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake ;
Or bid the new be English, ages hence,
(For use will father what's begot by sense)
Pour the full tide of eloquence along,
Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong,
Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue;
Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine,
But show no mercy to an empty line:
Then polish all, with so much life and ease,
You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please:
"But ease in writing flows from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance."

If such the plague and pains to write by rule,
Better (say I) be pleased, and play the fool;
Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease,
It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.
There lived in primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;
Who, though the house was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate :
In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell,
And much too wise to walk into a well.
Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured,
They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they
cured:

My friends! he cried, p-x take you for your care!
That from a patriot of distinguish'd note,
Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.

Whereat the gentleman began to stare

Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate:
Wisdom (curse on it) will come soon or late.
There is a time when poets will grow dull:
I'll even leave verses to the boys at school:
To rules of poetry no more confined,
I'll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind,
Teach every thought within its bounds to roll,
And keep the equal measure of the soul.

Soon as I enter at my country-door,
My mind resumes the thread it dropt before;
Thoughts, which at Hyde-park-corner I forgot,
Meet and rejoin me, in the pensive Grot.
There all alone, and compliments apart,
I ask these sober questions of my heart.

If, when the more you drink, the more you crave,
You tell the doctor; when the more you have,
The more you want, why not with equal ease
Confess as well your folly, as disease?
The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
"Men only feel the smart, but not the vice."

When golden angels cease to cure the evil,
You give all royal witchcraft to the devil:
When servile chaplains cry, that birth and place

They treat themselves with most profound respect; Indue a peer with honour, truth, and grace,

1 Two villages within a few miles of London.

Look in that breast, most dirty D-! be fair,
Say, can you find out one such lodger there?

T

Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach,
You go to church to hear these flatterers preach.
Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit,
A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit,
The wisest man might blush, I must agree
If D*** loved sixpence, more than he.

If there be truth in law, and use can give
A property, that's yours, on which you live.
Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford
Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
All Worldly's hens, nay partridge, sold to town,
His venison too, a guinea makes
your own;

He bought at thousands, what with better wit
You purchase as you want, and bit by bit;
Now, or long since, what difference will be found!
You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,
Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln fen,
Buy every stick of wood, that lends them heat,
Buy every pullet they afford to eat.

Yet these are wights, who fondly call their own
Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.
The laws of God, as well as of the land,
Abhor, a perpetuity should stand :
Estates have wings, and hang in fortune's power
Loose on the point of every wavering hour;
Ready, by force, or of your own accord,
By sale, at least by death, to change their lord.
Man? and for ever? wretch! what would'st thou
Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave. [have?
Ail vast possessions, (just the same the case
Whether you call them villa, park, or chase)
Alas, my BATHURST! what will they avail?
Join Cotswold hills to Saperton's fair dale,
Let rising granaries and temples here,
Their mingled farms and pyramids appear,
Link towns to towns with avenues of oak,
Enclose whole downs in walls, 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.
Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high,
Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,
There are who have not,-and thank Heaven there
are,

Who, if they have not, think not worth their care.
Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find
Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.

Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one
Plows, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun;
The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's
mines:

Why one like Bu- with pay and scorn content,
Bows and votes on, in court and Parliament;
One driven by strong benevolence of soul,
Shall fly like Oglethorpe', from pole to pole:
Is known alone to that directing power,
Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
That God of nature, who, within us still,
Inclines our action, not constrains our will;
Various of temper, as of face or frame,
Each individual: His great end the same.

Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap,
A part I will enjoy, as well as keep.
My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace
A man so poor would live without a place :
But sure no statute in his favour says,
How free, or frugal, I shall pass my days:

1 Employed in settling the colony of Georgia.

I, who at some times spend, at others spare,
Divided between carelessness and care.
'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to heed to treasure more;
Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day,
And pleased, if sordid want be far away.

What is't to me, (a passenger, God wot)
Whether my vessel be first rate or not?
The ship itself may make a better figure,
But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger.
I neither strut with every favouring breath,
Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.
In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

"But why all this of avarice? I have none."
I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone;
But does no other lord it at this hour,
As wild and mad? the avarice of power?
Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appall?
Not the black fear of death that saddens all?
With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne,
Despise the known, nor tremble at the unknown?
Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,
In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?
Pleased to look forward, pleased to look behind,
And count each birth-day with a grateful mind?
Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?
Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay?
Or will you think, my friend, your business done,
When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've play'd, and loved, and eat, and drank your
[fill:
Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

YES; thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too:
Yet here, as even in hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,
That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.
I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
It brought (no doubt) the excise and army in:
[how,
Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows
But that the cure is starving, all allow.
Yet like the papist's, is the poet's state,
Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:
The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read