APOLLO to the DEAN. 1720.
RIGHT trusty, and fo forth-we let you to know
We are very ill us'd by you mortals below. For, first, I have often by chemists been told, Though I know nothing on 't, it is I that make gold, Which when you have got, you fo carefully hide it, That, since I was born, I hardly have spy'd it. Then it must be allow'd, that, whenever I shine, I forward the grass, and I ripen the vine; To me the good fellows apply for relief, Without whom they could get neither claret nor beef: Yet their wine and their victuals these curmudgeon
Lock up from my fight in cellars and cupboards.
That I have an ill eye, they wickedly think,
And taint all their meat, and four all their drink.
But, thirdly and lastly, it must be allow'd,
I alone can inspire the poetical crowd:
This is gratefully own'd by each boy in the college,
Whom if I inspire, it is not to my knowledge.
This every pretender to rhyme will admit,
Without troubling his head about judgement or wit.
These gentlemen use me with kindness and freedom,
And as for their works, when I please I may read 'em:
They lie open on purpose on counters and stalls,
And the titles I view, when I shine on the walls.
But a comrade of yours, that traitor Delany,
Whom I for your fake love better than any,
And, of my mere motion and special good grace,
Intended in time to fucceed in your place,
On Tuesday the tenth seditiously came
With a certain falfe traitrefs, one Stella by name,
To the deanry house, and on the north glass,
Where for fear of the cold I never can pass,
Then and there, vi & armis, with a certain utenfil,
Of value five shillings, in English a pencil,
Did maliciously, falfely, and traiteroufly write,
Whilft Stella aforesaid stood by with a light.
My fister had lately depos'd upon oath,
That she stopt in her course to look at them both :
That Stella was helping, abetting, and aiding;
And still, as he writ, stood smiling and reading:
That her eyes were as bright as myself at noon-day,
But her graceful black locks were all mingled with grey,
And by the defcription I certainly know,
'Tis the nymph that I courted fome ten years ago;
Whom when I with the best of my talents endued
On her promife of yielding, she acted the prude :
That some verses were writ with felonious intent,
Direct to the north, where I never yet went:
That the letters appeared revers'd through the pane,
But in Stella's bright eyes they were plac'd right again;
Wherein she distinctly could read every line,
And presently guess'd that the fancy was mine.
She can swear to the perfon, whom oft' she has feen
At night between Cavan Street and College Green.
Now you fee why his verses so seldom are shewn;
The reason is plain, they are none of his own;
And observe while you live, that no man is shy
To discover the goods he came honestly by.
If I light on a thought, he will certainly steal it,
And, when he has got it, find ways to conceal it:
Of all the fine things he keeps in the dark,
There 's scarce one in ten but what has my mark;
And let them be seen by the world if he dare,
I'll make it appear that they're all ftolen ware.
But as for the poem he writ on your sash,
I think I have now got him under my lash;
My fifter tranfcrib'd it last night to his forrow,
And the publick shall fee 't, if I live till to-morrow.
Through the zodiac around, it shall quickly he spread
In all parts of the globe where your language is read.
He knows very well, I ne'er gave a refufal,
When he afk'd for my aid in the forms that are ufual:
But the fecret is this; I did lately intend
To write a few verses on you, as my friend:
I studied a fortnight, before I could find,
As I rode in my chariot, a thought to my mind,
And refolv'd the next winter (for that is my time,
When the days are at shortest) to get it in rhyme;
Till then it was lock'd in my box at Parnaffus;
When that fubtle companion, in hopes to furpass us,
Conveys out my paper of hints by a trick,
(For I think in my confcience he deals with Old Nick)
And, from my own stock provided with topicks,-
He gets to a window beyond both the tropicks;
There out of my fight, just against the north zone,
Writes down my conceits, and then calls them his own
And you, like a booby, the bubble can swallow :
Now who but Delany can write like Apollo?
High treason by statute! yet here you object,
He only stole hints, but the verse is correct;
Though the thought be Apollo's, 'tis finely express'd;
So a thief steals my horse, and has him well drefs'd.
Now, whereas the fad criminal seems past repentance,
We Phœbus think fit to proceed to his fentence.
Since Delany has dar'd, like Prometheus his fire,
To climb to our region, and thence to steal fire;
We order a vulture, in shape of the spleen,
To prey on his liver, but not to be seen.
And we order our fubjects of every degree
To believe all his verses were written by me :
And, under the pain of our highest displeasure,
To call nothing his but the rhyme and the measure.
And lastly, for Stella, just out of her prime,
I'm too much revenged already by time.
In return to her scorn, I fend her diseases,
But will now be her friend whenever the pleases :
And the gifts I bestow'd her will find her a lover,
Though the lives to be grey as a badger all over.
NEWS FROM PARNASSUS.
BY DR. DELANY.
PARNASSUS, February the twenty-feventh.
The Poets affembled here on the eleventh,
Conven'd by Apollo, who gave them to know,
He'd have a vicegerent in his empire below;
But declar'd that no Bard should this honour inherit,
Till the rest had agreed he furpass'd them in merit.
Now this, you 'll allow, was a difficult case,
For each Bard believ'd he 'd a right to the place ;
So, finding th' afsembly grow warm in debate,
He put them in mind of his Phaëton's fate:
'Twas urg'd to no purpose; disputes higher rofe,
Scarce Phœbus himself could their quarrels compose;
Till at length he determin'd that every Bard
Should (each in his turn) be patiently heard.
First, one who believ'd he excell'd in tranflation, Founds his claim on the doctrine of man's tranfmigration: "Since the foul of great Milton was given to me, " I hope the convention will quickly agree." "Agree!" quoth Apollo: "from whence is this fool? " Is he just come from reading Pythagoras at school ? "Be gonel Sir, you've got your subscriptions in time,. " And given in return neither reafon nor rhyme."
To the next, fays the God, "Though now I won't " chufe you,
"I'll tell you the reason for which I refuse you;
"Love's goddess has oft' to her parents complain'd
" Of my favouring a Bard who her empire disdain'd
"That, at my instigation, a poem you writ,
"Which to beauty and youth preferr'd judgement and " wit;
"That, to make you a Laureat, I gave the first voice "Inspiring the Britons t'approve of my choice. "Jove fent her to me, her power to try; "The Goddess of Beauty what God can deny?
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