How unproportion'd to thy pains!
And here a fimile comes pat in :
Though chickens take a month to fatten,
The guests in lefs than half an hour
Will more than half a score devour.
So after toiling twenty days
To earn a stock of pence and praife,
Thy labours grown the critic's prey,
Are fwallow'd o'er a difh of tea;
Gone to be never heard of more,
Gone where the chickens went before.
How fhall a new attempter learn
Of diff'rent fpirits to difcern,
And how diftinguifh which is which,
The poet's vein, or fcribbling itch?
Then hear an old experience'd finner,
Inftructing thus a young beginner.
Confult yourself, and if you find
A pow'rful impulfe urge your mind,
Impartial judge within your breaft
What fubject you can manage best;
Whether your genius moft inclines
To fatire, praife, or hum'rous lines,
To elegies in mournful tone,
Or prologue fent from hand unknown.
Then rifing with Aurora's light,
The mufe invok'd, fit down to write ;
Blot out, correct, infert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails,
To fcratch your head, and bite your nails.
Your poem finish'd, next your care
Is needful to tranfcribe it fair.
In modern wit all printed trafh is
Set off with num'rous breaks-and dafhes
To statesmen would you give a wipe,
You print it in Italic type.
When letters are in vulgar fhapes,
"Tis ten to one the wit escapes ;
But when in capitals expreft,
The dulleft reader fmokes the jeft:
Or elfe perhaps he may invent
A better than the poet meant ;
As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.
Your poem in its modifh drefs,
Correctly fitted for the prefs,
Convey by penny-poft to Lintot *,
But let no friend alive look into't.
If Lintot thinks 'twill quit the coft,
You need not fear the labour loft:
And how agreeably furpris'd
Are you to fee it advertis'd!
The hawker fhews you one in print,
As fresh as farthings from the mint :
The product of your toil and fweating;
A baftard of your own begetting.
Be fure at Will's +, the foll'wing day,
Lie fnug, and hear what critics fay.
And if you find the gen'ral vogue.
Pronounces you a ftupid rogue,
Damns all your thoughts as low and little,
Sit ftill, and fwallow down your fpittle.
* A bookfeller in London.
The poets coffeehouse.
Or praise the judgement of the town,
And help yourself to run it down.
Give up your fond paternal pride,
Nor argue on the weaker fide:
For poems read without a name
We juttly praife, or juftly blame;
And critics have no partial views,
Except they know whom they abuse:
And fince you ne'er provok'd their fpite,
Depend upon't their judgement's right.
But if you blab, you are undone :
Confider what a risk you run :
You lofe your credit all at once;
The town will mark you for a dunce;
The vileft doggrel Grubftreet fends
Will pafs for yours with foes and friends;
And you muft bear the whole difgrace,
Till fome freth blockhead takes your place.
Your fecret kept, your poem funk,
And fent in quires to line a trunk,
If ftill you be difpos'd to rhyme,
Go try your hand a second time.
Again you fail; yet Safe's the word;
The cant which ev'ry fool repeats,
Town jefts, and coffeehoufe conceits;
Defcriptions tedious, flat, and dry,
And introduce'd the Lord knows why:
Or where you find your fury fet
Against the harmlefs alphabet;
On A's and B's your malice vent,
While readers wonder whom you meant:
A public or a private robber;
A ftatefman, or a fouth-fea jobber;
A prelate who no god believes ;
A parliament, or den of thieves;
A pick-purfe at the bar, or bench,
A dutchefs, or a fuburb wench;
Or oft when epithets you link
In gaping lines to fill a chink;
Like ftepping-ftones to fave a stride
In ftreets where kennels are too wide;
Or, like a heel piece, to fupport
A cripple with one foot too fhort;
Or like a bridge that joins a marish
To moorlands of a diff'rent parish.
So have I feen ill-coupled hounds
Drag diff'rent ways in miry grounds.
So geographers in Afric maps
With favage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
But though you mifs your third effay,
You need not throw your pen away.
Lay now afide all thoughts of fame,
To fpring more profitable game.
From party-merit feek fupport;
The vileft verfe thrives beft at court.
A pamphlet in Sir Bob's defence
Will never fail to bring in pence:
Nor be concern'd about the fale,
He pays his workmen on the nail.
A prince, the moment he is crown'd,
Inherits ev'ry virtue round,
As emblems of the fov'reign pow'r,
Like other baubles in the Tow'r:
Is gen'rous, valiant, juft, and wife,
And fo continues till he dies:
His humble fenate this profeffes
In all their speeches, votes, addreffes.
But once you fix him in a tomb,
His virtues fade, his vices bloom;
And each perfection wrong imputed,
Is fully at his death confuted.
The loads of poems in his praife,
Afcending, make one funeral blaze:
As foon as you can hear his knell,
This god on earth turns d-l in hell :
And lo! his minifters of ftate,
Transform'd to imps, his levee wait
Where, in the fcenes of endless woe,
They ply their former arts below;
And as they fail in Charon's boat,
Contrive to bribe the judge's vote;
To Cerberus they give a fop,
His triple-barking mouth to ftop;
Or in the iv'ry gate of dreams *
Project excife and fouth-fea fchemes;
Or hire their party-pamphleteers
To fet Elyfium by the ears.
Then, poet, if you mean to thrive,
Employ your mufe on kings alive;
With prudence gath'ring up a clutter
Of all the virtues you can mufter,
Which form'd into a garland fweet,
Lay humbly at your monarch's feet;
Who, as the odours reach his throne,
Will fmile, and think them all his own;
For law and gofpel both determine
All virtues lodge in royal ermine.
(I mean the oracles of both,
Who fhall depofe it upon oath).
* Sunt geminæ femri portæ, &c.
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephante.
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