For Indian spices, for Peruvian gold,
Preveni the greedy, or outbid the bold :
Advance thy golden mountain to the skies ;
On the broad base of fifiy thousand rise,
Add one round hundred, and (if that's not fair)
Add fifty more, and bring it to a square :
For, mark the advantage; just so many score
Will gain a wife with half as many more ;
Procure her beauty, make that beauty chaste,
And then such friends--as cannot fail to last.
A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth,
Venus shall give him form, and Anstis birth.
(Believe me, many a German prince is worse,
Who proud of pedigree is poor of purse.)
His wealth brave 'Timon gloriously confounds;
Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds;
Or if three ladies like a luckless play,
Take the whole house upon the poet's day
Now, in such exigences not to need,
Upon my word, you must be rich indeed;
A noble superfluity it craves,
Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves ;
Something, which for your honour they may cheat,
And which it much becomes you to forget.
If wealth alone then make and keep us bless'd,
Still, still be getting, never, never rest.

But if to power and place your passion lie,
If in the pomp of life consist the joy;
Then hire a slave, or (if you will) a lord,
To do the honours, and to give the word;
Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach,
To whom to nod, whom take into your coach,
Whom honour with your hand : to make remarks,
Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks :
* This may be troublesome, is near the chair;
That makes three members, this can choose a mayor.'
Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest,
Adopt him son, or cousin at the least,
Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest

Or if your life be one continued treat,
If to live well means nothing but to eat;
Up, up! cries gluttony, 'tis break of day,
Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey ;
With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite
So Russel did, but couid not eat at night;
Call'd happy dog! the beggar at his door,
And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.

Or shall we every decency confound;
Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our round;
Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo
K-l's lewd cargo, or Ty-y's crew;
From Latian sirens, French Circæan feasts,
Return well travell’d, and transforin'd to beasts ;
Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,
Renounce our country, and degrade our name?
If, after all, we must with Wilmot own,
The cordial drop of life is love alone,
And Swist cry wisely, Vive la bagatelle !
The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well.
Adieu-if this advice appear the worst,
E'en take the counsel which I gave you first :
Or beiter precepts if you can impart,
Thy do; l'll follow them with all my heart.

BOOK II.-EPISTLE I.

TO AUGUSTUS.

ADVERTISEMENT. The reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed in

his Episile to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of iny own country. The author thought them considerable enough to address them to his prince, whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch, npon whon the Romans dejxnded for

the increase of an absolute empire. But to make the poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.

This Epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that A ugustus was the patron of poets in general ; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate : Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen obsolesieri, &c. The other, that this piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron.

Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries, first against the taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the court and nobility, who encourage only the writers for the theatre; and lastly, against the emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government. He shows (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors ; that their morals were much improved, and the licence of those ancient poets restrained; that satire and comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagances were left on the stage, were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the state; and concludes, that it was upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity.

We may further learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his court to this great prince, by riting with a decent freedom towards him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character,

WHILE you, great patron of mankind ! sustain "The balanced 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 fatore,
And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,
After a life of generous toils endured,
The Gaul subdued, or property secured,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd,
Or law establish'd, and the world reform’d,
Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find
The unwilling gratitude of base mankind!
All human virtue to its latest breath
Finds

envý never conquer'd but by deaik.
The great Alcides, every labour past,
Had still this monster to subdue at last :
Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray
Each star of meaner merit fades away!
Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat;
Those suns of glory please not till they set.

To thee the world its present 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 sacred and revered,
As Heaven's own oracles from altars heard :
Wonder of kings.! like whom, to mortal eyes,
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise.

Just in one instance, be it yet confess'd, 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's It is the rust we value, not the gold. Chaucer?s worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote, And beastly Skekon heads of houses quote:

One likes no language but the Fairy Queen :
A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green;
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
Ile swears the Muses met him at the Devil.

Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not we be wiser than our sires ?
In every public virtue we excel;
We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well ;
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling through 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 so,
Who died perhaps, a hundred years ago ?
End all dispute; and fix the year precise
When British bards begin to immortalize ?

Who lasts a century can have no fiaw ;
I hold that wit a classic, good in law.'

Suppose 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 estimating authors by the year, Bestow a garland only on a bier.

Shakspeare (whom you and every playhouse-pill Style the divine, the matchless, what you will) For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despite. Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed The life to come in every poct's creed. Who now reads Cowley ? if he pleases yet, His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;