Well may he blush who gives it, or receives;
And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
(Like journals, odes, and such forgotten things,
As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of kings,)
Clothe spice, line trunks, or, fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.
Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.
DEAR Colonel, Cobham's and your country's
You love a verse; take such as I can send.
A Frenchman comes, presents you with his boy,
Bows and begins-This lad, sir, is of Blois :
Observe his shape how clean! his locks how curl'd!
My only son, I'd have him see the world:
His French is pure; his voice too-you shall hear.
Sir, he's your slave for twenty pound a-year.
Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease,
Your barber, cook, upholsterer; what you please:
A perfect genius at an opera song—
To say too much might do my honour wrong.
Take him with all his virtues on my word;
His whole ambition was to serve a lord.
1 Colonel Cotterell, of Rousham, near Oxford.
But, sir, to you with what would I not part?
Though, faith, I fear, 'twill break his mother's heart.
Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie,
And then, unwhipp'd, he had the grace to cry:
The fault he has I fairly shall reveal,
(Could you o'erlook but that) it is—to steal.'
If, after this, you took the graceless lad,
Could you complain, my friend, he prov'd so bad?
Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute,
I think Sir Godfrey2 should decide the suit;
Who sent the thief that stole the cash away,
And punish'd him that put it in his way.
Consider then, and judge me in this light;
I told you when I went I could not write;
You said the same; and are you discontent
With laws to which you gave your own assent?
Nay, worse, to ask for verse at such a time!
D'ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme?
In Anna's wars a soldier, poor and old,
Had dearly earn'd a little purse of gold:
Tir'd in a tedious march, one luckless night
He slept, (poor dog!) and lost it to a doit.
This put the man in such a desperate mind,
Between revenge, and grief, and hunger join'd,
Against the foe, himself, and all mankind,
He leap'd the trenches, scal'd a castle wall,
Tore down a standard, took the fort and all.
'Prodigious well!' his great commander cried,
Gave him much praise, and some reward beside.
Next pleas'd His Excellence a town to batter
(Its name I know not, and 'tis no great matter);
'Go on, my friend (he cried), see yonder walls!
Advance and conquer! go where glory calls!
More honours, more rewards, attend the brave.'
Don't you remember what reply he gave?—
'D'ye think me, noble general, such a sot?
Let him take castles who has ne'er a groat.'
Bred up at home, full early I begun
To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' son:
Besides, my father taught me from a lad
The better art, to know the good from bad
(And little sure imported to remove,
To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove).
But knottier points we knew not half so well,
Depriv'd us soon of our paternal cell;
And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust,
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 fin'd,
He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me, the Muses help'd 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,
Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,
If I would scribble rather than repose.
8 Dr. Monroe was physician to Bedlam Hospital.
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?
If every wheel of that unwearied mill,
That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?
But, after all, what would ye have me do,
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 Dartineuf1 detests!
But grant I may relapse, for want of grace,
Again 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.
In Palace yard at nine you'll find me there—
At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square-
Before the lords at twelve my cause comes on-
There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one.—
'Oh! but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets.'
4 See note 7, p. 22, and note 2, p. 27.
Not quite so well, however, as one ought:
A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought;
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,
E'en to their own s-r-v-ence 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.5
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar? [before?
How match the bards whom none e'er match'd
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:
So stiff, so mute; some statue you would swear
Stept 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 sergeants saw,
Who deem'd each other oracles of law;
5 Two villages near London.
|