Then, like the sun, let bounty spread her ray,
And shine that superfluity away.

O impudence of wealth! with all thy store
How darest thou let one worthy man be poor?
Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall?
Make keys, build bridges, or repair Whitehall:
Or to thy country let that heap be lent,

As M**o's was, but not at five per cent.
Who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind,
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
And who stands safest ? tell me, is it he
That spreads and swells in puff'd prosperity,
Or bless'd with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a war?

Thus Bethel spoke, who always speaks his thought,
And always thinks the very thing he ought:
His equal mind I copy what I can,
And as I love, would imitate the man.

In South-sea days not happier, when surmised
The lord of thousands, than if now excised;
In forest planted by a father's hand,
Than in five acres now of rented land.
Content with little I can piddle here,
On brocoli and mutton, round the year;
But ancient friends (though poor, or out of play)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
'Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards,
But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords!
To Hounslow-heath I point, and Bansted-down,
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own:
From yon old walnut tree a shower shall fall;
And grapes long lingering on my only wall;
And figs from standards and espalier join;
The devil is in you if you cannot dine:
Then cheerful healths (your mistress shall have
place,)

And, what's more rare, a poet shall say grace.

Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;
Though double tax'd, how little have I lost!
My life's amusements have been just the same,
Before and after standing armies came.
My lands are sold, my father's house is gone :
I'll hire another's: is not that my own,

BOOK I.-EPISTLE I.

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

ST. JOHN, whose love indulged my labours past,
Matures iny present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
Public too long, ah, let me hide my age!
See modest Cibber now has left the stage:
Our generals now, retired to their estates,
Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates,
In life's cool evening satiate of applause,
Nor fond of bleeding, e'en in Brunswick's cause.
A voice there is, that whispers in my ear
('Tis reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear,)
Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,
And never gallop Pegasus to death:

Lest stiff and stately, void of fire or force,
You limp, like Blackmore, on a lord mayor's horse.'
Farewell then verse, and love, and every toy,
The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy;
What right, what true, what fit, we justly call,
Let this be all my care-for this is all :
To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste,
What every day will want, and most the last.
But ask not to what doctors I apply?
Sworn to no master, of no sect am I:
As drives the storm, at any door I knock,
And house with Montagne now, or now with Locke:
Sometimes a patriot, active in debate,

Mix with the world, and battle for the state;
Free as young Lyttleton, her cause pursue,
Still true to virtue, and as warm as true:
Sometimes with Aristippus, or St. Paul,
Indulge my candour, and grow all to all,
Back to my native moderation slide,
And win my way by yielding to the tide.

Long as to him who works for debt the day,
Long as the night to her whose love's away;
Long as the year's dull circle seems to run,
When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one;
So slow the unprofitable moments roll,

And yours, my friends? through whose free opening That lock up all the functions of my soul;

gate

None comes too early, none departs too late; (For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.)

That keep me from myself; and still delay
Life's instant business to a future day:
That task which as we follow or despise,
The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise:

'Pray Heaven it last!' cries Swift, as you go on: Which done, the poorest can no wants endure;

I wish to God this house had been your own:
Pity to build, without a son or wife;
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life.'

Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one,
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
What's property? dear Swift! you see it alter,
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or in pure equity (the case not clear)

The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year;
At best, it falls to some ungracious son,

And which not done, the richest must be poor.
Láte as it is, I put myself to school,

And feel some comfort, not to be a fool.
Weak though I am of limb, and short of sight,
Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite;
I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise,
To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.
Not to go back, is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk at least before they dance.
Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move
With wretched avarice, or as wretched love?
Know there are words and spells which can control,

Who cries, 'My father's damn'd, and all 's my own. Between the fits, the fever of the soul;
Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;

And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener, or a city knight.

Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

Know there are rhymes, which fresh and fresh applied,
Will cure the arrant'st puppy of his pride.
Be furious, envious, slothful, mad or drunk,
Slave to a wife, or vassal to a punk,

A Switz, a High-Dutch, or a Low-Dutch bear;
All that we ask is but a patient ear.

Should chance to make the well-dress'd rabble stare; Who ought to make me (what he can, or none)

the poet had all the warmth of affection for the great Would ye be bless'd? despise low joys, low gains; lawyer to whom it is addressed; and, indeed, no man Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; ever more deserved to have a poet for his friend. In Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. the obtaining of which, as neither vanity, party, nor fear, had any share, so he supported his title to it by all the offices of true friendship.

'Nor to admire, is all the art I know,

To make men happy, and to keep them so.'

(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers 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 through and trust the Ruler with his skies;
To him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful all without a fear.

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold,
Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold;
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?

If weak 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,
Surprised at better, or surprised at worse.
Thus good or bad, to one extreme betray
The unbalanced 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,
Or birth-day nobles' splendid livery.
If not so pleased, at council-board rejoice
To see their judgments 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 labour, all this strife?
For fame, for riches, for a noble wife?
Shall one whom nature learning, birth conspired
To form, not to admire, but be admired,
Sigh while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,
Weds the rich dulness 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.
Graced as thou art, with all the power of words,
So known, so honour'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)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!

Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone,
Will any mortal let himself alone?
See Ward by batter'd beaux invited over,
And desperate misery lays hold on Dover.
The case is easier in the mind's disease;

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?
Fly then on all the wings of wild desire,
Admire whate'er the maddest can admire.

Is wealth thy passion? Hence! from pole to pole,
Where winds can carry, or where waves can roll;
For Indian spices, for Peruvian gold,
Prevent the greedy, or outbid the bold:
Advance thy golden mountain to the skies;
On the broad base of fifty thousand rise,
Add one round hundred, and (if that's not fair)
Add fifty more, and bring it to a square:
For, mark the advantage; just so many score
Will gain a wife with half as many more;
Procure her beauty, make that beauty chaste,
And then such friends-as cannot fail to last.
A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth,
Venus shall give him form, and Anstis birth.
(Believe me, inany a German prince is worse,
Who proud of pedigree is poor of purse.)
His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds,
Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds;
Or if three ladies like a luckless play,
Take the whole house upon the poet's day.
Now, in such exigences not to need,
Upon my word, you must be rich indeed;
A noble superfluity it craves,

Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves;
Something, which for your honour they may cheat,
And which it much becomes you to forget.
If wealth alone then make and keep us bless'd,
Still, still be getting, never, never rest.

But if to power and place your passion lie,
If in the pomp of life consist the joy;
Then hire a slave, or (if you wili) a lord,
To do the honours, and to give the word;
Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach,
To whom to nod, whom take into your coach,
Whom honour with your hand: to make remarks,
Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks :
This may be troublesome, is near the chair;
That makes three members, this can choose a mayor.
Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest,
Adopt him son, or cousin at the least,
Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest.

Or if your life be one continued treat,
If to live well means nothing but to eat;
Up, up! cries gluttony, 'tis break of day,
Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey;
With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite-
So Russel did, but could not eat at night;
Call'd happy dog! the beggar at his door,
And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.
Or shall we every decency confound;
Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our round;
Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo
K-l's lewd cargo, or Ty-y's crew;
From Latian sirens, French Circæan feasts,
Return well travell'd, and transform'd to beasts;
Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,
Renounce our country, and degrade our name?
If, after all, we must with Wilmot own,

There all men may be cured whene'er they please. The cordial drop of life is love alone,

And Swift cry wisely, Vive la bagatelle!
The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well.
Adieu-if this advice appear the worst,
E'en 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.

BOOK II.-EPISTLE I.

TO AUGUSTUS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,
And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,
After a life of generous toils endured,
The Gaul subdued, or property secured,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd,
Or law establish'd, and the world reform'd,
Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find
The unwilling gratitude of base mankind!
All human virtue to its latest breath

Finds envy never conquer'd but by death.
The great Alcides, every labour past,
Had still this monster to subdue at last :
Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray
Each star of meaner merit fades away!
Those suns of glory please not till they set
Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat;
To thee the world its present homage pays,

The reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed in his Epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country. The author thought them The harvest early, but mature the praise : considerable enough to address them to his prince, Great friend of liberty! in kings a name whom he paints with all the great and good qualities Above all Greek, above all Roman fame; of a monarch, upon whom the Romans depended for Whose word is truth, as sacred and revered, the increase of an absolute empire. But to make the As Heaven's own oracles from altars heard: poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or Wonder of kings! like whom, to mortal eyes two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall tise. people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.

Just in one instance, be it yet confess'd, Your people, sir, are partial in the rest: Foes to all living worth except your own, This Epistle will show the learned world to have And advocates for folly dead and gone. fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was the Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old; patron of poets in general; whereas he not only pro- It is the rust we value, not the gold. hibited all but the best writers to name him, but re- Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote, commended that care even to the civil magistrate: And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote: Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum One likes no language but the Fairy Queen: obsolefieri, &c. The other, that this piece was only a A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green; general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apo- And each true Briton is to Ben so civil, logy for the poets, in order to render Augustus more He swears the Muses met him at the Devil. their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires, contemporaries, first against the taste of the town, Why should not we be wiser than our sires? whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the In every public virtue we excel; preceding age; secondly, against the court and no- We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well; bility, who encourage only the writers for the theatre; And learned Athens to our art must stoop, and lastly, against the emperor himself, who had con- Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop. ceived them of little use to the government. He If time improve our wits as well as wine, shows (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste among the Romans) that the intro- Shall we, or shall we not, account him so, Say at what age a poet grows divine? duction of the polite arts of Greece had given the Who died perhaps, a hundred years ago? writers of his time great advantages over their prede-End all dispute; and fix the year precise cessors; that their morals were much improved, and When British bards begin to immortalize? the licence of those ancient poets restrained; that 'Who lasts a century can have no flaw; satire and comedy were become more just and useful; I hold that wit a classic, good in law.' that whatever extravagances were left on the stage, Suppose he wants a year, will you compound' were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, And shall we deem him ancient, right, and sound under due regulations, were in many respects useful Or damn to all eternity at once, to the state; and concludes, that it was upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity.

We may further learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his court to this great prince, by writing with a decent freedom towards him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his

own character.

WHILE you, great patron of mankind! sustain
The balanced world, and open all the main;
Your country, chief in arms, abroad defend;
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend ;
How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?

I

At ninety-nine a modern and a dunce?

'We shall not quarrel for a year or two; By courtesy of England he may do.'

Then by the rule that made the horse-tail bare

pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,
And melt down ancients 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.

Shakspeare (whom you and every playhouse-bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
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 every 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 judgment check'd what Fletcher
writ;

How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow;
But, for the passions, Southern, sure, and Rowe.
These, only these, support the crowded stage,
From eldest Heywood 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 give 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 affects the obsolete,
And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet:
Milton's strong pinion now not Heaven can bound,
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 slashing Bentley with his desperate hook;
Or damn all Shakspeare, like the 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, Sedly, and a hundred more
(Like twinkling stars, the miscellanies o'er,)
One simile, that solitary shines

In the dry desert of a thousand lines,

In every taste of foreign courts improved,
'All, by the king's example lived and loved.'
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship to excel,
Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell;
The soldier breathed the gallantries of France,
And every flowery courtier writ romance.
Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm,
And yielding metal flow'd to human form:
Lely on animated canvass stole

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 through 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 love we hate;
Now all for pleasure, now for church or state;
Now for prerogative, and now for laws;
Effects unhappy! from a noble cause.

Time was, a sober Englishman would knock
His servants up, and rise by five o'clock;
Instruct his family in every 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;
To prove that luxury could never hold;
And place on good security, his gold.
Now times are changed, and one poetic itch
Has seized the court and city, poor and rich;
Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will bear the bays:
Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays;
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,

Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a And call for pen and ink to show our wit.

page,

Has sanctified whole poems for an age.

I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censured, 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 flowers 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
(Though 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 disgraced the former reign,
Did not some grave examples yet remain,
Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill,
And having once been wrong, will be so still.
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 ancient times conspired to disallow
What then was new, what had been ancient now?
Or what remain'd, so worthy to be read
By learned critics, of the mighty dead?

In days of ease, when now the weary sword
Was sheath'd, and luxury with Charles restored;

He served a 'prenticeship, who sets up shop;
Ward tried on puppies, and the poor, his drop;
E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France,
Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance.
Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile ?
(Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile)
But those that 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 avarice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a pen,
He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men:
Flights of cashiers, or mobs he'll never mind,
And 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 hermit in his diet.

Of little use the man you may suppose,
Who says in verse, what others say in prose:
Yet let me show a poet's of some weight,
And (though 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?