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HORACE, BOOK II. EPISTLE I.

IMITATED.

Abvertisement.

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 considerable enough to address them to his prince; whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch upon whom the Romans depended for the increase of an absolute empire; but to make the Poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbors. This Epistle will shew the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate; Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsolefieri, &c.; the other, that this piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries; first, against the taste of

the Town, whose humor it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the court and nobility, who encouraged only the - writers for the Theatre; and, lastly, against the Emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government. He shews (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste, among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their morals were much im. proved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies were left on the stage, were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful 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. P.

HORACE, BOOK II. EPISTLE I.

IMITATED.

TO AUGUSTUS.

WHILE you, great Patron of mankind! sustain

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The balanc'd 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 5
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?
Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,
And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,
After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd,
The Gaul subdu'd, or property secur'd,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd,
Or laws establish'd and the world reform'd ;
Clos'd their long glories with a sigh, to find
Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind!
All human virtue, to its latest breath,
Finds Envy never conquer'd but by Death.
The great Alcides, ev'ry labor past,
Had still this monster to subdue at last :
Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray
Each star of meaner merit fades away!
Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat;
Those suns of glory please not till they set.
To thee the world its present homage pays,
The harvest early, but mature the praise :

POPE. VOL. III.

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Great friend of liberty! in kings a name
Above all Greek, above all Roman, fame* ;
Whose word is truth, as sacred and rever'd
As Heav'n's own oracles from altars heard.
Wonder of kings ! like whom, to mortal eyes,
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise. 30
Just in one instance, be it yet confest

Your people, Sir, are partial in the rest;
Foes to all living worth except your own,
And advocates for folly dead and gone.
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old;
It is the rust we value, not the gold.

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Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote.
One likes no language but the Fairy Queen;
A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green; 40
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,

He swears the Muses met him at The Devil.
Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not we be wiser than our sires?
In ev'ry public virtue we excel;

We build, we paint, we sing, we dance, as well;
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop.

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 dy'd, perhaps, an hundred years ago?

*. Te nostris ducibus, te Graiis antefefende

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End all dispute; and fix the year precise
When British Bards began t'immortalize ?
'Who lasts a century can have no flaw;
'I hold that wit a classic, good in law.'

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Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? And shall we deem him ancient, right, and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once

At ninety-nine a modern and a dunce?

We shall not quarrel for a year or two;

'By courtesy of England he may

do.'

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Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,

And melt down Ancients like a heap of snow, 65
While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe,
And estimating authors by the year,
Bestow a garland only on a bier.

Shakespeare (whom you and ev'ry play-house bill
Style the Divine, the Matchless, what you will) 70
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despight.
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;

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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? 80 'In all debates where critics bear a part,

4 Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art,

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