Though gay as mirth, as curious thought sedate, Hounds hunt the hare; the wily fox As elegance polite, as power elate. SAVAGE: On Pope. While we do admire This virtue and this moral discipline, SHAKSPEARE. Read Homer once, and you can read no more, How many a rustic Milton has pass'd by, SWIFT. Devours your geese, the wolf your flocks: On poets, in all times, abusive; SWIFT. Wit, like wine, from happier climates brought, Dash'd by these rogues, turns English common draught. They pall Molière's and Lopez's sprightly strain. In Pope I cannot read a line, SWIFT. Pope's filial piety excels Whatever Grecian story tells. SWIFT. SHELLEY: Queen Mab. Send those to paper-sparing Pope; And, when he sits to write, In Raleigh mark their ev'ry glory mix'd; Raleigh, the scourge of Spain, whose breast with all The sage, the patriot, and the hero burn'd. THOMSON. The patient show'd us the wise course to steer, Though slaves, like birds that sing not in a cage, crown'd. WALLER. A great deal, my dear liege, depends DR. WOLCOTT. I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, Since every mortal power of Coleridge The divine Milton. WORDSWORTH. And when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The sightless Milton, with his hair WORDSWORTH. For Plato's lore sublime, And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite, Enrich'd and beautified his studious mind. WORDSWORTH: from the Italian. We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakspeare spake, the faith and morals hold Which Milton held. WORDSWORTH. Meek Walton's heavenly memory. WORDSWORTH: Walton's Book of Lives. The feather whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropp'd from an angel's wing. WORDSWORTH: Walton's Book of Lives. As thou these ashes, little brook! wilt bear Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, WORDSWORTH: to Wickliffe. Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train, But what in oddness can be more sublime AUTHORSHIP. Each wit may praise it for his own dear sake, Much thou hast said which I know when BUTLER: Hudibras. 'Tis pleasant sure to see one's name in print; A book's a book although there's nothing in't. BYRON. One hates an author that's all author, fellows In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink, So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous, One don't know what to say to them, or think, Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows; Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs, e'en the pink Are preferable to these shreds of paper, These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper. BYRON. Choose an author as you choose a friend. The privilege that ancient poets claim, Make the proper use of each extreme, Every busy little scribbler now Your author always will the best advise: Chaste moral writing we may learn from hence, Not content to see WALLER. So must the writer whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould. |