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Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.—HOR.
DEAR COLONEL, Cobham’s and your country’s friend, | |
| You love a verse; take such as I can send. | |
| A Frenchman comes, presents you with his boy, | |
| Bows and begins—‘This lad, sir, is of Blois: | |
| Observe his shape how clean! his locks how curl’d. | 5 |
| My only son, I ’d have him see the world: | |
| His French is pure; his voice too—you shall hear— | |
| Sir, he ’s your slave for twenty pound a year. | |
| Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease, | |
| Your barber, cook, upholst’rer; what you please: | 10 |
| A perfect genius at an opera song— | |
| To say too much might do my honour wrong. | |
| Take him with all his virtues on my word; | |
| His whole ambition was to serve a Lord. | |
| But, Sir, to you with what would I not part? | 15 |
| Tho’, faith, I fear, ’t will break his mother’s heart. | |
| Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie, | |
| And then, unwhipp’d, he had the grace to cry: | |
| The fault he has I fairly shall reveal | |
| (Could you o’erlook but that), it is—to steal.’ | 20 |
| If, after this, you took the graceless lad, | |
| Could you complain, my friend, he prov’d so bad? | |
| Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute, | |
| I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit; | |
| Who sent the thief that stole the cash away, | 25 |
| And punish’d him that put it in his way. | |
| Consider then, and judge me in this light; | |
| I told you when I went I could not write; | |
| You said the same; and are you discontent | |
| With laws to which you gave your own assent? | 30 |
| Nay, worse, to ask for verse at such a time! | |
| D’ ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme? | |
| In Anna’s wars a Soldier, poor and old, | |
| Had dearly earn’d a little purse of gold: | |
| Tired in a tedious march, one luckless night | 35 |
| He slept, (poor dog!) and lost it to a doit. | |
| This put the man in such a desp’rate mind, | |
| Between revenge, and grief, and hunger join’d | |
| Against the foe, himself, and all mankind, | |
| He leap’d the trenches, scaled a castle wall, | 40 |
| Tore down a standard, took the fort and all. | |
| ‘Prodigious well!’ his great commander cried, | |
| Gave him much praise, and some reward beside. | |
| Next pleas’d His Excellence a town to batter | |
| (Its name I know not, and ’t is no great matter); | 45 |
| ‘Go on, my friend (he cried), see yonder walls! | |
| Advance and conquer! go where Glory calls! | |
| More honours, more rewards, attend the brave.’ | |
| Don’t you remember what reply he gave?— | |
| ‘D’ ye think me, noble Gen’ral, such a sot? | 50 |
| Let him take castles who has ne’er a groat.’ | |
| Bred up at home, full early I begun | |
| To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus’ son: | |
| Besides, my father taught me from a lad | |
| The better art, to know the good from bad | 55 |
| (And little sure imported to remove, | |
| To hunt for truth in Maudlin’s learned grove). | |
| But knottier points we knew not half so well, | |
| Deprived us soon of our paternal cell; | |
| And certain laws, by suff’rers thought unjust, | 60 |
| Denied all posts of profit or of trust. | |
| Hopes after hopes of pious papists fail’d, | |
| While mighty William’s thund’ring arm prevail’d; | |
| For right hereditary tax’d and fin’d | |
| He stuck to poverty with peace of mind; | 65 |
| And me, the Muses help’d to undergo it; | |
| Convict a Papist he, and I a Poet. | |
| But (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive, | |
| Indebted to no prince or peer alive, | |
| Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes, | 70 |
| If I would scribble rather than repose. | |
| Years foll’wing years steal something ev’ry day, | |
| At last they steal us from ourselves away; | |
| In one our frolics, one amusements end, | |
| In one a Mistress drops, in one a Friend. | 75 |
| This subtle thief of life, this paltry time, | |
| What will it leave me if it snatch my rhyme? | |
| If ev’ry wheel of that unwearied mill | |
| That turn’d ten thousand verses, now stands still? | |
| But, after all, what would ye have me do, | 80 |
| When out of twenty I can please not two? | |
| When this Heroics only deigns to praise, | |
| Sharp Satire that, and that Pindaric lays? | |
| One likes the pheasant’s wing, and one the leg; | |
| The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg: | 85 |
| Hard task to hit the palate of such guests, | |
| When Oldfield loves what Dartineuf detests! | |
| But grant I may relapse, for want of grace, | |
| Again to rhyme, can London be the place? | |
| Who there his muse, or self, or soul attends, | 90 |
| In Crowds, and Courts, Law, Bus’ness, Feasts, and Friends? | |
| My counsel sends to execute a deed: | |
| A poet begs me I will hear him read. | |
| In Palace yard at nine you ’ll find me there— | |
| At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square— | 95 |
| Before the Lords at twelve my cause comes on— | |
| There ’s a rehearsal, Sir, exact at one.— | |
| ‘Oh! but a Wit can study in the streets, | |
| And raise his mind above the mob he meets.’ | |
| Not quite so well, however, as one ought: | 100 |
| A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought, | |
| And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead, | |
| God knows, may hurt the very ablest head. | |
| Have you not seen, at Guildhall’s narrow pass, | |
| Two Aldermen dispute it with an Ass? | 105 |
| And Peers give way, exalted as they are, | |
| Ev’n to their own s-r-v—nce in a car? | |
| Go, lofty Poet, and in such a crowd | |
| Sing thy sonorous verse—but not aloud. | |
| Alas! to grottos and to groves we run, | 110 |
| To ease and silence, ev’ry Muse’s son: | |
| Blackmore himself, for any grand effort | |
| Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl’s-court. | |
| How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar? | |
| How match the bards whom none e’er match’d before? | 115 |
| The man who, stretch’d in Isis’ calm retreat, | |
| To books and study gives sev’n years complete, | |
| See! strew’d with learned dust, his nightcap on, | |
| He walks an object new beneath the sun! | |
| The boys flock round him, and the people stare: | 120 |
| So stiff, so mute; some Statue you would swear | |
| Stept from its pedestal to take the air! | |
| And here, while town, and court, and city roars, | |
| With Mobs, and Duns, and Soldiers, at their doors, | |
| Shall I, in London, act this idle part, | 125 |
| Composing songs for fools to get by heart? | |
| The Temple late two brother sergeants saw, | |
| Who deem’d each other oracles of law; | |
| With equal talents these congenial souls, | |
| One lull’d th’ Exchequer, and one stunn’d the Rolls; | 130 |
| Each had a gravity would make you split, | |
| And shook his head at Murray as a wit; | |
| ’T was, ‘Sir, your law’—and ‘Sir, your eloquence,’ | |
| ‘Yours, Cowper’s manner’—and ‘Yours, Talbot’s sense.’ | |
| Thus we dispose of all poetic merit, | 135 |
| Yours Milton’s genius, and mine Homer’s spirit. | |
| Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he ’ll swear the Nine, | |
| Dear Cibber! never match’d one ode of thine. | |
| Lord! how we strut thro’ Merlin’s Cave, to see | |
| No poets there but Stephen, you, and me. | 140 |
| Walk with respect behind, while we at ease | |
| Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we please. | |
| ‘My dear Tibullus! (if that will not do) | |
| Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you: | |
| Or, I ’m content, allow me Dryden’s strains, | 145 |
| And you shall rise up Otway for your pains.’ | |
| Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace | |
| This jealous, waspish, wronghead, rhyming race; | |
| And much must flatter, if the whim should bite | |
| To court applause by printing what I write: | 150 |
| But let the fit pass o’er; I ’m wise enough | |
| To stop my ears to their confounded stuff. | |
| In vain bad rhymers all mankind reject, | |
| They treat themselves with most profound respect; | |
| ’T is to small purpose that you hold your tongue, | 155 |
| Each, prais’d within, is happy all day long: | |
| But how severely with themselves proceed | |
| The men who write such verse as we can read? | |
| Their own strict judges, not a word they spare | |
| That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care; | 160 |
| Howe’er unwillingly it quits its place, | |
| Nay, tho’ at Court (perhaps) it may find grace. | |
| Such they ’ll degrade; and, sometimes in its stead, | |
| In downright charity revive the dead; | |
| Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, | 165 |
| Bright thro’ the rubbish of some hundred years; | |
| Command old words, that long have slept, to wake, | |
| Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake; | |
| Or bid the new be English ages hence | |
| (For Use will father what ’s begot by Sense); | 170 |
| Pour the full tide of eloquence along, | |
| Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, | |
| Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue; | |
| Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, | |
| But show no mercy to an empty line; | 175 |
| Then polish all with so much life and ease, | |
| You think ’t is Nature, and a knack to please; | |
| But ease in writing flows from Art, not Chance, | |
| As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance. | |
| If such the plague and pains to write by rule, | 180 |
| Better (say I) be pleas’d, and play the fool; | |
| Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease, | |
| It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease. | |
| There lived in primo Georgii (they record) | |
| A worthy member, no small fool, a Lord; | 185 |
| Who, tho’ the House was up, delighted sate, | |
| Heard, noted, answer’d, as in full debate: | |
| In all but this a man of sober life, | |
| Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife; | |
| Not quite a madman tho’ a pasty fell, | 190 |
| And much too wise to walk into a well. | |
| Him the damn’d doctors and his friends immured, | |
| They bled, they cupp’d, they purged; in short they cured; | |
| Whereat the gentleman began to stare— | |
| ‘My friends! (he cried) pox take you for your care! | 195 |
| That, from a patriot of distinguish’d note, | |
| Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.’ | |
| Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate: | |
| Wisdom (curse on it!) will come soon or late. | |
| There is a time when poets will grow dull: | 200 |
| I ’ll ev’n leave verses to the boys at school. | |
| To rules of poetry no more confin’d, | |
| I ’ll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind, | |
| Teach ev’ry thought within its bounds to roll, | |
| And keep the equal measure of the soul. | 205 |
| Soon as I enter at my country door, | |
| My mind resumes the thread it dropt before; | |
| Thoughts which at Hyde-park Corner I forgot, | |
| Meet and rejoin me in the pensive grot: | |
| There all alone, and compliments apart, | 210 |
| I ask these sober questions of my heart: | |
| If, when the more you drink the more you crave, | |
| You tell the doctor; when the more you have | |
| The more you want, why not, with equal ease, | |
| Confess as well your folly as disease? | 215 |
| The heart resolves this matter in a trice, | |
| ‘Men only feel the smart, but not the vice. | |
| When golden angels cease to cure the evil, | |
| You give all royal witchcraft to the devil: | |
| When servile Chaplains cry, that birth and place | 220 |
| Endue a Peer with Honour, Truth, and Grace, | |
| Look in that breast, most dirty D[uke]! be fair, | |
| Say, can you find out one such lodger there? | |
| Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach, | |
| You go to church to hear these flatt’rers preach. | 225 |
| Indeed, could wealth bestow or Wit or Merit, | |
| A grain of Courage, or a spark of Spirit, | |
| The wisest man might blush, I must agree, | |
| If D[evonshire] lov’d sixpence more than he. | |
| If there be truth in law, and use can give | 230 |
| A property, that ’s yours on which you live. | |
| Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford | |
| Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord: | |
| All Worldly’s hens, nay, partridge, sold to town, | |
| His venison too, a guinea makes your own: | 235 |
| He bought at thousands what with better wit | |
| You purchase as you want, and bit by bit: | |
| Now, or long since, what diff’rence will be found? | |
| You pay a penny, and he paid a pound. | |
| Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, | 240 |
| Lords of fat E’sham, or of Lincoln Fen, | |
| Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat, | |
| Buy every pullet they afford to eat; | |
| Yet these are wights who fondly call their own | |
| Half that the Devil o’erlooks from Lincoln town. | 245 |
| The laws of God, as well as of the land, | |
| Abhor a perpetuity should stand: | |
| Estates have wings, and hang in Fortune’s power, | |
| Loose on the point of ev’ry wav’ring hour, | |
| Ready by force, or of your own accord, | 250 |
| By sale, at least by death, to change their lord. | |
| Man? and for ever? Wretch! what wouldst thou have? | |
| Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave. | |
| All vast possessions (just the same the case | |
| Whether you call them Villa, Park, or Chase), | 255 |
| Alas, my BATHURST! what will they avail? | |
| Join Cotswood hills to Saperton’s fair dale; | |
| Let rising granaries and temples here, | |
| There mingled farms and pyramids, appear; | |
| Link towns to towns with avenues of oak, | 260 |
| Enclose whole towns in walls; ’t is all a joke! | |
| Inexorable death shall level all, | |
| And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall. | |
| Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high, | |
| Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye, | 265 |
| There are who have not—and, thank Heav’n, there are | |
| Who, if they have not, think not worth their care. | |
| Talk what you will of Taste, my friend, you ’ll find | |
| Two of a face as soon as of a mind. | |
| Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one | 270 |
| Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun, | |
| The other slights, for women, sports, and wines, | |
| All Townshend’s turnips, and all Grosvenor’s mines: | |
| Why one, like Bubb, with pay and scorn content, | |
| Bows and votes on in Court and Parliament; | 275 |
| One, driv’n by strong benevolence of soul, | |
| Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole; | |
| Is known alone to that directing Power | |
| Who forms the genius in the natal hour; | |
| That God of Nature, who, within us still, | 280 |
| Inclines our action, not constrains our will; | |
| Various of temper, as of face or frame, | |
| Each individual: His great end the same. | |
| Yes, Sir, how small soever be my heap, | |
| A part I will enjoy as well as keep. | 285 |
| My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace | |
| A man so poor would live without a place; | |
| But sure no statute in his favour says, | |
| How free or frugal I shall pass my days; | |
| I who at some times spend, at others spare, | 290 |
| Divided between carelessness and care. | |
| ’T is one thing, madly to disperse my store; | |
| Another, not to heed to treasure more; | |
| Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day, | |
| And pleas’d, if sordid want be far away. | 295 |
| What is ’t to me (a passenger, God wot) | |
| Whether my vessel be first-rate or not? | |
| The ship itself may make a better figure, | |
| But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger. | |
| I neither strut with ev’ry fav’ring breath, | 300 |
| Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth; | |
| In Power, Wit, Figure, Virtue, Fortune, placed | |
| Behind the foremost, and before the last. | |
| ‘But why all this of Av’rice? I have none.’ | |
| I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone: | 305 |
| But does no other lord it at this hour, | |
| As wild and mad? the avarice of Pow’r? | |
| Does neither Rage inflame nor Fear appall? | |
| Not the black fear of Death, that saddens all? | |
| With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne, | 310 |
| Despise the known, nor tremble at th’ unknown? | |
| Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire, | |
| In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire? | |
| Pleas’d to look forward, pleas’d to look behind, | |
| And count each birthday with a grateful mind? | 315 |
| Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end? | |
| Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend? | |
| Has age but melted the rough parts away, | |
| As winter fruits grow mild ere they decay? | |
| Or will you think, my friend! your bus’ness done, | 320 |
| When of a hundred thorns you pull out one? | |
| Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; | |
| You ’ve play’d and lov’d, and ate and drank, your fill. | |
| Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age | |
| Comes titt’ring on, and shoves you from the stage; | 325 |
| Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, | |
| Whom Folly pleases, and whose follies please. | |
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