PLOUGH POEMS, POETRY, POETS.

PLOUGH-Continued.

He that by the plough would thrive,

455

Himself must either hold or drive. Franklin, Way to Wealth. POEMS, POETRY, POETS-see Imagination, Milton, Shakespeare. I would the gods had made thee poetical. Sh. As Y. L. 111. 3. I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers : I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry;

'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag. Sh.Hen.IV. 2, 111.1.

Those who write in rhyme still make

The one verse for the other's sake;
And one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think's sufficient at one time.

It is not poetry that makes men poor;

Butler, Hud. 2, 1. 23.

For few do write that were not so before,

And those that have writ best, had they been rich,

Had ne'er been seized with a poetic itch;

Had loved their ease too well to take the pains

To undergo that drudgery of brains;

But being for all other trades unfit,

Only t' avoid being idle set up wit. Butler, Miscel. Thoughts.

As wine, that with its own weight runs, is best,

And counted much more noble than the press'd,

So is that poetry, whose generous strains

Flow without servile study, art, or pains. Ib. Misc. Thoughts.

Who first found out that curse,

T' imprison and confine his thoughts in verse,
To hang so dull a clog upon the wit,

And make his reason to his rhyme submit.

Butler.

Though poets may of inspiration boast,

Their rage, ill-governed, in the clouds is lost.

Waller.

Poets lose half the praise they should have got,

Could it be known what they discrectly blot.

Waller.

Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.

Ib. Pan. on Cromwell.

Thespis, the first professor of our art,

At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.

Dryden, Prol. to Lee's Sophonisba,

456

POEMS, POETRY, POETS.

POEMS, POETRY, POETS-continued.

Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,

Who rhyme below e'en David's psalms translated.

Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, II. 402.
Although heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking.
He never was a poet of God's making :
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing-Be thou dull:
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write. Dryden, Ib. II. 473.
Fame from science, not from fortune, draws.
So poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
There haughty dunces, whose unlearned pen
Could ne'er spell grammar, would be reading men.
Such build their poems the Lucretian way;
So many huddled atoms make a play;
And if they hit in order by some chance,
They call that nature, which is ignorance.

Of those few fools, who with ill stars are curst,
Sure scribbling fools, call'd poets, fare the worst;
For they 're a set of fools which fortune makes,
And after she has made them fools, forsakes.

Dryden, Prol. delivered at Oxford, 27.

Congreve.

Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

May boldly deviate from the common track.
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art. Pope, E.C.1.150.

"

Ib. 319.

Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line, it "whispers through the trees :"
If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep.'
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Pope, Е. С. 11. 361.

POEMS, POETRY, POETS.

POEMS, POETRY, POETS-continued.

What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starved hackney sonnetteer, or me P

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

457

How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Pope, E.C.418.

The dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,

All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

Pope, Ep. to Arbuthnot, 3.

Is there a parson much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain,
Apply to me to keep them mad or vain.
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
Curs'd be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-ey'd virgin steal a tear!

Pope, Ib. 15.

Pope, Ib. 127.

Pope, Ib. 284.

He who now to sense, now nonsense, leaning,
Means not, but blunders round-about a meanin

And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:

All these my modest satire bade translate,

And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. Pope, Ib. 185.

Let envy howl, while heav'n's whole chorus sings,

And bark at honour not confer'd by kings;
Let flatt'ry, sick'ning, see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine.

Pope.

Pope, Imit. of Hor. 2, 1. 280.

Sages and chiefs long since had birth,

Ere Cæsar was, or Newton nam'd;

These rais'd new empires o'er the earth,-
And those, new heav'ns and systems fram'd;

Vain was the chiefs', the sages' pride!

They had no poet, and they died.

Pope. 458

POEMS, POETRY, POETS.

POEMS, POETRY, POETS-continued.

Studious he sate, with all his books around,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound;
Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there;
Then wrote, and flounder'd on in mere despair.

Care in poetry must still be had,
It asks discretion e'en in running mad.

Now times are chang'd, and one poetic itch
Has seiz'd 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.

Pope.

Pope.

Pope, Imit. of Hor. 2, 1. 169.

Widely extensive is the poet's aim,

Lady Winchelsea, to Pope.

And in each verse he draws a bill on fame.

Then, rising with Aurora's light,

The Muse invok'd, sit down to write;

Blot out, correct, insert, refine,

Enlarge, diminish, interline;

Be mindful, when invention fails,

To scratch your head, and bite your nails. Swift, On Poetry, 85.

A poem's life and death dependeth still

Not on the poet's wits, but reader's will. Alexander Brome.

Read, meditate, reflect, grow wise-in vain;
Try every help, force fire from every spark;
Yet shall you ne'er the poet's power attain,
If heaven ne'er stamp'd you with the muses' mark. A. Hill.

The bards, nor think too lightly that I mean
Those little, piddling witlings, who o'erween
Of their small parts, the Murphys of the stage,
Ths Masons and the Whiteheads of the age,
Who all in raptures their own works rehearse,
And drawl out measured prose, which they call verse.

Churchill, Independence.

When the mad fit comes on, I seize the pen
Rough as they run, rapid thoughts set down,
Rough as they run, discharge them on the town;
Hence rude, unfinish'd brats, before their time,
Are born into the idle world of rhyme,
And the poor slattern muse is brought to bed,

With all her imperfections on her head. Churchill, Gotham, II.

POEMS, POETRY, POETS-continued.

All other trades demand, verse-makers beg;

A dedication is a wooden leg.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which poets only know.

Young, Love of Fame, 4.

Cowper, Task, 11. 285.

Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought,
Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought;
Fancy, that from the bow that spans the sky,
Brings colours dipp'd in heaven, that never die;
A soul exalted above earth; a mind

Skill'd in the characters that form mankind.

A great deal, my dear liege, depends
On having clever bards for friends :
What had Achilles been without his Homer?

A tailor, woollen-draper, or a comber ?

The man who printeth his poetic fits,
Into the public's mouth his head commits.

Cowper.

Peter Pindar.

Peter Pindar.

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,

And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.

Keats, Ep. to G. F. Mathews.

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;

Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthey:
With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope. Byron, D. J. 1. 205.

He lied with such a fervour of intention

There was no doubt he earn'd his laureate pension. Ib. 111. 80.
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn,
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample :
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one
Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."
Lucretius' irreligion is too strong

For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food;
I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong,
Although no doubt his real intent was good,
For speaking out so plainly in his song.
So much indeed as to be downright rude;
And then what proper person can be partial

To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial? Byron, D. J. 1. 42.