So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down :
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect shivering at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole a labour'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before; a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call;
On every side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,
No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suffering eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain never to be play'd,
And there a summerhouse that knows no shade ;
Here Amphitrité sails through myrtle bowers,
There gladiators fight or die in flowers;
Unwater'd, see the drooping seahorse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.
My lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen :
But soft-by regular approach—not yet-
First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat;
And when up ten steep slopes you've dragged your thighs, Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.
His study with what authors is it stored?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord;
To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound!
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good,
For all his lordship knows,—but they are wood !
For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look ;
These shelves admit not any modern book.
And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of prayer :
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heaven.
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall :
The rich buffet well colour'd serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
No, 'tis a temple and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice perform'd in state;
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there.
Between each act the trembling salvers ring,
From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the King. 160
In plenty starving, tantalized in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave,
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost and little skill,
And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.
Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed;
Health to himself, and to his infants bread,
The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity supplies.
Another age shall see the golden ear
Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre ;
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres reassume the land.
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boye!. 'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,
And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.
His father's acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase;
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies, grow :
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town.
You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair ;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before :
Till kings call forth th' ideas of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd)
Bid harbours open, public ways extend,
Bid temples, worthier of the God, ascend,
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main,
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land :
These honours peace to happy Britain brings;
These are imperial works, and worthy kings.
The Proposition, the Invocation, and the Inscription—Then the original of the great Empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof-The College of the Goddess in the city, with her private academy for poets in particular; the governors of it, and the four cardinal virtues-Then the poet hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a Lord Mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come-She fixes her eye on Bayes, to be the instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poemHe is described pensive among his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the period of her empire-After debating whether to betake himself to the church, or to gaming, or to party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings-As the pile is kindled, the Goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out, by casting upon it the poem of Thule-She forthwith
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