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To my Friend, the AUTHOR.
’TIS 1 hard, my Friend, to write in such an Age | |
| As damns not only Poets, but the Stage. | |
| That sacred art, by Heav’n itself infus’d, | |
| Which Moses, David, Salomon have us’d, | |
| Is now to be no more: The Muses’ Foes | 5 |
| Wou’d sink their Maker’s Praises into Prose. | |
| Were they content to prune the lavish Vine | |
| Of straggling Branches, and improve the Wine, | |
| Who but a mad Man wou’d his Faults 2 defend? | |
| All wou’d submit, for all but Fools will mend. | 10 |
| But, when to common sense they give the Lie, | |
| And turn distorted Words to Blasphemy, | |
| They give the Scandal; and the Wise discern | |
| Their Glosses teach an Age, too apt to learn. | |
| What I have loosly, or profanely writ, | 15 |
| Let them to Fires (their due desert) commit: | |
| Nor, when accus’d by me, let them complain: | |
| Their Faults, and not their Function, I arraign. | |
| Rebellion, worse than Witchcraft, they pursu’d: | |
| The Pulpit preach’d the Crime, the People ru’d. | 20 |
| The Stage was silenc’d; for the Saints wou’d see | |
| In fields perform’d their plotted Tragedy. | |
| But let us first reform: and then so live, | |
| That we may teach our Teachers to forgive. | |
| Our Desk be plac’d below their lofty Chairs, | 25 |
| Ours be the Practice, as the Precept theirs. | |
| The moral Part at least we may divide, | |
| Humility reward and punish Pride; | |
| Ambition, Int’rest, Avarice, accuse; | |
| These are the Province of the Tragic Muse. | 30 |
| These hast thou chosen; and the public Voice | |
| Has equall’d thy Performance with thy choice. | |
| Time, Action, Place, are so preserv’d by thee | |
| That ev’n Corneille might with Envy see | |
| Th’ Alliance of his tripled Unity. | 35 |
| Thy Incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown; | |
| But so much Plenty is thy Fault alone: | |
| At least but two, can that good Crime commit, | |
| Thou in Design, and Wycherley in Wit | |
| Let thine own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare; | 40 |
| Contented to be thinly regular. | |
| Born there, but not for them, our fruitful Soil | |
| With more Increase rewards thy happy Toil. | |
| Their Tongue, infeebl’d, is refin’d so 3 much; | |
| That 4 like pure Gold, it bends at ev’ry Touch: | 45 |
| Our sturdy Teuton yet will Art obey, | |
| More fit for manly Thought, and strengthen’d with Allay. | |
| But whence art thou inspir’d, and Thou alone, | |
| To flourish in an Idiom, not thy own? | |
| It moves our Wonder, that a foreign Guest | 50 |
| Shou’d overmatch the most, and match the best. | |
| In underpraising thy Deserts, I wrong; | |
| Here, find the first deficience of our Tongue: | |
| Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend | |
So Great a Poet and so Good a Friend.
JOHN DRYDEN. | 55 |
