And naive both (allow the phrase Which no one English word conveys) Wrapt up their stories neat and clean, Easy as
Denis's you mean♦. -The very man-not mere translation, But La Fontaine by transmigration.
Authors, as Dryden's maxim runs, Have what he calls poetic sons, Thus Milton, more correctly wild, Was richer Spenser's lawful child: And Churchill, got on all the nine, Is Dryden's heir in ev'ry line. Thus Denis proves his parents plain, The child of Fase, and La Fontaine.
His muse, indeed, the work secures, And asks our praise as much as yours; For, if delighted, readers too
May pay their thanks, as well as you.
But you, my friend, (so folks complain) For ever in this easy vein,
This prose in verse, this measur'd talk,
This pace, that's neither trot nor walk,
Aim at no flights, nor strive to give
A real poem fit to live.
(To critics no offence, I hope) Prior shall live as long as Pope,
Each in his manner sure to please,
While both have strength, and both have ease;
Yet though their various beauties strike,
Their ease, their strength is not alike.
Both with consummate horseman's skill,
Ride as they list, about the hill;
But take, peculiar in their mode,
Their favourite horse, and favourite road.
For me, once fond of author-fame,
Now forc'd to bear its weight and shame,
I have no time to run a race,
A traveller's my only pace.
They, whom their steeds unjaded bear
Around Hydepark, to take the air,
May frisk and prance, and ride their fill,
And go all paces which they will;
We, hackney tits-nay, never smile,
Who trot our stage of thirty mile,
Must travel in a constant plan,
And run our journey, as we can.
A critic says, upon whose sleeve Some pin more faith than you'll believe, That writings which as easy please, Are not the writings wrote with ease, From whence the inference is plain, Your friend Mat Prior wrote with pain.
With pain perhaps he might correct, With care supply each loose defect,
✦ Charles Denis, the author of Fables and other poetical pieces, now forgot. C.
Yet sure, if rhyme, which seems to flow,
Whether its master will or no,
If humour, not by study sought,
But rising from immediate thought,
Are proofs of ease, what hardy name
Shall e'er dispute a Prior's claim!
But still your critic's observation
Strikes at no poet's reputation,
His keen reflection only bits
Your rhyming fops and pedling wits.
As some take stiffness for a grace,
And walk a dancing-master's pace,
And others, for familiar air
Mistake the slouching of a bear;
So some will finically trim,
And dress their lady-muse too prim,
Others, mere slovens in their pen
(The mob of lords and gentlemen)
Fancy they write with ease and pleasure,
By rambling out of rhyme and measure.
And, on your critic's judgment, these
Write easily, and not with ease.
There are, indeed, whose wish pursues,
And inclination courts the Muse;
Who, happy in a partial fame,
A while possess a poet's name.
But read their works, examine fair,
-Show me invention, fancy there:
Taste I allow; but is the flow
Of genius in them? Surely, no.
'Tis labour from the classic brain.
Read your own Addison's Campaign.
E'en he, nay, think me not severe,
A critic fine, of Latin ear,
Who toss'd his classic thoughts around
With elegance on Roman ground,
Just simmering with the Muse's flame
Woos but a cool and sober dame;
And all his English rhymes express
But beggar-thoughts in royal dress.
In verse his genius seldom glows,
A poet only in his prose,
Which rolls luxuriant, rich, and chaste,
Improv'd by fancy, wit, and taste.
I task you for yourself, my friend,
A subject you can ne'er defend,
And you cajole me all the while
With dissertations upon style.
Leave others' wits and works alone,
And think a little of your own,
For Fame, when all is said and done,
Though a coy mistress, may be won;
And half the thought, and pains, and time,
You take to jingle easy rhyme,
Would make an ode, would make a play,
Done into English, Malloch's way.
-Stretch out your more heroic feet,
And write an elegy complete.
Or, not a more laborious task,
Could you not pen a classic masque?
With will at large, and unclogg'd wings,
I durst not soar to such high things.
For 1, who have more phlegm than fire,
Must understand, or not admire,
But when I read with admiration,
Perhaps I'll write in imitation.
But business of this monthly kind, Need that alone engross your mind. Assistance must pour in a-pace, New passengers will take a place, And then your friends
Might make a better work succeed,
And with the helps which they shall give,
I and the magazine shall live.
Yes, live, and eat, and nothing more.
AN EPISTLE TO C. CHURCHILL.
-shall I wish you joy of fame,
That loudly echoes Churchill's name,
And sets you on the Muses' throne,
Which right of conquest made your own?
Or shall I (knowing how unfit
The world esteems a man of wit,
That wheresoever he appears,
They wonder if the knave has ears)
Address with joy and lamentation,
Condolence and congratulation,
As colleges, who duly bring
Their mess of verse to every king,
Too economical in taste,
Their sorrow or their joy to waste:
Mix both together, sweet and sour;
And bind the thorn up with the flow'r?
Sometimes 'tis elegy, or ode.
Epistle now's your only mode.
Whether that style more glibly hits,
The fancies of our rambling wits,
Who wince and kick at all oppression,
But love to straggle in digression;
Or, that by writing to the great
In letters, honours, or estate,
We slip more easy into fame,
By clinging to another's name,
And with their strength or weakness yoke,
As ivy climbs about an oak;
As tuft-hunters will buzz and purr
About a fellow-commoner,
Or crows will wing a higher flight,
When sailing round the floating kite.
Whate'er the motive, 't is the mode,
And I will travel in the road,
The fashionable track pursue,
And write my simple thoughts to you,
Just as they rise from head or heart,
Not marshall'd by the herald art.
By vanity or pleasure led,
From thirst of fame, or want of bread,
Shall any start up sons of rhyme
Pathetic, easy, or sublime?
-You'd think, to bear what critics say,
Their labour was no more than play:
And that, but such a paltry station
Reflects disgrace on education,
(As if we could at once forsake
What education helps to make)
Each reader has superior skill,
And can write better when he will.
In short, howe'er you toil and drudge,
The world, the mighty world, is judge,
And nice and fanciful opinion
Sways all the world with strange dominion;
Opinion! which on crutches walks,
And sounds the words another talks.
Bring me eleven critics grown,
Ten have no judgment of their own:
But like the Cyclops watch the nod
Of some informing master god:
Or as, when near his latest breath,
The patient fain would juggle Death,
When doctors sit in consultation
(Which means no more than conversation, A kind of comfortable chat
'Mongst social friends, on this and that,
As whether stocks get up or down,
And tittle-tattle of the town;
Books, pictures, politics, and news,
Who lies with whom, and who got whose)
Opinions never disagree,
One doctor writes, all take the fee.
But eminence offends at once
The owlish eye of critic dunce,
Dullness alarm'd, collects her force,
And Folly screams till she is hoarse.
Then far abroad the libel flies
From all th' artillery of lies,
Malice, delighted, flaps her wing,
And Epigram prepares her sting.
Around the frequent pellets whistle
From satire, ode, and pert epistle;
While every blockhead strives to throw
His share of vengeance on his foe:
As if it were a Shrove-tide game,
And cocks and poets were the same.
Thus should a wooden collar deck
Some woeful 'squire's embarrass'd neck,
When high above the crowd he stands
With equi-distant sprawling hands,
And without hat, politely bare,
Pops out his head to take the air;
The mob his kind acceptance begs
Of dirt, and stones, and addle-eggs.
O Genius! though thy noble skill
Can guide thy Pegasus at will;
Fleet let him bear thee as the wind-
Dullness mounts up and clings behind.
In vain you spur, and whip, and smack,
You cannot shake her from your back.
Ill-nature springs as merit grows,
Close as the thorn is to the rose.
Could Herculaneum's friendly earth
Give Mævius' works a second birth,
Malevolence, with lifted eyes,
Would sanctify the noble prize.
While modern critics should behold
Their near relation to the old,
And wondring gape at one another,
To see the likeness of a brother.
But with us rhyming moderns here,
Critics are not the only fear;
The poet's bark meets sharper shocks
From other sands, and other rocks.
Not such alone who understand,
Whose book and memory are at hand,
Who scientific skill profess,
And are great adepts-more or less;
(Whether distinguish'd by degree,
They write A. M. or sign M. D.
Or make advances somewhat higher
And take a new degree of 'squire)
Who read your authors, Greek and Latin,
And bring you strange quotations pat in,
As if each sentence grew more terse
From odds and ends, and scraps of verse;
Who with true poetry dispense,
So social sound suits simple sense,
And load one letter with the labours,
Which should be shar'd among its neighbours.
Who know that thought produces pain,
And deep reflection mads the brain,
And therefore, wise and prudent grown,
Have no ideas of their own.
But if the man of Nature speak,
Advance their bayonets of Greek,
And keep plain Sense at such a distance,
She cannot give a friend assistance.
Not these alone in judgment rise,
And shoot at genius as it flies,
But those who cannot spell, will talk,
As women scold, who cannot walk.
Your man of habit, who's wound up
To eat and drink, and dine and sup,
But has not either will or pow'r
To break out of his formal hour;
Who lives by rule, and ne'er outgoes it;
Moves like a clock, and bardly knows it;
Who is a kind of breathing being,
Which has but half the pow'r of seeing;
Who stands for ever on the brink,
Yet dare not plunge enough to think,
Nor has one reason to supply
Wherefore he does a thing, or why,
But what he does proceeds so right,
You'd think him always guided by't;
Joins poetry and vice together
Like sun and rain in April weather,
Holds rake and wit as things the same,
And all the difference but a name.
A rake! alas! how many wear
The brow of mirth, with heart of care!
The desperate wretch reflection flies,
And shuns the way where madness lies,
Dreads each increasing pang of grief,
And runs to Folly for relief,
There, 'midst the momentary joys
Of giddy mirth and frantic noise,
Forgetfulness, her eldest born,
To her and poet shut the door-
And whip the beggar, with his whore!
Poet!-a fool! a wretch! a knave!
A mere mechanic dirty slave!
What is his verse, but cooping sense
Within an arbitrary fence?
At best, but ringing that in rhyme,
Which prose would say in half the time?
Measure and numbers! what are those
But artificial chains for prose?
Which mechanism quaintly joins
In parallels of see-saw lines.
And when the frisky wanton writes
In Pindar's (what d'ye call 'em)-flights,
Th' uneven measure, short and tall,
Now rhyming twice, now not at all,
In curves and angles twirls about,
Like Chinese railing, in and out.
Thus when you've labour'd hours on hours,
Cull'd all the sweets, cull'd all the flow'rs,
The churl, whose dull imagination
Is dead to every fine sensation,
Too gross to relish Nature's bloom,
Or taste her simple rich perfume,
Shall cast them by as useless stuff,
And fly with keenness to his snuff.
Look round the world, not one in ten, Think poets good, or honest men.
'Tis true their conduct, not o'er nice, Sits often loose to easy vice.
Perhaps their temperance will not pass
The due rotation of the glass;
And gravity denies 'em pow'r
T'unpeg their hats at such an hour.
Some vices must to all appear
As constitutional as fear;
And every moralist will find
A ruling passion in the mind:
Which, though pent up and barricado'd
Like winds, where Eolus bravado'd;
Like them, will sally from their den,
And raise a tempest now and then;
Unhinge dame Prudence from her plan,
And rutile all the world of man.
Can authors then exemption draw
From Nature's, or the common law?
They err alike with all mankind,
Yet not the same indulgence find.
Their lives are more conspicuous grown,
More talk'd off, pointed at, and shown.
Till every errour seems to rise
To sins of most gigantic size.
Thus fares it still, however hard,
With every wit, and ev'ry bard.
His public writings, private life,
Smooths the world's hate, and blockhead's scorn, Nay more, his mistress, or his wife,
Then Pleasure wins upon the mind,
Ye Cares, go whistle to the wind;
Then welcome frolic, welcome whim!
The world is all alike to him.
Distress is all in apprehension;
It ceases when 'tis past prevention:
And happiness then presses near,
When not a hope's left, nor a fear.
-But you've enough, nor want my preaching,
And I was never form'd for teaching.
Male prudes, we know, (those driv'ling things) Will have their gibes, and taunts, and flings. How will the sober cit abuse,
The sallies of the culprit Muse;
And ev'ry social, dear connection,
Must bear a critical dissection;
While friends connive, and rivals hate,
Scoundrels traduce, and blockheads bait..
Perhaps you'll readily admit
There's danger from the trading wit,
And dunce and fool, and such as those,
Must be of course the poet's foes:
But sure no sober man alive,
Can think that friends would e'er connive.
From just remarks on earliest time,
In the first infancy of rhyme,
It may be fairly understood
There were two sects-the bad, the good.
Both fell together by the ears, And both beat up for volunteers.
By interest, or by birth allied, Numbers flock'd in on either side.
Wit to his weapons ran at once,
While all the cry was "Down with Dunce!"
Onward he led his social bands,
The common cause had join'd their hands.
Yet even while their zeal they show,
And war against the gen'ral foe.
Howe'er their rage flam'd fierce and cruel,
They'd stop it all to fight a duel.
And each cool wit would meet his brother,
To pink and tilt at one another.
Jealous of every puff of fame,
The idle whistling of a name,
The property of half a line,
Whether a comma's your's or mine,
Shall make a bard a bard engage,
And shake the friendship of an age.
But diffident and modest wit
Is always ready to submit;
Fearful of press and publication,
Consults a brother's observation,
Talks of the maggot of his brains,
As hardly worth the critic pains;
"If ought disgusts the sense or ear,
You cannot, sir, be too severe.
Expunge, correct, do what you will,
I leave it to superior skill;
Exert the office of a friend,
You may oblige, but can't offend."
This bard too has his private clan,
Where he's the great, the only man.
Here, while the bottle and the bowl
Promote the joyous flow of soul,
(And sense of mind, no doubt, grows stronger
When failing legs can stand no longer)
Emphatic judgment takes the chair,
And damns about her with an air.
Then each, self-puff'd, and hero grown,
Able to cope with hosts alone,
Drawcansir like, his murders blends,
First slays his foes, and then his friends.
While your good word, or conversation,
Can lend a brother reputation;
While verse or preface quaintly penn'd,
Can raise the consequence of friend,
How visible the kind affection!
How close the partial fond connection!
Then he is quick, and I'm discerning,
And I have wit, and he has learning,
My judgment's strong, and his is chaste;
And both-aye both, are men of taste.
Should you nor steal nor borrow aid,
And set up for yourself in trade,
Resolv'd imprudently to show
That 'tis not always Wit and Co.
Feelings, before unknown, arise,
And Genius looks with jealous eyes.
Though thousands may arrive at fame,
Yet never take one path the same,
An author's vanity or pride
Can't bear a neighbour by his side,
Although he but delighted goes
Along the track which Nature shows,
Nor ever madly runs astray,
To cross his brother in his way.
And some there are, whose narrow minds,
Center'd in self, self always blinds,
Who, at a friend's re-echoed praise,
Which their own voice conspir'd to raise,
Shall be more deep and inly hurt,
Than from a foe's insulting dirt.
And some, too timid to reveal
That glow of heart, and forward zeal,
Which words are scanty to express,
But friends must feel from friend's success,
When full of hopes and fears, the Muse,
Which every breath of praise pursues,
Wou'd open to their free embrace,
Meet her with such a blasting face,
That all the brave imagination,
Which seeks the sun of approbation,
No more its early blossoms tries,
But curls its tender leaves, and dies.
Is there a man, whose genius strong, Rolls like a rapid stream along, Whose Muse, long hid in cheerless night, Pours on us like a flood of light, Whose acting comprehensive mind Walks fancy's regions, unconfin'd; Whom, nor the surly sense of pride, Nor affectation, warps aside; Who drags no author from his shelf, To talk on with an eye to self; Careless alike, in conversation, Of censure, or of approbation; Who freely thinks, and freely speaks, And meets the wit he never seeks ;. Whose reason calm, and judgment cool, Can pity, but not hate a fool; Who can a hearty praise bestow, If merit sparkles in a foe;
Who bold and open, firm and true,
Flatters no friends-yet loves them too:
Churchill will be the last to know
His is the portrait, 1 would show.
THE TWO RUBRIC POSTS.
A DIALOGUE.
IN Russel-street, ensued of late
Between two posts a strange debate.
-Two posts-aye posts-for posts can speak,
In Latin, Hebrew, French or Greek,
One Rubric thus address'd the other:
"A noble situation, brother,
With authors lac'd from top to toe,
Methinks we cut a taring show,
The Dialogues of famous dead',
You know how much they're bought and read.
Suppose again we raise their ghosts,
And make them chat through us two posts;
A thing's half finish'd well begun,
So take the authors as they run.
The list of names is mighty fine,
You look down this, and I that line.
Here's Pope and Swift, and Steele and Gay,
And Congreve, in the modern way.
Whilst you haye those I cannot speak,
But sound most wonderful in Greek.
-A dialogue-I should adore it,
With such a show of names before it."
"Modern, your judgment wanders wide," The ancient Rubric straight reply'd.
"It grieves me much, indeed, to find
We never can be of a mind,
Before one door, and in one street,
Neither ourselves nor thoughts can meet,
And we, as brother oft with brother,
Are at a distance from each other.
Suppose amongst the letter'd dead,
Some author should erect his head,
And starting from his Rubric, pop
Directly into Davies' shop,
Turn o'er the leaves, and look about
To find his own opinions out;
D'ye think one author out of ten
Would know his sentiments agen?
Thinking, your authors differ less in,
Than in their manner of expressing.
'Tis style which makes the writer known,
The mark he sets upon his own,
Let Congreve speak as Congreve writ,
And keep the ball up of his wit;
Let Swift be Swift, nor e'er demean
The sense and humour of the Dean.
E'en let the ancients rest in peace,
Nor bring good folks from Rome or Greece
To give a cause, for past transactions,
They never dreamt of in their actions.
I can't help quibbling, brother post,
"Twere better we should lay the ghost,
But 'twere a task of real merit
Could we contrive to raise their spirit.”
In that affection firm and true,
Which gratitude excites to you;
Shall I indulge the Muse, or stifle
This meditation of a trifle?
But you, perhaps, will kindly take
The trifle for the giver's sake,
Who only pays his grateful mite,
The just acknowledgment of right,
As to the landlord duly sent
A pepper-corn shall pass for rent.
Yet trifles often show the man,
More than his settled life and plan:
These are the starts of inclination;
Those the mere gloss of education,
Which has a wond'rous knack at turning
A blockhead to a man of learning;
And, by the help of form and place,
The child of sin to babe of grace.
Not that it alters Nature quite,
And sets perverted reason right,
But, like hypocrisy, conceals
The very passions which she feels;
And claps a vizor on the face,
To hide us from the world's disgrace,
Which, as the first appearance strikes,
Approves of all things, or dislikes.
Like the fond fool with eager glee,
Who sold his all, and put to sea,
Lur'd by the calm which seemed to sleep On the smooth surface of the deep;
"Peace, brother, peace, though what you say, Nor dreamt its waves could proudly rise,
I own has reason in its way,
On dialogues to bear so hard,
Is playing with a dangerous card;
Writers of rank are sacred things,
And crush like arbitrary kings.
Perhaps your sentiment is right,
Heav'n grant we may not suffer by't.
For should friend Davies overhear,
He'll publish ours another year."
THOUGH Winter its desolate train
Of frost and of tempest may bring,
Yet Flora steps forward again,
And Nature rejoices in Spring.
Though the Sun in his glories decreast, Of his beams in the evening is shorn, Yet he rises with joy from the east, And repairs them again in the morn.
But what can youth's sunshine recall, Or the blossoms of beauty restore? When its leaves are beginning to fall, It dies, and is heard of no more.
The spring-time of love then employ, 'Tis a lesson that's easy to learn, For Cupid's a vagrant, a boy,
And his seasons will never return.
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO J. B. ES2. SHALL 1, from worldly friends estrang'd, Embitter'd much, but nothing chang'd
And toss up mountains at the skies.
Appearance is the only thing,
A king's a wretch, a wretch a king.
Undress them both-You king, suppose
For once you wear the beggar's clothes;
Clothes that will take in every air;
-Bless me! they fit you to a hair.
Now you, sir Vagrant, quickly don
The robes his majesty had on.
And now, O world, so wond'rous wise,
Who see with such discerning eyes,
Put observation to the stretch,
Come-which is king, and which is wretch?
To cheat this world, the hardest task
Is to be constant to our mask.
Externals make direct impressions,
And masks are worn by all professions.
What need to dwell on topics stale?
Of parsons drunk with wine or ale?
Of lawyers, who with face of brass,
For learned rhetoricians pass?
Of scientific doctors big,
Hid in the pent-house of their wig?
Whose conversation hardly goes
Beyond half words, and hums! and oh's?
Of scholars, of superior taste,
Who cork it up for fear of waste,
Nor bring one bottle from their shelves,
But keep it always for themselves?
Wretches like these, my soul disdains,
And doubts their hearts as well as brains
Suppose a neighbour should desire
To light a candle at your fire,
Would it deprive your flame of light,
Because another profits by't?
But youth must often pay its court,
To these great scholars, by report,
Who live on hoarded reputation,
Which dares no risque of conversations
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