Page images
PDF
EPUB

Above all Greek, above all Roman Fame1:
Whose Word is Truth, as sacred and rever'd,
As Heav'n's own Oracles from Altars heard.
Wonder of Kings! like whom, to mortal eyes
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise.
Just in one instance, be it yet confest
Your People, Sir, are partial in the rest:
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 rust we value, not the gold.
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote2,
And beastly Skelton Heads of Houses quote3:
One likes no language but the Faery Queen ;

A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green1;
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,

He swears the Muses met him at the Devil".

Tho' justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not We be wiser than our sires?
In ev'ry Public virtue we excel;

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

If Time improve our Wit as well as Wine,
Say at what age a Poet grows divine?
Shall we, or shall we nct, account him so,
Who died, perhaps, an hundred years ago?
End all dispute; and fix the year precise
When British bards begin t' immortalize?

50

"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?

55

At ninety-nine, a Modern and a Dunce?
"We shall not quarrel for a year or two;

And shall we deem him Ancient, right and sound,
Or damn to all eternity at once,

60

Then by the rule that made the Horse-tail bears,

65

"By courtesy of England', he may do."

I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,
And melt down Ancients like a heap of snow:

1 Te nostris ducibus, te Graiis anteferendo.

Hor.

2 [Particularly when modernised.] 3 And beastly Skelton, etc.] Skelton, Poet Laureate to Hen. VIII. a volume of whose verses has been lately reprinted, consisting almost wholly of ribaldry, obscenity, and scurrilous language. P. [John Skelton born about 1460, tutor to prince Henry (afterwards K. H. VIII.) and ultimately Rector of Diss in Norfolk, died in 1529. His English verse, which is chiefly satirical and in part directed against Wolsey, is by no means entirely what Pope's perfunctory epithets declare it to be.]

4 Christ's Kirk o' the Green;] A Ballad made by a King of Scotland. P. [James I.] 5 met him at the Devil] The Devil Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his Poetical Club. P. 6 [i.e. to be immortal.]

7 ['Courtesy of England,' a legal term signifying the custom by which a widower holds during his lifetime the lands of which his wife was seized in fee, if she had issue by him born alive.]

8 [The reference in Horace is to the so-called Argumentatio Acervalis, or Sorites, the purpose of which is to show that relative terms of measure admit of no precise definition.]

[blocks in formation]

While you to measure merits, look in Stowe 1,
And estimating authors by the year,
Bestow a Garland only on a Bier.

Shakespear (whom you and ev'ry Play-house bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)

70

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 ev'ry Poet's Creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His Moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forget his Epic, nay Pindaric Art3;
But still I love the language of his heart *.
"Yet surely, surely, these were famous men!
"What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben?
"In all debates where Critics bear a part 5,
"Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's Art,
"Of Shakespear's Nature, and of Cowley's Wit;
"How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ;
"How Shadwell' hasty, Wycherley was slow";
"But for the Passions, Southern sure and Rowe 11.
"These, only these, support the crowded stage,
"From eldest Heywood 12 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 13 if it give the bays,
And yet deny the Careless Husband1 praise,

[Stowe's Annals of England appear to have been first published in 1580.]

2 Shakespear] Shakespear and Ben Jonson may truly be said not much to have thought of this Immortality, the one in many pieces composed in haste for the Stage; the other in his latter works in general, which Dryden call'd his Dotages.

3 Pindaric Art;] which has much more merit than his Epic, but very unlike the Character, as well as Numbers of Pindar. P.

4 [Compare p. 180.]

5 In all debates, etc.] The Poet has here put the bald cant of women and boys into extreme fine verse. This is in strict imitation of his Original, where the same impertinent and gratuitous criticism is admirably ridiculed.

[This common assumption should in its turn be checked by the consideration that out of 52 plays known as Beaumont and Fletcher's the former can only be proved to have had part in 17. Beaumont, though ten years younger than Fletcher, published plays before the latter.]

7 [Thomas Shadwell, poet-laureate, the original of Dryden's Mac Flecknoe.]

8 [Wycherley, see note to p. 20.] 9 Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow.] Nothing was less true than this particular: But the whole paragraph has a mixture of Irony, and must not altogether be taken for Horace's own Judgment, only the common Chat of the pre

10

[blocks in formation]

tenders to Criticism; in some things right, in others, wrong; as he tells us in his answer, Interdum vulgus rectum videt: est ubi peccat. P.

-hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley, is a line of Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: the sense of which seems to have been generally mistaken. It gives to each his epithet, not to design the difference of their talents, but the number of their productions. Warburton.

10 [Thomas Southern (1660-1746), the author of the tragedy of Oroonoko.]

11 [Rowe. See Epitaph v.]

12 [Of John Heywood's 'Interludes,' which form a transition from the moral-plays to the regular drama, the earliest was probably written in the first quarter of the 16th century.]

13 Gammer Gurton] A piece of very low humour, one of the first printed Plays in English, and therefore much valued by some Antiquaries. P. [Believed, on insufficient evidence, to have been written by Bishop Still. The oldest extant edition of this play is dated 1575; Udall's Ralph Roister Doister (of which a copy was first discovered in 1818) was certainly printed nine years previously; and, being founded on Plautus, is infinitely superior to Gammer Gurton's Needle, although the latter has a few touches of considerable humour and contains an excellent drinkingsong.]

[Cibber's Careless Husband, in which the character of Lord Foppington is taken from

Or say our Fathers never broke a rule;
Why then, I say, the Public is a fool."

But let them own, that greater Faults than we
They had, and greater Virtues, I'll agree.
Spenser himself affects the Obsolete3,

And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet 3 :
Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,
Now Serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground,
In Quibbles Angel and Archangel join,
And God the Father turns a School-divine 4.
Not that I'd lop the Beauties from his book,
Like slashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook",
Or damn all Shakespear, like th' affected Fool
At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.
But for the Wits of either Charles's days",
The Mob of Gentlemen who wrote with Ease;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley 10, and a hundred more,
(Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er)
One Simile, that solitary shines

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

In the dry desert of a thousand lines,

Has sanctify'd whole poems for an age.

I lose my patience, and I own it too,

When works are censur'd, not as bad but new;

95

100

105

110

115

While if our Elders break all reason's laws,

These fools demand not pardon, but Applause 11.
On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow,

If I but ask, if any weed can grow;

One Tragic sentence if I dare deride
Which Betterton's 12 grave action dignify'd,
Or well-mouth'd Booth 13 with emphasis proclaims,

Vanbrugh, was first acted in 1704; and kept the stage throughout the century. Lady Betty Modish is a character in this comedy.]

2 [Compare p. 176.]

3 [In Bk. 1. of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia are specimens of his English hexameters and pentameters as well as sapphics; in Bk. II. there is also an experiment in the metre of Anacreon, by no means unpleasant in its effect.] 4 [Paradise Lost, Bk. 111.]

5 [Cf. Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 168.]

6 An indirect satire on Lord Hervey, in allusion to certain lines in his Epistle to a D.D. from a nobleman at Hampton Court. Carruthers.

7 [Cf. Essay on Criticism, vv. 715 f.]

8 [Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester; who read James II.'s Declaration in Westminster Abbey and was arrested on a false charge of treason under William III. He was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society; and a popular writer of both prose and verse.]

9 [Thomas Carew, a courtier of Charles II. and a charming lyrical poet, died in 1639.]

10 [Sir Charles Sedley, the favourite poet of King Charles II., died in 1701. He was a boon

companion of the Earl of Rochester.]

120

[Pope's edition of Shakspere was published in 1725. It was a failure as a speculation; and though it is not without merits, both in the preface (of which the general spirit is upon the whole creditable to Pope's appreciation of Shakspere's genius) and in the emendations (frequently very clever), yet it deservedly exposed Pope to the cavils of Theobald. See Introduction to Dunciad.]

12 [This famous actor was an early friend of Pope's, a copy by whose hand of the actor's portrait by Kneller still exists at Lord Mansfield's seat at Caen Wood, Hampstead. An account of his famous Benefit in April 7th, 1709, will be found in the Tatler. His 'grave action was probably due in part to his large habit of body; yet he played an unusually wide range of characters, and according to Cibber was particularly great in Othello, Hamlet, Hotspur, Macbeth and Brutus. See Leigh Hunt's The Town.]

13 [Barton Booth (who died in 1733) was an actor particularly celebrated for the excellence of his articulation. He was the original Cato in Addison's tragedy. Cf. v. 337.]

(Tho' but, perhaps, a muster-roll of Names 1)
How will our Fathers rise up in a rage,
And swear, all shame is lost in George's Age!
You'd think no Fools disgrac'd the former reign,,
Did not some grave Examples yet remain,
Who scorn a Lad should teach his father skill,
And, having once been wrong, will be so still.
He, who to seem more deep than you or I,
Extols old Bards, or Merlin's Prophecy,
Mistake him not; he envies, not admires,
And to debase the Sons, exalts the Sires.

125

130

Had ancient times conspir'd to disallow

135

What then was new, what had been ancient now?

Or what remain'd, so worthy to be read
By learned Critics, of the mighty Dead?

In Days of Fase, when now the weary Sword
Was sheath'd, and Luxury with Charles restor❜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' excel3,
Newmarket's Glory rose, as Britain's fell4;
The Soldier breath'd the Gallantries of France,
And ev'ry flow'ry Courtier writ Romance.
Then Marble, soften'd into life, grew warm 5:
And yielding Metal flow'd to human form:
Lely on animated Canvas stole

140

145

The sleepy 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 string they taught the note7
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;

150

155

Now all for Pleasure, now for Church and State;
Now for Prerogative, and now for Laws;

Effects unhappy from a Noble Cause.

165

Time was, a sober Englishman would knock
His servants up, and rise by five o'clock,

A muster-roll of Names] An absurd custom of several Actors, to pronounce with emphasis the mere Proper Names of Greeks or Romans, which (as they call it) fill the mouth of the Player. P. [Like the Bombomachides Clutomestoridysarchides' of Plautus.]

2 A verse of the Lord Lansdown. P.

3 in Horsemanship t'excel, And ev'ry flowry Courtier writ Romance.] The Duke of Newcastle's book of Horsemanship: the Romance of Parthenissa, by the Earl of Orrery, and most of the French Romances translated by Persons of Quality. P.

4 [Newmarket, which became popular with the rise of horse-racing under James I., was a

favourite resort of Charles II., whose palace there still stands.]

5 [The two most eminent sculptors of the Restoration period were Cibber, a Dane, and Gibbons, a Dutchman.]

6 [Sir Peter Lely, by birth a Westphalian, died in 1680, after accumulating a large fortune. Warton compares for the delightful expression, 'the sleepy eye,' an epigram of Antipater, 'which it is not probable Pope could have seen.']

7 On each enervate string, etc.] The Siege of Rhodes by Sir William Davenant, the first Opera sung in England. P. [It was brought out in 1656.]

Instruct his Family in ev'ry rule,

And send his Wife to church, his Son 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 Security, his Gold.

165

Now times are chang'd, and one Poetic Itch
Has seiz'd the Court and City, poor and rich:

170

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.

I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie,

175

Not's self e'er tells more Fibs than I;
When sick of Muse, our follies we deplore,

And promise our best Friends to rhyme no more;
We wake next morning in a raging fit,
And call for pen and ink to show our Wit.

180

He serv'd a 'Prenticeship, who sets up shop;
Ward try'd on Puppies, and the Poor, his Drop1;
Ev'n Radcliff's Doctors travel first to France,
Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance2.
Who builds a Bridge that never drove a pile?
(Should Ripley3 venture, all the world would smile)
But those who cannot write, and those who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
Yet, Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great;
These Madmen never hurt the Church or State:
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:

185

190

Flight of Cashiers, or Mobs, he'll never mind;
And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.

195

To cheat a Friend, or Ward, he leaves to Peter5;

[ocr errors]

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 use the Man you may suppose,
Who says in verse what others say in prose;
Yet let me show, a Poet's of some weight,
And (tho' no Soldier) useful to the State".

Ward.] A famous Empiric, whose Pill and Drop had several surprizing effects, and were one of the principal subjects of writing and conversation at this time. P.

2 Ev'n Radcliff's Doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance.] By no means an insinuation as if these travelling Doctors had misspent their time. Radcliff had sent them on a medicinal mission, to examine the produce of each Country, and see in what it might be made subservient to the art

200

of healing. The native commodity of France is DANCING. SCRIBL.

3 [Cf. Pope's note to Moral Essays, Ep. iv. v. 18.] [Bowles cites Coxe's Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole for an account of the flight of Knight, the cashier of the South Sea Company.]

5 [Conjectured by Bowles to refer to the cheating of Mr George Pitt, in the management of his estates, by Peter Walter.]

6 And (tho' no Soldier)] Horace had not

« PreviousContinue »