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,
"And you shall rise up Otway for your pains."
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace
This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race;
And much must flatter, if the whim should bite
To court applause by printing what I write :
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;
'Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue:
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,
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;

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Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
Bright thro' the rubbish of some hundred years;
Command old words that long have slept, to wake,

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Words, that wise Bacon, or brave Raleigh spake1;
Or bid the new be English, ages hence,

(For Use will farther what's begot by Sense)

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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:

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Then polish all, with so much life and ease,

You think 'tis 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 2."

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If such the plague and pains to write by rule,
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 liv'd in primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a Lord;

1 ['In Bacon's Essays... though many Latinized words are introduced, even the solecisms are English, and the style is, in all probability, a fair picture of the language used at that time by men of the highest culture, in the conversational discussion of questions of practical philosophy, or what the Germans call world-wisdom.' Marsh,

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Origin and History of the Eng. Language.Raleigh is said by Aubrey (cited by Warton) to have been accustomed to speak in a broad Devonshire dialect.]

[Slightly altered from Essay on Criticism, vv. 362, 3.]

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 mad-man, tho' a pasty fell1,

And much too wise to walk into a well.

Him, the damn'd Doctors and his Friends immur'd,

They bled, they cupp'd, they purg'd; in short, they cur'd.

Whereat the gentleman began to stare

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My Friends?" he cry'd, "p-x take you for your care! 195 That from a Patriot of distinguish'd note,

Have bled and purg'd 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:
I'll e'en leave verses to the boys at school:
To rules of Poetry no more confin'd,
I learn to smooth and harmonize my Mind,
Teach ev'ry thought within its bounds to roll,
And keep the equal measure of the Soul.

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,

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?
The heart resolves this matter in a thrice,
"Men only feel the Smart, but not the Vice."

When golden Angels 2 cease to cure the Evil,
You give all royal Witchcraft to the Devil;
When servile Chaplains cry3, that birth and place
Endue a Peer with honour, truth, and grace,
Look in that breast, most dirty D-! 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.
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*** lov'd sixpence more than he.

If there be truth in Law, and Use can give

[Cf. Moral Essays, Ep. 11. v. 268. The original story of this sort of madness is traced by Warton to Aristotle and Ælian; and he compares Boileau's version in his Fourth Satire.]

2 A golden coin, given as a fee by those who came to be touched by the royal hand for the Evil. Warton. [The scrofula. The office for the healing of the evil was originally included in

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the Book of Common Prayer: the practice was kept up by Charles I. and Charles II., and was renewed by the Pretender.]

3 The whole of this passage alludes to a dedication of Mr, afterwards Bishop, Kennet to the Duke of Devonshire to whom he was chaplain. Bennet. [This explains the blanks in vv. 222 and 229.]

A Property, that's yours on which you iive.
Delightful Abs-court1, if its fields afford
Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
All Worldly's hens, nay partridge, sold to town:
His Ven'son too, a guinea makes your own:
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.

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Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,

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Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have?

Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.

Enclose whole downs in walls, 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable Death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.
Gold, Silver, Iv'ry, Vases sculptur'd high,
Paint, Marble, Gems, and robes of Persian dye,
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
Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun;
The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
All Townshend's Turnips 5, and all Grosvenor's

1 delightful Abs-court,] A farm over-against Hampton-Court. Warburton.

2 [A plural; as grouse, teal &c.] 3 [Sir Gilbert Heathcote; cf. Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 101.]

4 [Alluding to the improvements made by Lord Bathurst on one of his Gloucestershire estates, at Daylingworth near Saperton in the Cotswold country.]

5 All Townshend's Turnips] [Lord Townshend, Secretary of State to George the First and

mines:

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Second, resigned office in 1730, and patriotically refrained from returning to public life, where he might have helped his political opponents the Tories to annoy his former rival Walpole. It was owing to him, says Lord Stanhope, that England, and more especially Norfolk, owes the introduction of the turnip from Germany.]

6 [Sir Thomas Grosvenor succeeded to his brother Richard in 1733. They were the ancestors of the present Marquess of Westminster.]

Why one like Bu-1 with pay and scorn content,
Bows and votes on, in Court and Parliament;
One, driv'n by strong Benevolence of soul,
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole:
Is known alone to that Directing Pow'r,
Who forms the Genius in the natal hour;
That God of Nature, who, within us still,
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.

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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 3,
How free, or frugal, I shall pass my days:
I, who at some times spend, at others spare,
Divided between carelessness and care.
'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to heed to treasure more;

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Glad, like a Boy, to snatch the first good day,

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And pleas'd, if sordid want be far away.
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,
Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.
In pow'r, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, plac'd
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

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"But why all this of Av'rice? I have none."

I wish you joy, Sir, of a Tyrant gone;

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But does no other lord it at this hour,
As wild and mad: the Avarice of pow'r?
Does neither Rage inflame, nor Fear appal?
Not the black fear of death, that saddens all?
With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne,
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 birth-day with a grateful mind?

1 [Bubb Doddington, the Bubo of the Ivth Ep. of the Moral Essays.]

fly, like Oglethorpe,] Employed in settling the Colony of Georgia. P.

[James Edward Oglethorpe, born in 1698, served under Prince Eugene against the Turks, settled the colony of Georgia, held a command during the year 1745, and in consequence of a difficulty which then occurred with the Duke of Cumberland (though Oglethorpe was acquitted by a courtmartial) remained unemployed ever afterwards.

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Mr Croker observes that to his supposed Jacobite leanings may be attributed much of the animosity displayed by the Whigs towards him, as well as of the friendliness subsisting between him and Pope and Johnson.]

3 But sure no statute] Alluding to the statutes made in England and Ireland, to regulate the Succession of Papists, etc. Warburton. [A statute of William III. which was happily so interpreted by the Judges, as to produce much less effect than its authors had intended.]

Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?
Can'st 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 business done,

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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 eat, and drank your fill:

Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:

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Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,

Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please.

[THESE Satires, as Pope informs us in the Advertisement prefixed to the Satires and Epistles of Horace Imitated (ante, p. 282), were 'versified' by him at the request of Lords Oxford and Shrewsbury, and therefore in the main belong to an earlier period of his career than the Satires among which they were afterwards inserted. He called his labour 'versifying,' says Warburton, because indeed Donne's lines 'have nothing more of numbers than their being composed of a certain quantity of syllables'-a description exaggerated, but not untrue.

John Donne was born in 1578, and died in 1631; but though he wrote most of his poetry before the end of the 16th century, none of it was published till late in the reign of James I. The story of his life may be summed up as that of a popular preacher under pecuniary difficulties, which only towards its close terminated in the assurance of a competency (he died as Dean of St Paul's). Donne has been, in deference to Pope's classification of poets, regarded as the father of the metaphysical, or fantastic school of English poets, which reached its height in the reign of Charles I. His poetry divides itself into two distinctly marked divisions—profane and religious. The former must be in the main regarded as consisting of purely intellectual exercitations; nor should the man be rashly confounded with the writer, or the Ovidian looseness of morals which he affects be supposed to have characterised his life. His Songs are full of the conceits criticised by Dr Johnson; some of his Epigrams are very good; his Elegies are most offensively indecent; and the Progress of the Soul is a disgusting burlesque on the Pythagorean doctrine of