And melt down ancients like a heap of fnow:

While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe,
And eftimating authors by the year,

Beftow a garland only on a bier.

*

65

Shakespeare (whom you and ev'ry playhouse bill
Style the divine, the matchlefs, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own defpight.
Ben, old and poor, as little feem'd to heed
The life to come, in ev'ry poet's creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his Epic, nay Pindaric art,
But ftill I love the language of his heart.

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75

"Yet furely, furely, these were famous men ! "What boy but hears the fayings of old Ben ? "In all debates, where critics bear a part,

80

"Not one but nods, and talks of Johnson's art, "Of Shakespeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit ; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher

writ ;

"How Shadwell hafty, Wycherly was flow §;
"But, for the paffions, Southern fure and Rowe.
"Thefe, only thefe, fupport the crouded stage,
"From eldeft Heywood down to Cibber's age.'

All this may be; the people's voice is odd,
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
To Gammer Gurton + if it give the bays,
And yet deny the Careless Husband praise,

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90

*Shakespeare and Ben Johnson may truly be faid not much to have thought of this immortality; the one in many pieces compofed in hafte for the stage; the other in his latter works in general, which Dryden called his dotages.

§ Nothing was lefs true than this particular: but the whole paragraph has a mixture of irony, and muft not altogether be taken for Horace's own judgment, only the common chat of the pretenders to criticism; in fome things right, in others, wrong; as he tells us in his anfwer.

Interdum vulgus retumvidet: eft ubi peccat.

A piece of very low humour, one of the first printed plays in English,. and therefore much valued by fome antiquarians.

Or

Or fay our fathers never broke a rule;

Why then, I fay, the public is a fool.

But let them own, that greater faults than we

95

They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree.

Spencer himself affects the obfolete,

And Sidney's verfe halts ill on Roman feet:

Milton's ftrong pinion now not heav'n can bound,
Now ferpent-like, in profe he sweeps the ground,
In quibbles, angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school-divine.
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,
Like flashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook,
Or damn all Shakespeare, like th' affected fool
At court, who hates whate'er he read at fchool.
But for the wits of either Charles's days,
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with eafe;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more,
(Like twinkling ftars the mifcellanies o'er)
One fimile, that folitary shines

In the dry defert of a thousand lines,

100.

105

110

Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a page,

Has fanctify'd whole poems for an age.

I lose my patience, and I own it too,

When works are cenfur'd, not as bad but new ;
While if our elders break all reafon's laws,
These fools demand not pardon, but applause.
On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow,
If I but afk, if any weed can grow;
One tragic fentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignify'd,

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120

Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphafis proclaims,
(Tho' but, perhaps, a mufter-roll of names)
How will our fathers rife up in a rage,
And fwear, all shame is loft in George's age !
You'd think no fools disgrac'd the formerteign,
Did not fome grave examples yet remain,
Who fcorn a lad fhould teach his father ikill,
And, having once been wrong, will be so ftill.

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130

He,

He, who to seem more deep than you or I,
Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy,
Miftake him not; he envies, not admires,
And to debafe the fons, exalts the fires.

Had antient times confpir'd to difallow

135

What then was new, what had been antient now?

Or what remain'd, fo worthy to be read

By learned critics, of the mighty dead ?

In days of eafe, when now the weary sword
Was fheath'd, and luxury with Charles reftor'd;
In ev'ry taste of foreign courts improv'd,
"All, by the king's example, liv'd and lov'd."
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excel*,
Newmarket's glory rofe, as Britain's fell;
The foldier breath'd the gallantries of France,
And ev'ry flow'ry courtier writ romance.
Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm,
And yielding metal flow'd to human form :
Lely on animated canvas ftole

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145

The fleeping eye §, that spoke the melting soul.
No wonder then, when all was love and sport,
The willing Muses were debauch'd at court;
On each enervate ftring + they taught the note
To pant, or tremble thro' an eunuch's throat.

But Britain, changeful as a child at play,
Now calls in princes, and now turns away.
Now Whig, now Tory, what we lov'd we hate;
Now all for pleasure, now for church and state;
Now for prerogative, and now for laws;

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155

Effects unhappy! from a noble cause.

160

Time was, a fober Englishman would knock

His fervants up, and rife by five o'clock,

*The duke of Newcastle's Book of Horfemanship: the Romance of Partheniffa, by the earl of Orrery, and most of the French Romances tranflated by perfons of quality.

This was the characteristic of this excellent Colourift's expreffion; who was an exceffive Manierest.

The Siege of Rhodes by Sir William Davenant, the firft Opera fung in England.

Inftruct his family in ev'ry rule,

And fend his wife to church, his fon to school.

To worship like his fathers, was his care;

To teach their frugal virtues to his heir;

To prove, that luxury could never hold;
And place, on good fecurity, his gold.
Now times are chang'd, and one poetic itch
Has feiz'd the court and city, poor and rich :

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170

Sons, fires, and grandfires, 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.

I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lye,

175

Not's felf e'er tells more fibbs than I;

When fick of Mufe, our follies we deplore,

And promife our best friends to rhyme no more;
We wake next morning in a raging fit,

180

And call for pen and ink to show our wit.
He ferv'd a 'prenticefhip, who fets up shop;

Ward try'd on puppies, and the poor, his drop;
*
Ev'n Radcliff's doctors travel firft to France,
Nor dare to practife till they've learn'd to dance.
Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile ?
(Should Ripley venture, all the world would fmile)
But thofe who cannot write, and thofe who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
Yet, Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great;
Thefe madmen never hurt the church or ftate;
Sometimes the folly benefits mankind ;
And rarely av'rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a pen,
He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men:
Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never mind;
And knows no loffes while the Mufe is kind,

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190

195

A famous empiric, whofe pill and drop had feveral furprizing effects, and were one of the principal fubjects of writing and convertation at this

time.

VOL. II.

H

1

Το

To cheat a friend, or Ward, he leaves to Peter;
The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,
Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet;
And then-a perfect hermit in his diet.

Of little ufe the man you may fuppofe,
Who fays in verfe what others fay in profe;
Yet let me fhow, a poet's of fome weight,
And (tho' no foldier) ufeful to the state.
What will a child learn fooner than a song?
What batter teach a foreigner the tongue ?

What's long or short, each accent where to place,
And speak in public with some fort of grace.
I scarce can think him fuch a worthless thing,
Unless he praise fome monster of a king:
Or virtue, or religion turn to sport,
To please a lewd, or unbelieving court,
Unhappy Dryden * !-In all Charles's days,
Rofcommon only boafts unfpotted bays;
And in our own (excufe from courtly ftains)
No whiter page than Addifon remains.
He, from the taste obfcene reclaims our youth,
And fets the paffions on the fide of truth,
Forms the foft bofom with the gentleft art,
And pours each human virtue in the heart.
Let Ireland tell, how Wit upheld her caufe,
Her trade fupported, and fupplied her laws;
And leave on SwIFT this grateful verfe engrav'd,
"The rights a court attack'd, a poet fav'd."

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205

210

215

220

Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure.,

225

Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor †,
Proud vice to brand, or injur'd worth adorn,
And ftretch the ray to ages yet unborn.

*The fudden stop after mentioning the name of Dryden has great beauty. The poet's tenderness for his mafter is expreffed in the fecond line by making his cafe general; and his honour for him, in the first line, by making his cafe particular, as the only one that deferved pity.

A foundation for the maintenance of ideots, and a fund for affifting the poor, by lending small fums of money on demand.

Not