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Or fhall we ev'ry decency confound,

Thro' taverns, ftews, and bagnios ke our round,
Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo

K—l's lew'd cargo, or Ty-y's crew,

From Latian Syrens, French Circæan feafts,

Return'd well travell'd, and transform'd to beafts,
Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,

Renounce our country, and degrade our name?
If, after all, we muft with Wilmot own,

The cordial drop of life is love alone,

*

And SWIFT cry wifely, "Vive la Bagatelle ! §"

120

125

The man that loves and laughs, muft fure do well.
Adieu-if this advice appear the worst,

130

E'en take the counsel which I gave you firft:
Or better precepts if you can impart,

Why do, I'll follow them with all my heart.

*Earl of Rochester.

Our poet, fpeaking in one place of the purpose of his fatire, fays,
In this impartial glafs, my Mufe intends

Fair to expose myself, my foes, my Friends.

And, in another, he makes his court-adviser say,

Laugh at your Friends, and, if your Friends are fore,

So much the better, you may laugh the more;

because their impatience under reproof would shew, they had a great deal which wanted to be fet right.

On this principle, Swift falls under his correction. He could not bear to fee a friend he fo much valued, live in the miserable abuse of one of Nature's best gifts, unadmonished of his folly. Swift (as we may fee by fome posthumous volumes, lately published, so dishonourable and injurious to his memory) trifled away his old age in a diffipation that women and boys might be ashamed of. For when men have given into a long habit of employing their wit only to shew their parts, to edge their spleen, to pander to a faction; or, in short, to any thing but that for which nature beftowed it, namely, to recommend, and set off truth; old age, which abates the passions, will never rectify the abufes they occafioned. But the remains of wit, inftead of feeking and recovering their proper channel, will run into that miferable depravity of taste here condemned: and in which Dr. Swift seems to have placed no inconfiderable part of his wisdom. "I chufe (fays he, in "a letter to Mr. Pope) my companions amongst those of the least confequence, and most compliance: I read the most trifling books I can find; "and whenever I write, it is upon the most trifling fubje&is." And again, "I love La Bagatelle better than ever. I am always writing bad profe, or worse verses, either of rage or raillery, &c," And again, in a letter to Mr. Gay, My rule is, Vive la Bagatelle."

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VOL. II.

G

THE

THE

FIRST EPISTLE of the SECOND BOOK

O F

HORACE.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE reflections of Horace, and the judgments paffed in his Epiftle to Auguftus, feemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country. The author thought them confiderable 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 encrease of an abfolute empire. But to make the Poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of thofe which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more confiftent with the welfare of our neighbours.

This Epiftle will fhew the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Auguftus 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 magiftrate: Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen fuum obfolefieri, &c. The other, that this piece was only a general Difcourfe of Poetry; whereas it was an Apology for the Poets, in order to render Au-, guftus more their patron. Horace here pleads the caufe of his cotemporaries, first against the taste of the town, whofe humour it was to magnify the authors of the pre

ceding age; fecondly against the Court and Nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the theatre; and laftly against the Emperor himfelf, who had conceived them of little ufe to the government. He fhews (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 predeceffors; that their morals were much improved, and the licence of those ancient poets reftrained that Satire and Comedy were become more juft and useful; that whatever extravagances were left on the ftage, were owing to the Ill Tafte 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 muft depend, for his fame with posterity.

We may farther learn from this Epiftle, that Horace made his court to this great prince by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a juft contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character.

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EPISTLE I.

Το AUGUSTU S.

WHILE you, great patron of mankind! sustain

The balanc'd world, and open all the main ;
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
How shall the mufe, from fuch a monarch steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?

Edward and Henry, now the boaft of fame,
And virtuous Alfred, a more facred name,
After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd,
The Gaul fubdu'd, or property fecur'd,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities ftorm'd,
Ör laws establish'd, and the world reform'd;
Clos'd their long glories with a figh, 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 paft,
Had ftill this monfter to fubdue at last.
Sure fate of all, beneath whofe rifing ray
Each ftar of meaner merit fades away!
Opprefs'd we feel the beam directly beat,
Those fons of glory please not till they fet.

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 facred and rever'd,
As heav'n's own oracles from altars heard.
Wonder of kings! like whom, to mortal eyes
None e'er has rifen, and none e'er fhall rife.

5

10

15

20

25

30 Juft

Juft in one inftance, be it yet confest

Your people, Sir, are partial in the reft:
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 ruft we value, not the gold.

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Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,
And beaftly Skelton * heads of houses quote :
One likes no language but the Faery Queen;

A Scot will fight for Chrift's Kirk o' the Green §;
And each true Briton is to Ben fo civil,
He fwears the Mufes met him at the Devil +.

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Tho' juftly Greece her eldest fons admires,

Why should not we be wiser than our fires?
In ev'ry public virtue we excell;

45

We build, we paint, we fing, we dance as well,
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could fhe behold us tumbling thro' a hoop.

If time improve our wits as well as wine,
Say at what age a poet grows divine?
Shall we, or fhall we not, account him fo,
Who dy'd, perhaps, an hundred years ago?
End all difpute; and fix the year precife
When British bards begin t'immortalize ?
"Who lafts a century can have no flaw,
"I hold that wit a claffic, good in law."

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55

Suppose he wants a year, will you compound?

And shall we deem him ancient, right and found,
Or damn to all eternity at once,

At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?

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"We fhall not quarrel for a year or two;

"By courtesy of England, he may do."

Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail bare,

I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,

* Skelton, Poet Laureat to Henry VIII. a volume of whofe verfes has been lately reprinted, coufifting almost wholly of ribaldry, ob.cenity, and scurrilous language.

§ A ballad made by a king of Scotland.

†The Devil-Tavern, where Ben Johnson held his poetical-club.

And

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