AUGUST U S.
WHILE you, great patron of mankind! sustain
The balanc'd world, and open all the main;
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
How shall the Muse, from such a monarch, steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?
Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,
And virtuous Alfred, a more facred name,
After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd,
The Gaul fubdu'd, or property fecur'd,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd,
Or laws eftablish'd, and the world reform'd;
Clos'd their long glories with a figh, to find
Th'unwilling gratitude of base mankind!
All human virtue, to its lateft breath,
Finds envy never conquer'd, but by death.
The great Alcides, ev'ry labour past,
Had ftill this monster to fubdue at last.
Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray
Each ftar of meaner merit fades away
Opprefs'd we feel the beam directly beat
Those funs of glory please not till they set.
To thee, the world its prefent homage pays,
The harvest early, but mature the praise :
Great friend of liberty! in kings a name
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame :
Whose word is truth, as facred and rever'd,
As heav'n's own oracles from altars heard.
Wonder of kings! like whom, to mortal eyes
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rife.
Juft in one instance, be it yet confeft
Your people, Sir, are partial in the rest:
Foes to all living worth except your own,
And advocates for folly dead and gone.
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old;
It is the ruft we value, not the gold.
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,
And beaftly Skelton Heads of Houses quote:
One likes no language but the Fairy Queen;
A Scot will fight for Chrift's Kirk of the Green
And each true Briton is to Ben fo civil,
He swears the Mufes met him at the Devil.
Tho' justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not we be wifer than our fires?
In ev'ry publick virtue we excell :
We build, we paint, we fing, we dance as well,
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling thro' a hoop.
If time improve our wits as well as wine,
Say at what age a poet grows divine ?
Shall we, or shall we not, account him fo,
Who dy'd, perhaps, an hundred years ago?
End all difpute; and fix the year precise
When British bards begin t' immortalize?
» Who lafts a century can have no flaw, >> I hold that wit a claffic, good in law «.
Suppofe he wants a year, will you compound? And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once,
At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?
» We shall not quarrel for a year or two; >> By courtesy of England, he may do «.
Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, And melt down ancients like a heap of snow: While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe, And eftimating authors by the year,
Beftow a garland only on a bier.
Shakespear (whom you and ev'ry play-house bill Style the divine, the matchless, what you will) For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despight. Ben, old and poor, as little feem'd to heed The life to come, in ev'ry poet's creed. Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, His moral pleafes, not his pointed wit; Forgot his epic, nay pindaric art, But ftill I love the language of his heart.
» Yet furely, furely, these were famous men! >> What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? >> In all debates where critics bear a part, >> Not one but nods, and talks of Johnson's art, » Of Shakespear's nature, and of Cowley's wit; (writ; >> How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher
» How Shadwell hafty, Wycherley was slow;
>> But for the paffions, Southern sure and Rowe.
>> These, only these, support the crouded stage,
» From eldest Heywood to Cibber's age.
All this may be; the people's voice is odd,
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays,
And yet deny the Careless Husband praise,
Or fay our fathers never broke a rule;
Why then, I fay, the public is a fool.
But let them own, that greater faults than we
. They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree.
Spenfer himself affects the obfolete,
And Sydney's verfe halts ill on Roman feet:
Milton's ftrong pinion now not heav'n can bound,
Now ferpent-like, in profe he fweeps the ground,
In quibbles, Angel and Archangel join,
And God the Father turns a fchool-divine.
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,
Like flashing Bentley with his defp'rate hook,
Or damn all Shakespear, like th' affected fool
At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.
But for the wits of either Charles's days,
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more,
(Like twinkling stars the miscellanies o'er )
One fimile, that folitary shines
In the dry defert of a thousand lines, (a page,
Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through man☛
Has fanctify'd whole poems for an age.
I lose my patience, and I own it too
When works are cenfur'd, not as bad but new ;
While if our elders break all reafon's laws,
These fools demand not pardon, but applause.
On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow,
If I but ask, if any weed can grow?
One tragic fentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignify'd,
Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims,
(Tho' but, perhaps, á muster-roll of names)
How will our fathers rife up in a rage,
And fwear, all shame is loft in George's age !
You'd think no fools difgrac'd the former reign,
Did not fome grave examples yet remain,
Who fcorn a lad should teach his father skill,
And, having once been wrong, will be fo ftill.
He, who to feem more deep than you or I,
Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy,
Mistake him not; he envies, not admires,
And to debase the fons, exalts the fires.
Had ancient times confpir'd to difallow
What then was new, what had been ancient now?
Or what remain'd, fo worthy to be read
By learned critics, of the mighty dead?
In days of eafe, when now the weary sword Was sheath'd, and luxury with Charles restor❜d; In ev'ry taste of foreign courts improv'd,
>> All, by the king's example, liv'd and lov'd «.
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excell,
Newmarket's glory rofe, as Britain's fell;
The foldier breath'd the gallantries of France,
And ev'ry flow'ry courtier writ romance.
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