Alexander Pope (1688–1744). Complete Poetical Works. 1903.
SatiresSatires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace Imitated. The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace
W
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 Fame,
And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,
After a life of gen’rous toils endured,—
The Gaul subdued, or property secured,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm’d,
Or laws establish’d, and the world reform’d—
Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find
Th’ unwilling gratitude of base Mankind!
All human Virtue, to its latest breath,
Finds Envy never conquer’d but by Death.
The great Alcides, ev’ry 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 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 rise.
Just in one instance, be it yet confest
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 Rust we value, not the Gold.
Chaucer’s worst ribaldry is learn’d by rote,
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote;
One likes no language but the Faery Queen;
A Scot will fight for Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green;
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
He swears the Muses met him at the Devil.
Tho’ 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 thro’ a hoop.
If time improve our Wit 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 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 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 horsetail 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.
Shakespeare (whom you and every 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 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,
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.
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 we
They had, and greater virtues, I ’ll agree.
Spenser himself affects the obsolete,
And Sidney’s verse halts ill on Roman feet;
Milton’s strong pinion now not Heav’n can bound,
Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground.
In quibbles Angel and Archangel join,
And God the Father turns a School-divine.
Not that I ’d lop the beauties from his book,
Like slashing Bentley with his desp’rate hook;
Or damn all Shakespeare, 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 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,
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 G
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.
He who, to seem more deep than you or I,
Extols old bards, or Merlin’s prophecy,
Mistake him not; he envies, not admires,
And to debase the sons exalts the sires.
Had ancient times conspired to disallow
What then was new, what had been ancient now?
Or what remain’d, so worthy to be read
By learned critics of the mighty dead?
In days of ease, when now the weary sword
Was sheath’d, and luxury with Charles restor’d,
In every taste of foreign courts improv’d,
‘All by the King’s example liv’d and lov’d,’
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t’ excel;
Newmarket’s glory rose, as Britain’s fell;
The soldier breathed the gallantries of France,
And ev’ry flowery Courtier writ Romance.
Then marble, soften’d into life, grew warm,
And yielding metal flow’d to human form;
Lely on animated canvas stole
The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul.
No wonder then, when all was love and sport,
The willing Muses were debauch’d at court;
On each enervate string they taught the note
To pant, or tremble thro’ a Eunuch’s throat.
But Britain, changeful as a child at play,
Now calls in princes, and now turns away.
Now Whig, now Tory, what we loved we hate;
Now all for Pleasure, now for Church and State;
Now for Prerogatives, and now for laws;
Effects unhappy, from a noble cause.
Time was, a sober Englishman would knock
His servants up, and rise by five o’clock;
Instruct his family in ev’ry rule,
And send his wife to church, his son to school.
To worship like his fathers was his care;
To teach their frugal virtues to his heir;
To prove that Luxury could never hold,
And place on good security his gold.
Now times are changed, and one poetic itch
Has seized the Court and City, Poor and Rich;
Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays;
Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays;
To theatres and to rehearsals throng,
And all our grace at table is a song.
I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie:
Not —’s self e’er tells more fibs than I.
When sick of Muse, our follies we deplore,
And promise our best friends to rhyme no more,
We wake next morning in a raging fit,
And call for pen and ink to show our wit.
He served a ’prenticeship who sets up shop;
Ward tried on puppies and the poor his drop;
Ev’n Radcliff’s doctors travel first to France,
Nor dare to practise till they ’ve learn’d to dance.
Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile?
(Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile),
But those who cannot write, and those who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
Yet, Sir, reflect; the mischief is not great;
These madmen never hurt the Church or State:
Sometimes the folly benefits mankind,
And rarely av’rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a Pen,
He ne’er rebels, or plots, like other men:
Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he ’ll never mind,
And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.
To cheat a friend or ward, he leaves to Peter;
The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,
Enjoys his Garden and his Book in quiet;
And then—a perfect hermit in his diet.
Of little use the man you may suppose
Who says in verse what others say in prose;
Yet let me show a Poet’s of some weight,
And (tho’ no soldier) useful to the State.
What will a child learn sooner than a song?
What better teach a foreigner the tongue—
What ’s long or short, each accent where to place,
And speak in public with some sort of grace?
I scarce can think him such a worthless thing,
Unless he praise some monster of a King;
Or virtue or religion turn to sport,
To please a lewd or unbelieving Court.
Unhappy Dryden!—In all Charles’s days
Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays;
And in our own (excuse some courtly stains)
No whiter page than Addison remains.
He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth,
And sets the passions on the side of Truth,
Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest Art,
And pours each human virtue in the heart.
Let Ireland tell how wit upheld her cause,
Her trade supported, and supplied her laws;
And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved,
‘The rights a Court attack’d, a Poet saved.’
Behold the hand that wrought a Nation’s cure,
Stretch’d to relieve the idiot and the poor;
Proud vice to brand, or injured worth adorn,
And stretch the ray to ages yet unborn.
Not but there are, who merit other palms;
Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms;
The boys and girls whom charity maintains
Implore your help in these pathetic strains:
How could Devotion touch the country pews
Unless the Gods bestow’d a proper Muse?
Verse cheers their leisure, verse assists their work,
Verse prays for peace, or sings down pope and Turk.
The silenced preacher yields to potent strain,
And feels that Grace his prayer besought in vain;
The blessing thrills thro’ all the lab’ring throng,
And Heav’n is won by violence of song.
Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain
With feasts, and off’rings, and a thankful strain.
The joy their wives, their sons, and servants share,
Ease of their toil, and partners of their care:
The Laugh, the Jest, attendants on the bowl,
Smooth’d ev’ry brow, and open’d ev’ry soul:
With growing years the pleasing license grew,
And taunts alternate innocently flew.
But Times corrupt, and Nature, ill inclin’d,
Produced the point that left a sting behind;
Till friend with friend, and families at strife,
Triumphant malice raged thro’ private life.
Who felt the wrong, or fear’d it, took th’ alarm,
Appeal’d to law, and Justice lent her arm.
At length by wholesome dread of statutes bound,
The poets learn’d to please, and not to wound:
Most warp’d to Flatt’ry’s side; but some, more nice,
Preserv’d the freedom, and forbore the vice.
Hence Satire rose, that just the medium hit,
And heals with morals what it hurts with wit.
We conquer’d France, but felt our captive’s charms,
Her arts victorious triumph’d o’er our arms;
Britain to soft refinements less a foe,
Wit grew polite, and numbers learn’d to flow.
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine:
Tho’ still some traces of our rustic vein
And splay-foot verse remain’d, and will remain.
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tired nation breathed from civil war
Exact Racine and Corneille’s noble fire
Show’d us that France had something to admire.
Not but the tragic spirit was our own,
And full in Shakespeare, fair in Otway, shone;
But Otway fail’d to polish or refine,
And fluent Shakespeare scarce effaced a line.
Ev’n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art—the art to blot.
Some doubt if equal pains or equal fire
The humbler Muse of Comedy require.
But in known images of life I guess
The labour greater, as th’ indulgence less.
Observe how seldom ev’n the best succeed:
Tell me if Congreve’s fools are fools indeed?
What pert low dialogue has Farquhar writ!
How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit:
The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
Who fairly puts all characters to bed!
And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,
To make poor Pinkey eat with vast applause!
But fill their purse, our poet’s work is done,
Alike to them by pathos or by pun.
O you! whom Vanity’s light bark conveys
On Fame’s mad voyage by the wind of praise,
With what a shifting gale your course you ply,
For ever sunk too low, or borne too high.
Who pants for glory finds but short repose;
A breath revives him, or a breath o’erthrows.
Farewell the Stage! if just as thrives the play
The silly bard grows fat or falls away.
There still remains, to mortify a Wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit;
A senseless, worthless, and unhonour’d crowd,
Who, to disturb their betters, mighty proud,
Clatt’ring their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the Farce, the Bear, or the Blackjoke.
What dear delight to Britons farce affords!
Ever the taste of Mobs, but now of Lords:
(Taste! that eternal wanderer, which flies
From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.)
The play stands still; damn action and discourse!
Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse;
Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn,
Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn;
The Champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward’s armour beams on Cibber’s breast.
With laughter sure Democritus had died,
Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.
Let bear or elephant be e’er so white,
The people sure, the people are the sight!
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 ascends!
Loud as the wolves on Orcas’ stormy 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 birthday suit bestow’d,
Sinks the lost 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, flower’d gown, and lacker’d chair.
Yes, lest you think I rally more than teach,
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once presume t’ instruct the times,
To know the Poet from the man of rhymes:
’T is he who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns,
Enrage, compose, 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 deserves 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 sing?
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 guess, and, with their leave, will tell the fault.
We Poets are (upon a poet’s word)
Of all mankind the creatures most absurd:
The season when to come, and when to go,
To sing, or cease to sing, 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 single verse, we quarrel with a friend;
Repeat, unask’d; lament, the wit’s too fine
For vulgar eyes, and point out every line:
But most when straining with too weak a wing
We needs will write epistles to the King;
And from the moment we oblige the town,
Expect a Place or Pension from the Crown;
Or dubb’d historians by express command,
T’ enrol your triumphs o’er the seas and land,
Be call’d to Court to plan some 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 choose at least some minister of grace,
Fit to bestow the Laureate’s weighty place.
Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair,
Assign’d his figure to Bernini’s care;
And great Nassau to Kneller’s hand decreed
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed:
So well in paint and stone they judg’d of merit;
But Kings in Wit may want discerning spirit.
The hero William, and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pension’d Quarles,
Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear
‘No Lord’s anointed, but a Russian bear.’
Not with such majesty, such bold relief,
The forms august of King, or conquering Chief,
E’er swell’d on marble, as in verse have shined
(In polish’d verse) the manners and the mind.
O! could I mount on the Mæonian wing,
Your arms, your actions, your repose, to sing!
What seas you travers’d, and what fields you fought!
Your country’s peace how oft, how dearly bought!
How barb’rous rage subsided at your word,
And nations wonder’d while they dropp’d the sword!
How, when you nodded, o’er the land and deep,
Peace stole her wing, and wrapt the world in sleep,
Till earth’s extremes your mediation own,
And Asia’s tyrants tremble at your throne!
But verse, alas! your Majesty disdains;
And I ’m not used to panegyric strains.
The zeal of fools offends at any time,
But most of all the zeal of fools in rhyme.
Besides, 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 lies,
‘Praise undeserv’d is scandal in disguise.’
Well may he blush who gives it, or receives;
And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
(Like Journals, Odes, and such forgotten things,
As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of Kings)
Clothe spice, line trunk, or, flutt’ring in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.