An Essay on Man Part 10

Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;- I wished the man a dinner, and sat still.

Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered-I was not in debt.

If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.

Did some more sober critic come abroad; If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod.

Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.

Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.

Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slas.h.i.+ng Bentley down to p---g Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name.

Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!

The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.

Were others angry: I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.

A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess?

The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year; He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left: And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest satire bade translate, And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.

How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe And swear not Addison himself was safe.

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blessed with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; d.a.m.n with faint praise, a.s.sent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:- Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?

Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?

What though my name stood rubric on the walls, Or plaistered posts, with claps, in capitals?

Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers' load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad?

I sought no homage from the race that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded (now be-rhymed so long) No more than thou, great George! a birthday song.

I ne'er with wits or witlings pa.s.sed my days, To spread about the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouthed, and cried, With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo puffed by every quill; Fed with soft dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand in song.

His library (where busts of poets dead And a true Pindar stood without a head) Received of wits an undistinguished race, Who first his judgment asked, and then a place: Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat, And flattered every day, and some days eat: Till grown more frugal in his riper days, He paid some bards with port, and some with praise; To some a dry rehearsal was a.s.signed, And others (harder still) he paid in kind.

Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh, Dryden alone escaped this judging eye: But still the great have kindness in reserve, He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.

May some choice patron bless each grey goose quill!

May every Bavius have his Bufo still!

So, when a statesman wants a day's defence, Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense, Or simple pride for flattery makes demands, May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!

Blessed be the great! for those they take away, And those they left me; for they left me gay; Left me to see neglected genius bloom, Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb: Of all thy blameless life the soul return My verse, and Queensbury weeping o'er thy urn!

Oh let me live my own, and die so too!

(To live and die is all I have to do:) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please; Above a patron, though I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend.

I was not born for courts or great affairs; I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; Can sleep without a poem in my head; Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.

Why am I asked what next shall see the light?

Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write?

Has life no joys for me! or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?

"I found him close with Swift."-'Indeed? no doubt,'

(Cries prating Balbus) 'something will come out.'

'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will.

'No, such a genius never can lie still;'

And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes.

Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile When every c.o.xcomb knows me by my style?

Cursed be the verse, how well soe'er it flow That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!

But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress, Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a libel, or who copies out: That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame: Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, And, if he lie not, must at least betray: Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swear, And sees at Canons what was never there; Who reads, but with a l.u.s.t to misapply, Make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie.

A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

Let Sporus tremble- A. What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of a.s.s's milk, Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?

Who breaks a b.u.t.terfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite: Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.

Whether in florid impotence he speaks And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or s.m.u.t, or rhymes, or blasphemies.

His wit all see-saw, between that and this, } Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, } And he himself one vile ant.i.thesis. } Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.

Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have expressed, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Not fortunes wors.h.i.+pper, nor fas.h.i.+on's fool, Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool, Not proud, nor servile;-be one poet's praise, That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways: That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.

That not in fancy's maze he wandered long: But stooped to truth, and moralised his song: That not for fame, but virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The d.a.m.ning critic, half approving wit, The c.o.xcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laughed at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad; The distant threats of vengeance on his head, The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed; The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown, The imputed trash, and dulness not his own; The morals blackened when the writings scape, The libelled person, and the pictured shape; Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread, A friend in exile, or a father, dead; The whisper, that to greatness still too near, Perhaps, yet vibrates, on his sovereign's ear:- Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past; For thee, fair virtue! welcome even the last!

A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?

P. A knave's a knave, to me in every state: Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, Sporus at Court, or j.a.phet in a jail, A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the post corrupt, or of the s.h.i.+re; If on a pillory, or near a throne, He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit; This dreaded satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress: So humble, he has knocked at Tibbald's door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhymed for Moore.

Full ten years slandered, did he once reply?

Three thousand sons went down on Welsted's lie.

To please a mistress one aspersed his life; He lashed him not, but let her be his wife.

Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill, And write whate'er he pleased, except his will; Let the two Curlls of town and court abuse His father, mother, body, soul, and muse.

Yet why? that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool: That harmless mother thought no wife a w***e: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!

Unspotted names, and memorable long!

If there be force in virtue, or in song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause While yet in Britain honour had applause) Each parent sprung- A. What fortune, pray?- P. Their own, And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.

Born to no pride, inheriting no strife, Nor marrying discord in a n.o.ble wife, Stranger to civil and religious rage, The good man walked innoxious through his age.

Nor courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.

Unlearned he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language, but the language of the heart.

By nature honest, by experience wise, Healthy by temperance, and by exercise; His life, though long, to sickness past unknown, His death was instant, and without a groan.

O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!

Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.

O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!

Be no unpleasing melancholy mine: Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep a while one parent from the sky!

On cares like these if length of days attend, May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend, Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene, And just as rich as when he served a queen.

A. Whether that blessing be denied or given, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

The occasion of publis.h.i.+ng these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State, neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni aequus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis. P.

THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

SATIRE I. TO MR. FORTESCUE.

P. There are (I scarce can think it, but am told), There are, to whom my satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough, And something said of Chartres much too rough.

The lines are weak another's pleased to say, Lord f.a.n.n.y spins a thousand such a day.

Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe, I come to counsel learned in the law: You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free, Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.

F. I'd write no more. P. Not write? but then I think, And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.

I nod in company, I wake at night, Fools rush into my head, and so I write.

F. You could not do a worse thing for your life.

Why, if the nights seem tedious-take a wife: Or rather truly, if your point be rest, Lettuce and cowslip wine: Probatum est.

But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.

Or, if you needs must write, write Caesar's praise, You'll gain at least a knighthood, or the bays.

P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse, Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder, With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder?

Or n.o.bly wild, with Budgel's fire and force, Paint angels trembling round his falling horse?

F. Then all your muse's softer art display, Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay, Lull with Amelia's liquid name the nine, And sweetly flow through all the royal line.

P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; They scarce can bear their laureate twice a year; And justly Caesar scorns the poet's lays: It is to history he trusts for praise.

F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, Than ridicule all taste, blaspheme quadrille, Abuse the city's best good men in metre, And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter.

Even those you touch not, hate you. P. What should ail 'em?

F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam: The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.