The rest, some farm the poor-box, some the pews;
Some keep assemblies, and would keep the stews;
Some with fat bucks on childish dotards fawn;
Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn;
While with the silent growth of ten per cent.
In dirt and darkness, hundreds stink content.

Of all these ways, if each pursues his own,
Satire, be kind, and let, the wretch alone :
But show me one who has it in his pow'r
To act consistent with himself an hour.
Sir Job sail'd forth, the evening bright and still,
"No place on earth (he cried) like Greenwich
66 hill?"

Up starts a palace, lo! th' obedient base
Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace
The silver Thames reflects its marble face.
Now let some whimsy, or that devil within
Which guides all those who know not what
they mean,

But give the Knight (or give his Lady) spleen,
Away, away! take all your scaffolds down,
For snug's the word: my dear! we 'll live in
town.'

EPISTLE VI.

To Mr. Murray.

"Nor to admire, is all the art I know "To make men happy, and to keep them so." (Plain truth, dear Murray! needs no flow'rs of speech;

So take it in the very words of Creech).

This vault of air, this congregated ball,
Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall,
There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes
Look thro' and trust the Ruler with his skies;
To him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful all without a fear.

"

At am'rous Flavio is the stocking thrown;
That very night he longs to lie alone.
The fool whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter,
For matrimonial solace dies a martyr.
Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch,
Transform themselves so strangely as the rich?
Well, but the poor-the poorhavethe sameitch;
They change their weekly barber, weekly news,
Prefer a new japanner to their shoes,
Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run
(They know not wither) in a chaise and one ;
They hire their sculler, and when once aboard
Grow sick, and damn the climate like a lord.
You laugh, half beau, half sloven, if I stand,
My wig all powder, and all snuff my band;
You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,
White gloves, and linen worthy lady Mary.
But when no prelate's lawn with hair-shirt lin'd|
Is half so incoherent as my mind,
When (each opinion with the next at strife,
One ebb and flow of follies all my life)
I plant, root up; I build, and then confound;
Turn round to square, and square again to round,
You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this madness but a common case,
Nor once to Chancery nor to Hale apply;
Yet hang your lip, to see a seam awry!
Careless how ill I with myself agree,
Kind to my dress, my figure, not to me.
Is this my guide, philosopher, and friend?
This he who loves me, and who ought to mend;
Who ought to make me (what he can, or none)
That man divine whom wisdom calls her own;
Great without title, without fortune blest; [prest;
Rich even when plunder'd, honor'd while
Lov'd without youth, and follow'dwithout pow'r;
At home, tho' exil'd; free, tho' in the Tow'r:
In short, that reas'ning, high, immortal thing;
Just less than Jove, and much above a king,
Nay, halfin heaven-except (what's mighty odd)
A of vapors clouds this demi-god ?.

Admire we then what earth's low entrails
Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold : [hold,
All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?
Or popularity, or stars and strings?
The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?
Say with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze,
And pay the great our homage of amaze?

Ifweak the pleasure that from these can spring,
The fear to want them is as weak a thing.
Whether we dread, or whether we desire,
In either case, believe me, we admire ;
Whether we joy or grieve, the same the curse,
Surpris'd at better, or surpris'd at worse.
Thus, good or bad to one extreme betray
Th' unbalanc'd mind, and snatch the man away,
For virtue's self may too much zeal be had;
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
Go then, and if you can, admire the state
Of beaming diamonds, and reflected plate:
Procure a taste to double the surprise.
And gaze on Parian charms with learned eyes:
Be struck with bright brocade, or Tyrian dye,
Our birth-day nobles' splendid livery.
If not so pleas'd, at council board rejoice,
To see their judgements hang upon thy voice;
From morn to night, at senate, rolls, and hall,
Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all.
But wherefore all this labor, all this strife?
For fame, for riches, for a noble wife?
Shall one whom nature, learning, birth conspir'd
To form, not to admire but be admir'd,
Sigh while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,
Weds the rich dullness of some son of earth?
Yet time ennobles or degrades each line;
It brighten'd Craggs's, and may darken thine:
And what is fame? the meanest have their day;
The greatest can but blaze, and pass away.
Grac'd as thou art with all the pow'r of words;
So known, so honor'd, at the House of Lords.
Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie:
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
op-Shall be no more than Tully, or an Hyde!

Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone,
Will any mortal let himself alone?
See Ward by batter'd beaus invited over,
And desp'rate mis'ry lays hold on Dover.
The case is easier in the mind's disease;
There all men may be cur'd whene'er they please
Would

}

Would ye be blest? despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains ;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.
But art thou one whom new opinions sway,
One who believes as Tindal leads the way;
Who virtue and a church alike disowns;
Thinks that but words, and this but brick and
stones?

From Latian Syrens, French Circarian feasts,
Return'd well travell'd, and transform'd to beasts;
Or for a titled punk, or foreign flaine,
Renounce our country and degrade our name?
If, after all, we must with Wilmot own,
The cordial drop of life is love alone,
And Swift cry wisely, "Vive la Bagatelle!"
The man that loves and laughs may sure do well.
Adieu- if this advice appear the worst,
Ev'n take the counsel which I gave you first;
Or, better precepts if you can impart,
Why do; I'll follow them with all my heart.

If time improve our wits as well as wine,
Say at what age a poet grows divine?
Shall we, or shall we not, account him so,
Who died, perhaps an hundred years ago?
End all dispute, and fix the year precise
When British bards begin t''immortalize ?

"Who lasts a century can have no flaw? "I hold that wit a classic, good in law."

Suppose he wants a year, will you compound?
And shall we deem him antient, right, and
Or damn to all eternity at once,
At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?

[sound?

"We shall not quarrel for a year or two ;
"By courtesy of England he may do." [bare,
Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail
I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,
And melt down antients like a heap of snow,
While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe;
And, estimating authors by the year,
Bestow a garland only on a bier.

One simile, that solitary shines
In the dry desart of a thousand lines,
Or lengthen'd thought that gleams thro' many
a page,

Shakspeare (whom you and ev'ry playhouse
Style the divine, the matchless, what you
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
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.

"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 Shakspeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit; "How Beaumont's judgement check'd what Fletcher writ;

"How Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow,
But, for the passions, Southern sure and Rowe.

These, only these, support the crowded stage,Lely on animated canvas stole
"From eldest leywood 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.
But let them own that greater faults than we
They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree.
Spencer himself inspects the obsolete,
And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet:
Milton's strong pinion now not heavencanbound,
Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground;
In quibbles, angel and archangel join
And God the Father turns a school-divine.
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,
Like flashing Bentley, with his desp'rate hook;
Or damn all Shakspeare, like th' affected fool
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),

Hlas sanctified whole peems 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 dignified,
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,
[billWho scorn a lad should teach his father skill,
And, having once been wrong, will be so still.
will)He, who to seem more deep than you or I,
Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy,
Mistake him not; he envies, not admires;
And, to debase the sons, exalts the sires.
Had antient times conspir'd to disallow
What then was new, what had been antient
Or what remain'd so worthy to be read [now?
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;
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'ex-
Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell; [cel;
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:

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 prerogative, and now for laws;~
Effects unhappy! from a noble cause.

Tine 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.
To worship like his Fathers was his care;
To teach their frugal virtues to his heir;
Το
prove, that luxury could never hold;
And place, on good security, his gold.
Now times are chang'd, and one poetic iteh
Has seis'd the court and city, poor and rich:
Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays,
Our wives read Milton, and our daughters play
To

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, 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.

Verse cheers their leisure, verse assists their work,
Verse prays for peace, or sings down Pope and
Turk.

The silenc'd preacher yields to potent strain,
And feels that grace his pray'r besought in vain;
The blessing thrills thro' all the lab'ring throng,
And heaven is won by violence of song.

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labor when the end was rest,

Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain

He serv'd a 'prenticeship who sets up shop; Ward tried on puppies, and the poor, his drop; Even Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France,With feasts and off rings, and a thankful strain: Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance. The joy their wives, their sons, and servants-håre, Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? Ease of their toil, and partners of their care: (Should Ripley venture, all the world would The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bow!,, smile.) Smooth'd ev'ry brow, and open'd ev'ry soul : With growing years the pleasing license grew, And taunts alternate innocently few. But times corrupt, and nature ill-inclin'd, Produc'd the point that left the sting behind; Till friend with friend, and families at strife, Triumphant malice rang'd thro' private life. Who felt the wrong, or fear'd it, took th' alarm, Appeal'd to law, and justice lent her arm. At length by wholesome dread of statutes bound, The poets learn'u̸ to please, and not to wound : Most warp'd to flatt'ry's side; but some, more Preserv'd the freedom, and forbore the vice. [nice, Hence Satire rose, that just the medium hit, And heals with morals what it hurts by wit.

We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's charms;

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 av'rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a pen,
He ne'er rebels, nor plots, like other men:
Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he 'll never mind §
Aud 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 hernit in his diet.

Of little use the man you inay suppose,
Who says in verse what others say in prose:
Yet let ine show, a poet's of some weight,
And (tho' no soldier) useful to the state.
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.
Untappy Dryden in all Charles' days,
Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays;
And in our own (excuse from 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 engrav'd:
The rights a court attack'd, a poet sav'd."
Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure,
Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor,
Proud vice to brand, or injur'd 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?

46

Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms;
Britain to soft refinement 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.
Tho' still some traces of our rustic vein
And splayfoot verse remain'd and will remain;
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tir'd nation breath'd 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 effac'd a line.
Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
Tha last and greatest art, the art to blot.
Some doubt if equal pains or equal fire
The humbler muse of comedy require.
But, in known images of life, I guess
The labor greater, as th' 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 Pinkey eat with vast applause!
But fill their purse, our poets' work is done;
Alike to then, by Pathos or by Pun.

S 3

O you!

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;
play,Repeat unask'd; lament, the wit's too fine
For vulgar eyes, and point out ev'ry line.
But most when, straining with too weak a wing,
We needs will write epistles to the King;
And from the moment we oblige the town,
Expect a place, or pension from the Crown;
Or dubb'd Historians by express command,
T' euroll 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.

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;
A breath revives hiin, or a breath o'erthrows.
Farewell the stage! if, just as thrives the
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 unhonor'd crowd,
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clatt'ring 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 cars, and now from ears to eyes)!
The play stands still! damu 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 fawn;
The champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward's armor beams on Cibber's breast.
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!
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 a-cends!
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 madethepeoplestare?"
Cato'slong wig,flower'd gown,andlacquer dehair.
Yet, lest you think I rally more than teach,
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once presume t' instruct the times,
To know the Poct 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 thro' the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.
But not this part of the poetic state
Alone deserves the favor 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 singi
Who climb their mountain, or who taste their]" Praise undeserv'd is satire in disguise :"

Till earth's extremes your mediation own,
And Asia's Tyrants tremble at your Throne.
But Verse! alas! your Majesty disdains;
And I'm not used to Panegyric strains :
The Zeal of Fools offends at any time,
But most of all the Zeal of Fools in rhyme.
Besides, a fate attends on all I write;
That, when I aim at praise, they say I bite.
A vile Encomium doubly ridicules:
There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools.
If true, a woeful likeness; and if lies,

How shall we fill a library with wit, [spring?
When Merlin's cave is half unfurnish'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)
Of all mankind the creatures most absurd :

Well may he blush who gives it or receives;
And, when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
(Like Journals, Odes, and such forgotten things
As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of Kings)
Clothe spice, line trunks, or flutt'ring in a row
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.

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 judg'd of merit:
But Kings in Wit may want discerning Spirit.
The Hero William, and the Martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd
Quarles;

Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear,
"No Lord's anointed, but a Russian Bear."
Not with such majesty, such bold relief,
The forms august of King or conq'ring Chief
E'er swell'd on marble, as in verse have shin'd
(In polish'd verse) the Manners and the Mind.
Oh! could I mount on the Mæonian wing,
Your Arms, your Actions, your Repose to sing!
What seas you travers d, and what fields you
fought!
[bought!
Your country's peace how oft, how dearly
How barb'rouse rage subsided at your word,
And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the
word!

How when you nodded, o'er the land and deep
Peace stole her wing, and wrapp'd the world in

sleep;