And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust, 60 Denied all posts of profit or of trust:

Hopes after hopes of pious papists fail'd,

While mighty William's thundering arm prevail❜d.
For right hereditary tax'd and fined,

He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me, the Muses help to undergo it;
Convict a papist he, and I a poet.

But, thanks to Homer! since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive,

65

Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes, 70

If I would scribble rather than repose.

Years following years, steal something every day;

At last they steal us from ourselves away;
In one our frolics, one amusements end,
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend:
This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,
What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme?

75

part which Horace took in the civil wars, are among the happiest instances of his felicitous style :

Dura sed emovere loco me tempora grato;
Civilisque rudem belli tulit æstus in arma,
Cæsaris Augusti non responsura lacertis.
Unde simul primum me dimisere Philippi,
Decisis humilem pennis, inopemque paterni
Laris et fundi; paupertas impulit audax
Versus ut facerem.

Warton, in the spirit of a scholar, observes this apologetical delicacy of throwing the blame on necessity, inexperience, and the whirl of the time. Horace had the high command, of a legion; a command equivalent to that of a British majorgeneral.

70 Monroes. Dr. Monroe, physician to Bedlam-hospital.

If every wheel of that unwearied mill,

That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?

85

But after all, what would you have me do? 80 When out of twenty I can please not two; When this heroics only deigns to praise, Sharp satire that, and that Pindaric lays? One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg; The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg; Hard task! to hit the palate of such guests, When Oldfield loves what Darteneuf detests. But grant I may relapse, for want of grace, Agáin to rhyme; can London be the place? Who there his Muse, or self, or soul attends, In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and friends?

My counsel sends to execute a deed:

A poet begs me I will hear him read:

90

In Palace-yard at nine you'll find me there---
At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square- 95
Before the lords at twelve my cause comes on—
There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one.-
O, but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets.'
Not quite so well however as one ought:
A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought;

100

83 Pindaric lays? Those unfortunate performances find no mercy from the rough gripe of Warburton :-' Of our modern lyrics,' he says, 'the English are Pindaric, and the Latin Horatian the former are, like boiled meats, of different tastes, but all insipid; the latter, like the same meats potted, but all of one taste.' The reason assigned for this sweeping condemnation is, that the English ode-makers only imitate Pindar's ideas; the Latin employ Horace's very words.'

105

And then a nodding beam or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?
And peers give way, exalted as they are,
Ev'n to their own s-r-v-nce in a car?
Go, lofty poet! and in such a crowd,
Sing thy sonorous verse-but not aloud.
Alas! to grottos and to groves we run,
To ease and silence, every Muse's son:
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,
Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's-court.
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?

110

How match the bards whom none e'er match'd before?

115

The man, who stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives seven years complete,
See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on,
He walks, an object new beneath the sun!
The boys flock round him, and the people stare: 120
So stiff, so mute! some statue, you would swear,
Stepp'd from its pedestal to take the air!

And here, while town, and court, and city roars,
With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors,
Shall I, in London, act this idle part?
Composing songs, for fools to get by heart?

The Temple late two brother serjeants saw,
Who deem'd each other oracles of law:
With equal talents, these congenial souls,

125

One lull'd the Exchequer, and one stunn'd the

Rolls:
Each had a gravity would make you split;
And shook his head at Murray, as a wit.

130

6

6

'Twas, sir, your law,' and, sir, your eloquence,' Yours, Cowper's manner'-' and yours, Talbot's

6

sense.'

Thus we dispose of all poetic merit;

135

Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit. Call Tibbald Shakspeare, and he'll swear the Nine,

140

Dear Cibber! never match'd one ode of thine.
Lord! how we strut through Merlin's cave, to see
No poets there, but Stephen, you, and me!
Walk with respect behind, while we at ease
Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we
please.

'My dear Tibullus!' if that will not do,

'Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you:

Or, I'm content, allow me Dryden's strains, 145
And you shall rise up Otway for your pains.'
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace

This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race;
And much must flatter, if the whim should bite,
To court applause by printing what I write : 150
But let the fit pass o'er, I'm wise enough
To stop my ears to their confounded stuff.

In vain bad rhymers all mankind reject;
They treat themselves with most profound respect:

140 Stephen Duck, one of the familiar burlesques of patronage; a peasant, and a dull writer, but protected by queen Caroline. By Spence's interest he obtained orders, and the living of Byfleet in Surrey. He was drowned at Reading in 1756. His character was that of a decent and honest man ; but ignorant, and as destitute of talents as of learning.

153 In vain bad rhymers. The vanity of a Frenchman is always either ferocious or fantastic: Richelieu's was both. We have the amusing anecdote of his authorship, from the Mélanges of Marville; that when he heard of the censure

POPE.

II.

S

"Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue; Each praised within, is happy all day long. But how severely with themselves proceed

156

The men, who write such verse as we can read!
Their own strict judges, not a word they spare,
That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care:
Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place,
Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace,
Such they'll degrade; and sometimes, in its
stead,

In downright charity revive the dead;

161

Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, 165 Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; Command old words that long have slept, to wake; Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake;

passed by the French Academy on his tragedy of Europa, his first impulse was indignation; he tore up the manuscript in a thousand pieces, and flung it about the room: his next was despair; he flung himself on his bed, and lay there till midnight: his third was returning affection for his offspring; at midnight he rose, summoned his attendants, and spent the rest of the night in picking up the fragments and pasting them together.

167 Old words that long have slept. Harte told Warton, as the result of some conversations with Pope, that they conceived classical English to be comprehended in the principal writers, from Spenser to Pope. Pope here talks of reviving the dialect of Bacon and Raleigh, but he not less feels the value of the vigorous additions which a language may receive from the classics or from foreign tongues. The rigid adherence to the old models, on which Swift prided himself, and the modern propensity to praise the use of the feeble, the low, the dry, and the common-place, are alike fantasies of the hour: they are contradicted by the necessity of things. All men acquire new words with new knowlege; and all nations must equally acquire new words with their increase of foreign intercourse, their enlarged activity, political and commercial, and their advances in general knowlege. England has thus enriched her