2 Who Nature's treasures would explore, Her mysteries and arcana know, Must high as lofty Newton soar,

Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

3 Who studies ancient laws and rites,
Tongues, arts, and arms, and history;
Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights,
And in the endless labour die.

4 Who travels in religious jars,

(Truth mixed with error, shades with rays,) Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars, In ocean wide or sinks or strays.

5 But grant our hero's hope, long toil
And comprehensive genius crown,
All sciences, all arts his spoil,
Yet what reward, or what renown?

6 Envy, innate in vulgar souls,
Envy steps in and stops his rise;
Envy with poisoned tarnish fouls
His lustre, and his worth decries.

7 He lives inglorious or in want,

To college and old books confined: Instead of learned, he's called pedant;

Dunces advanced, he's left behind:

Yet left content, a genuine Stoic he,
Great without patron, rich without South Sea.

LINES ADDRESSED TO POPE.1

1 While malice, Pope, denies thy page
Its own celestial fire;

While critics and while bards in rage
Admiring, won't admire:

2 While wayward pens thy worth assail,
And envious tongues decry;

These times, though many a friend bewail,
These times bewail not I.

3 But when the world's loud praise is thine,
And spleen no more shall blame;
When with thy Homer thou shalt shine
In one unclouded fame:

4 When none shall rail, and every lay
Devote a wreath to thee;

That day (for come it will) that day
Shall I lament to see.

1 Written by one Lewis, a schoolmaster, and highly commended by Johnson.— See Boswell.