Next pleas'd his excellence a town to batter;
(Its name I know not, and 'tis no great matter,)
'Go on, my friend (he cried), see yonder walls!
Advance and conquer! go where glory calls!
More honours, more rewards, attend the brave.'
Don't you remember what reply he gave?—
'D'ye think me, noble general! such a sot?
Let him take castles who has ne'er a groat.'
Bred up at home, full early I begun
To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' son:
Besides, my father taught me from a lad
The better art, to know the good from bad;
(And little sure imported to remove,
To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove)
But knottier points, we knew not half so well,
Depriv'd us soon of our paternal cell;
And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust,
Denied all posts of profit or of trust:
Hopes after hopes of pious papists fail'd,
While mighty William's thundering arm prevail'd.
For right hereditary tax'd and fin'd,
He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me, the Muses help'd to undergo it;
Convict a papist he, and I a poet.
But (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive;
Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,3
If I would scribble rather than repose.
3 Dr. Monroe was Physician to Bedlam Hospital.
Years following years steal something every day,
At last they steal us from ourselves away;
In one our frolics, one amusements end,
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend.
This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,
What will it leave me if it snatch my rhyme?
If every wheel of that unwearied mill,
That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?
But, after all, what would ye have me do,
When out of twenty I can please not two?
When this heroics only deigns to praise,
Sharp satire that, and that Pindaric lays?
One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg;
The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg:
Hard task to hit the palate of such guests,
When Oldfield loves what Dartineauf1 detests!
But grant I may relapse, for want of grace,
Again to rhyme, can London be the place?
Who there his muse, or self, or soul, attends,
In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and
friends?
My counsel sends to execute a deed:
A poet begs me I will hear him read.
In Palace yard at nine you'll find me there--
At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square-
Before the lords at twelve my cause comes on--
There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one.-
'Oh! but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets.'
4 See note 7, p. 22, and note, p. 27.
Not quite so well, however, as one ought:
A hackney coach may chance to spoil a thought;
And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?
And peers give way, exalted as they are,
E'en to their own s-r-v-rence in a car?
Go, lofty poet, and in such a crowd
Sing thy sonorous verse-but not aloud.
Alas! to grottoes and to groves we run
To ease and silence every Muse's son:
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort
Would drink and dose at Tooting or Earl's-court.5
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar? [before?
How match the bards whom none e'er match'd
The man who, stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives seven years complete,
See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on,
He walks an object new beneath the sun!
The boys flock round him, and the people stare :
So stiff, so mute; some statue you would swear
Stept from its pedestal to take the air!
And here, while town, and court, and city roars,
With mobs, and duns, and soldiers, at their doors,
Shall I, in London, act this idle part,
Composing songs for fools to get by heart?
The Temple late two brother sergeants saw, Who deem'd each other oracles of law;
5 Two villages near London.
With equal talents these congenial souls,
One lull'd th' Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls; Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at Murray as a wit,
'Twas, 'Sir, your law' and 'Sir, your eloquence,' 'Your's Cowper's manner'-and 'Your's Talbot's sense.'
Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,
Your's Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit. Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he'll swear the Nine, Dear Cibber! never match'd one ode of thine. Lord! how we strut through Merlin's cave, to see No poets there but Stephen, you, and me.
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, wronghead, 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;
6 Afterwards Lord Mansfield. 7 See note 1, p. 69.
Stephen Duck.
'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, though at court (perhaps) it may find grace:
Such they'll degrade; and, sometimes in its stead,
In downright charity revive the dead;
Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; Command old words, that long have slept, to wake, Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake; Or bid the new be English ages hence;
(For use will father what's begot by sense)
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;
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.'9
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.
9 Essay on Criticism, vol. i. p. 17.
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