year,

Be struck with bright brocade or Tyrian dye,
Our birthday nobles' splendid livery.
If not so pleas'd, at council-board rejoice
To see their judgments hang upon thy
voice;

From morn to night, at Senate, Rolls, and
Hall,

Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all.

But wherefore all this labour, all this strife? For Fame, for Riches, for a noble Wife? Shall one whom Nature, Learning, Birth, conspired

40

To form, not to admire, but be admired, Sigh while his Chloë, blind to Wit and Worth,

Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth?

Yet Time ennobles or degrades each line; It brighten'd Craggs's, and may darken thine.

And what is Fame? the meanest have their day;

The greatest can but blaze and pass away. Graced as thou art with all the power of words,

So known, so honour'd, at the House of Lords:

Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh 50 (More silent far), where Kings and Poets lie;

Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)

Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!

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,
Takes the whole house upon the poet's day.
Now, in such exigencies not to need,
Upon my word you must be rich indeed:
A noble superfluity it craves,

: 90

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 blest,

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 ap-
proach,

ΙΟΙ

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, 110 If to live well means nothing but to eat; Up, up! cries Gluttony, 't is break of day, Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey:

With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite

So Russell did, but could 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, Thro' Taverns, Stews, and Bagnios, take our round?

119

Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo K[innou]l's lewd cargo, or Ty[rawle]y's

crew,

From Latian Syrens, French Circean feasts, Return well travell'd, and transform'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 Swift cry wisely, ' Vive la bagatelle !' The man that loves and laughs must sure do well.

Adieu- if this advice appear the worst, 130 Ev'n take the counsel which I gave you first:

Or better precepts if you can impart, Why do; I'll follow them with all my heart.

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE

The identification of Augustus with George II. makes it necessary to take much of this poem ironically. George II., since his accession ten years before this was written (1737), had shown absolute indifference to the literature of England. The critical portions of the satire undoubtedly present Pope's real judgment of contemporary literature.

ADVERTISEMENT

The reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed in his Epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my 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 upon whom the Romans depended 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 Augustus was a 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 suum obsolefieri, &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 encouraged 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 im

proved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies 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 writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character.

50

?

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 t' immortalize?

'Who lasts a century can have no flaw; I hold that Wit a classic, good in law.' Suppose he wants a year, will you com pound?

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.'

60

Then by the rule that made the horsetail bare,

I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, And melt down Ancients like a heap of

30

And

grew

immortal in his own despite.

Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed
The life to come in every poet's creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His Moral pleases, not his pointed Wit:
Forgot his Epic, nay, Pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his heart.
'Yet surely, surely these were famous
men!

What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben ?
In all debates where Critics bear a part, 81
Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's
Art,

Of Shakespeare's Nature, and of Cowley's Wit;

How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ;

How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow; But for the passions, Southern sure, and Rowe!

These, only these, support the crowded stage,

From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age.'

All this may be; the People's voice is odd; It is, and it is not, the voice of God.

90

To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays,
And yet deny the Careless Husband praise,
Or say our fathers never broke a rule;
Why then, I say, the Public is a fool.
But let them own that greater faults than

One simile that solitary shines

In the dry Desert of a thousand lines,
Or lengthen'd thought, that gleams thro'
many a page,

Has sanctified whole poems for an age.
I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censured not as bad, but
new;

While, if our elders break all Reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon, but applause.

On Avon's bank, where flowers eternal blow,

120

If I but ask if any weed can grow,
One tragic sentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignified,
Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis
proclaims,

(Tho' but perhaps a muster-roll of names),
How will our fathers rise up in a rage,
And swear all shame is lost in GEORGE'S
age!

You'd think no fools disgraced the former reign,

Did not some grave examples yet remain, Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill,

And having once been wrong, will be so still.

130