Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
But most by numbers judge a poet's song, And smooth or rough with them is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for thedoctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes: 349
Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze,'
In the next line, it 'whispers through the trees:'
If crystal streams with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd, not in vain, with 'sleep:'
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line,
Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance; As those move easiest who have learn'd to
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow :
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along
the main.
Hear how Timotheus'* varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise;
While at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow;
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: 379
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdued by sound!
The power of music all our hearts allow;
And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.
Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such,
Who still are pleased too little or too much.
At every trifle scorn to take offence;
That always shows great pride or little sense :
Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; 390
For fools admire, but men of sense approve :
As things seem large which we through mist
descry,
Dulness is ever apt to magnify.
Some foreign writers, some our own despise ; The ancients only, or the moderns prize: Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside. Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, And force that sun but on a part to shine, Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, 400 But ripens spirits in cold northern climes;
* Alluding to Dryden's ode, 'Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music.'
Which from the first has shone on ages past,
Enlights the present, and shall warm the last;
Though each may feel increases and decays,
And see now clearer and now darker days.
Regard not then if wit be old or new;
But blame the false, and value still the true.
Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the town;
They reason and conclude by precedent,
And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent.
Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then
Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
Of all the servile herd, the worst is he
That in proud dulness joins with quality :
A constant critic at the great man's board,
To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord.
What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines !
Before his sacred name flies every fault,
And each exalted stanza teems with thought!
The vulgar thus through imitation err,
As oft the learn'd by being singular;
So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng
By chance go right, they purposely go wrong:
So schismatics the plain believers quit,
And are but damn'd for having too much wit. 429
Some praise at morning what they blame at night;
But always think the last opinion right.
A Muse by these is like a mistress used;
This hour she's idolised, the next abused;
While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,
'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.
Ask them the cause; they're wiser still, they say;
And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow ;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.
Once school divines this zealous isle o'erspread;
Who knew most sentences was deepest read; 441
Faith, Gospel, all, seem'd made to be disputed, -And none had sense enough to be confuted: Scotists and Thomists* now in peace remain Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck-lane.+ If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,
The current folly proves the ready wit;
And authors think their reputation safe,
Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh.
Some, valuing those of their own side or mind,
Still make themselves the measure of mankind:
Fondly we think we honour merit then,
When we but praise ourselves in other men.
Parties in wit attend on those of state,
And public faction doubles private hate.
Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden rose,
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux; 459
But sense survived when merry jests were pass'd;
For rising merit will buoy up at last.
Might he return, and bless once more our eyes,
New Blackmorest and new Milbourns§ must arise:
Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,
Zoilus again would start up from the dead.
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue;
But, like a shadow, proves the substance true:
For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known
The opposing body's grossness, not its own. 469
When first that sun too powerful beams displays,
It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;
* The respective followers of Johannes Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, two doctors opposed to each other on the subject of grace.
"A place where old and second-hand books were sold formerly, near Smithfield."
See Dunciad, Book I., line 104, note.
§ See Dunciad, Book II., line 349, note.
A sophist and grammarian of Amphipolis, who severely criticised Homer, Aristotle, &c. which caused him to be so disliked that he was put to death. Hence Zoilus means a severe critic.
But e'en those clouds at last adorn its way,
Reflect new glories, and augment the day.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.
Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes,
And 'tis but just to let them live betimes.
No longer now that golden age appears,
When patriarch-wits survived a thousand years:
Now length of fame, our second life, is lost, 480
And bare threescore is all e'en that can boast:
Our sons their fathers' failing language see;
And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.
So when the faithful pencil has design'd
Some bright idea of the master's mind,
Where a new world leaps out at his command,
And ready nature waits upon his hand;
When the ripe colours soften and unite,
And sweetly melt into just shade and light; 489
When mellowing years their full perfection give,
And each bold figure just begins to live ;-
The treacherous colours the fair art betray,
And all the bright creation fades away.
Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things, Atones not for that envy which it brings. In youth alone its empty praise we boast, But soon the short-lived vanity is lost; Like some fair flower the early spring supplies, That gaily blooms, but e'en in blooming dies. What is this wit, which must our cares employ? The owner's wife, that other men enjoy ; Then most our trouble still when most admired, And still the more we give the more required; Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease; Sure some to vex, but never all to please: "Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun; By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone. If wit so much from ignorance undergo, Ah, let not learning too commence its foe! Of old, those met rewards who could excel, And such were praised who but endeavour'd well:
|