THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE. ADVERTISEMENT. The reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed in his epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country. The author thought them considerable enough to address them to his prince, whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch upon whom the Romans depended for the increase of an absolute empire; but to make the poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours. This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate; Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsolefieri, &c.; the other, that this piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries; first, against the taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the court and nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the theatre; and, lastly, against the emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government. He shows (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their prede cessors; that their morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that satire and comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the state; and concludes, that it was upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity. We may further learn from this epistle, that Horace made his court to this great prince, by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character. TO AUGUSTUS.1 WHILE you, great patron of mankind! sustain Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, The great Alcides, every labour past, He swears the muses met him at the devil. Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires, Why should not we be wiser than our sires? 2 The Devil Tavern. In every public virtue we excel, We build, we paint, we sing, we dance, as well; '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 playhouse 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. Fly then on all the wings of wild desire, Is wealth thy passion? hence! from pole to pole, Prevent the greedy, and outbid the bold: Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves; • Garter king at arms. |