Farewell the ftage! if just as thrives the play,
The filly bard grows fat, or falls away.
There still remains, to mortify a wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit :
A fenfelefs, worthlefs, and unhonour'd croud;
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clatt'ring their fticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the farce, the bear, or the black joke.
What dear delight to Britons farce affords!
Ever the taste of mobs, but now of lords;
(Tafte, that eternal wanderer, which flies
From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.)
The play ftands still; damn action and discourse,
Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse;
Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn,
Peers, heralds, bishops, ermin, gold and lawn:
The champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast..
With laughter fure Democritus had dy'd,
Had he beheld an audience gape fo wide.
Let bear or elephant be e'er fo white,
The people, fure, the people are the fight!
Ah luckless poet! stretch thy lungs and roar,
That bear or elephant shall heed thee more;
While all its throats the gallery extends,
And all the thunder of the pit afcends!
Loud as the wolves, on Orcas' ftormy steep,
Howl to the roarings of the northern deep.
Such is the shout, the long-applauding note,
At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;
Or when from court a birth-day fuit bestow'd,
Sinks the loft actor in the tawdry load. Booth enters -hark! the universal peal! >> But has he spoken« ? Not a syllable,
» What shook the stage, and made the people stare! <
Cato's long wig, flow'r'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.
Yet, left you think I rally more than teach,
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once prefume t'inftruct the times,
To know the poet from the man of rhymes:
'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each paffion that he feigns;
Inrage, compofe, with more than magic art,
With pity, and with terror, tear my heart;
And snatch me, o'er the earth, or thro' the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where
But not this part of the poetic state,
Alone, deferves the favour of the great :
Think of those authors, Sir, who would rely
More on a reader's sense, than gazer's eye,
Or who shall wander where the Muses fing?
Who climb their mountain, or who taste their spring?
How shall we fill a library with wit,
When Merlin's cave is half unfurnish'd yet?
My liege! why writers little claim your thought,
I guefs; and, with their leave, will tell the fault:
We poets are (upon a poet's word)
Of all mankind, the creatures most abfurd:
The season, when to come,
and when to go,
To fing, or cease to fing, we never know;
And if we will recite nine hours in ten,
You lose your patience, just like other men.
Then too we hurt ourselves, when to defend
A fingle verfe, we quarrel with a friend;
Repeat unask'd; lament, the wit's too fine
For vulgar eyes, and point out ev'ry line.
But most, when straining with too weak a wing,
We needs will write epiftles to the King;
And from the moment we oblige the town,
Expect a place, or pension from the crown;
Or dubb'd historians by exprefs command,
T'enroll your triumphs o'er the seas and land,
Be call'd to court to plan fome work divine,
As once for Louis, Boileau and Racine.
Yet think, great Sir! (so many virtues shown}
Ah think, what poet best may make them known?
Or chufe at least some minifter of grace,
Fit to beftow the Laureat's weighty place.
Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair,
Affign'd his figure to Bernini's care;
And great Naffau to Kneller's hand decreed
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed;
So well in paint and ftone they judg'd of merit s
But kings in wit may want discerning spirit.
The hero William, and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one penfion'd Quarles
Which made old Ben, and furly Dennis fwear,
» No lord's anointed, but a ruffian bear «<.
Not with fuch majefty, fuch bold relief,
The forms auguft, of King, or conqu❜ring chief,
E'er fwell'd on marble; as in verse have shin'd
(In polish'd verfe) the manners and the mind.
Oh! could I mount on the Mæonian wing,
VOL. II.
Your arms, your actions, your repose to fing!
What feas you travers'd, and what fields you fought!
Your country's peace, how oft, how dearly bought!
How barb'rous rage fubfided at your word,
And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the fword!
How, when you nodded, o'er the land and deep,
Peace ftole her wing, and wrapt the world in fleep;
'Till earth's extremes your meditation own,
And Afia's tyrants tremble at your throne-
But verfe, alas! your Majesty disdains ;
And I'm not us'd to panegyric strains :
The zeal of fools offends at any time,
But most of all, the zeal of fools in rhyme.
Befides, a fate attends on all I write,
That when I aim at praise, they say I bite.
A vile encomium doubly ridicules:
There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools.
If true, a woful likeness; and if lyes,
» Praise undeferv'd is fcandal in disguise «<.
Well may he blush, who gives it, or receives;
And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
(Like journals, odes, and fuch forgotten things
As Eufden, Philips, Settle, writ of kings)
Cloath fpice, line tranks, or flutt'ring in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.
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