None but an author knows an author's cares, JOHN DONNE. All authors to their own defects are blind; DRYDEN. The unhappy man who once has trail'd a pen Such is the poet's lot: what happier fate If I by chance succeed In what I write, and that's a chance indeed, You exclaim as loud as those that praise, Is it for this they study? to grow pale, The bard that first adorn'd our native tongue Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song. DRYDEN. Th' illiterate writer, empiric-like, applies Studies with care th' anatomy of man; The scribbler, pinch'd with hunger, writes to Sees virtue, vice, and passions in their cause, DRYDEN. GRANVILLE. From yon bright heaven our author fetch'd They who reach Parnassus' lofty crown his fire, And paints the passions that your eyes inspire; Full of that flame, his tender scenes he warms, And frames his goddess by your matchless charms. GRANVILLE. His works become the frippery of wit. BEN JONSON. Authors are judged by strange capricious rules, The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools; Yet sure the best are most severely fated, For fools are only laughed at,-wits are hated. POPE. I sought no homage from the race that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded, now berhymed so long, 57 Employ their pains to spurn some others down; And, while self-love each jealous writer rules, Contending wits become the sport of fools. Leave flattery to fulsome dedicators, POPE. Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er POPE. Authors alone, with more than savage rage, Unnat'ral war with brother authors wage. POPE. No rag, no scrap, of all the beau or wit, Oft leaving what is natural and fit, With authors, stationers obey'd the call; No more than thou, great George! a birthday Glory and pain th' industrious tribe provoke, He plunged for sense, but found no bottom there; But of the two less dang'rous is th' offence Then writ and flounder'd on in mere despair! To tire our patience, than mislead our sense. For fame with toil we gain, but lose with ease, POPE. The privilege that ancient poets claim, Sound judgment is the ground of writing well. ROSCOMMON. Who did ever, in French authors, see Worthy of great Phœbus rote, Our chilling climate hardly bears SWIFT. An author thus who pants for fame SWIFT. His works were hawk'd in every street, SWIFT. Chaste moral writing we may learn from hence, WALLER. Not content to see So must the writer whose productions should WALLER. Who but thyself the mind and ear can please, WALLER. None have been with admiration read, ROSCOMMON. Make the proper use of each extreme, Every busy little scribbler now Swells with the praises which he gives himself, Your author always will the best advise: How few deserve it, and what numbers claim! Unblest with sense above their peers refined, Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind? Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause, That sole proprietor of just applause? 59 Go, miser! go: for lucre sell thy soul; pole, That men may say, when thou art dead and gone, See what a vast estate he left his son! DRYDEN. For he who covets gain in such excess The base wretch who hoards up all he can DRYDEN. For should you to extortion be inclined, Your cruel guilt will little booty find. DRYDEN. Like a miser 'midst his store, Who grasps and grasps till he can hold no more. DRYDEN. As thy strutting bags with money rise, The love of gain is of an equal size. DRYDEN. From hence the greatest part of ills descend, When lust of getting more will have no end. DRYDEN. But the base miser starves amidst his store, Broods o'er his gold, and, griping still at more, Sits sadly pining, and believes he's poor. DRYDEN. Why lose we life in anxious cares GAY. |