In ev'ry work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
T'avoid great errors, must the less commit ;
Neglect the rules each verbal Critic lays,
For not to know some trifles is a praise.
Most Critics, fond of some subservient art,
Still make the whole depend upon a part:
They talk of principles, but notions prize;
And all to one lov'd folly sacrifice.

[say,
Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight, they
A certain Bard encount'ring on the way,
Discours'd in terms as just, with looks as sage,
As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage;
Concluding all were desp'rate sots and fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.
Our Author, happy in a judge so nice, [vice;
Produc'd his play, and begg'd the Knight's ad-
Made him observe the subject and the plot,
The manners, passions, unities-what not?
All which, exact to rule, were brought about,
Were but a Combat in the lists left out.

'

What! leave the Combat out?" exclaims the Knight;

"Yes, or we must renounce the Stagyrite." Not so, by heaven!" he answers in a rage; Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage.'

"So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain." "Then build a new, or act it on a plain."

Thus Critics, of less judgement than caprice, Curious, not knowing; not exact, but nice; Form short ideas; and offend in arts (As most in manners) by a love to parts.

Some to Conceit alone their taste confine, And glitt ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd ; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well ex[find, Something, whose truth convine'd at sight we That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recomiend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit: For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood.

press'd;

Others for language all their care express, And value books, as women men, for dress: Their praise is still-The Style is excellent! The Sense, they humbly take upon content. Words are like leaves; and, where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colors spreads on ev'ry place;
The face of Nature we no more survey;
All glares alike, without distinction gay:

But true expression, like th` unchanging Sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon;
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent as more suitable :
A vile conceit, in pompous words exprest,
Is like a clown in regal purple drest:
For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,
As sev'ral garbs, with country, town, and court.
Some, by old words, to fame have made pre-

tence;

Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense:
Such labor'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze the unlearn'd, and make the learned
Unlucky as Fungoso in the play, [smile.
These sparks, with awkward vanity, display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday!
And but so mimic ancient wits at best,
As apes our grandsires, in their doublets drest.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ;
Alike fantastic, if too new or old.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

wrong:

But most by numbers judge a poet's song; And smooth or rough, with them, is right or [conspire, In the bright Muse though thousand charms Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire; Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, Not mend their minds; as some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,

With sure returns of still expected rhymes: Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze," [trees:" In the next line, "it whispers through the If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep," ["sleep." The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, [along. That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and

know

What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigor of a line
Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweet-
ness join.

True case in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense: Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent

roar.

throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow:
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along
the main.

Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound!
The pow'r of music all our hearts allow;
And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.

Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such
Who still are pleas'd too little or too much,
At every trifle scorn to take offence;
That always shows great pride, or little sense:
Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;
For fools admire, but men of sense approve :
As things seem large which we through mists
Dulness is ever apt to magnify. [descry,
Some foreign writers, some our own despise;
The ancients only, or the moderns prize.
Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied
To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside.
Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,
And force that sun but on a part to shine,
Which not alone the southern wit sublimes,
But ripens spirits in cold northern climes;
Which from the first has shone on ages past,
Enlights the present, and shall warm the last;
Though each may feel increases and decays,
And see now clearer and now darker days.
Regard not then if wit be old or new,
But blame the false, and value still the true.
Some ne'er advance a judgement of their

own,

vent.

But catch the spreading notion of the town; They reason and conclude by precedent, And own stale nonsense which they ne'er in[then Some judge of authors' names, not works; and Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men. Of all this servile herd, the worst is he That in proud dulness joins with quality : A constant critic at the great man's board, To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord: What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starv'd hackney'd sonnetteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault, And each exalted stanza teems with thought! The vulgar thus through imitation err; As oft the learn'd by being singular! So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong: So schismatics the plain believers quit, And are but damn'd for having too much wit.

night,

But always think the last opinion right.
A Muse by these is like a mistress us'd;
This hour she's idoliz'd, the next abus'd;
While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,
'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their
side.

Ask them the cause; they're wiser still, they say;
And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow ;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.
Once school-divines this zealous isle o'erspread;
Who knew most sentences was deepest read:
Faith, Gospel, all seem'd made to be disputed,
And none had sense enough to be confuted :
Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain
Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck-lane.
If Faith itself has diff'rent dresses worn,
What wonder modes in wit should take their
turn!

Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,
The current folly proves the ready wit;
And authors think their reputation safe,
Which lives as long as fools are pleas'd to laugh.

Some, valuing those of their own side or mind,
Still make themselves the measure of mankind;
Fondly we think we honor merit then,
When we but praise ourselves in other men.
Parties in wit attend on those of state,
And public faction doubles private hate.
Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden rose,
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux :
But sense surviv'd, when merry jests were past;
For rising merit will buoy up at last.

Might he return, and bless once more our eyes, New Blackmores and new Milbourns must arise:

Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,
Zoilus again would start up from the dead.
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue;
But, like a shadow, proves the substance true :
For envied wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known
Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own.
When first that sun too pow'rful beams displays,
It draws up vapors which obscure its rays;
But e'en those clouds at last adorn its way,
Reflect new glories, and augment the day.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost who stays till all commend.
Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes,
And 'tis but just to let them live betimes.
No longer now that golden age appears,
When patriarch wits surviv'd a thousand years;
Now length of fame (our second life) is lost,
And bare threescore is all e'en that can boast;
Our sons their fathers' failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.
So when the faithful pencil has design'd
Some bright idea of the master's mind,
Where a new world leaps out at his command,
And ready Nature waits upon his hand;
When the ripe colors soften and unite,
And sweetly melt into just shade and light;

With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always list'ning to himself appears.
All books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales:
With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary.
Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend,
Nay, show'd his faults; but when would poets
mend?

No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd, Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's church-yard:

Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead;
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,
It still looks home, and short excursions makes;
But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,
And never shock'd, and never turn'd aside,
Bursts out, resistless, with a thund'ring tide.
But where's the man who counsel can be-
stow,

Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know?
Unbiass'd, or by favor or by spite;
Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right;
Though learn'd, well-bred; and though well-
bred, sincere;

Modestly bold, and humanly severe;
Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the merit of a foe?
Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd;
A knowledge both of books and human kind
Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;
And love to praise, with reason on his side?

;

Such once were critics; such the happy few Athens and Rome in better ages knew. The mighty Stagyrite first left the shore, Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore: He steer'd securely, and discover'd far, Led by the light of the Mæonian Star. Poets, a race long unconfin'd and free, Still fond and proud of savage liberty, Receiv'd his laws, and stood convinc'd 'twas fit, Who conquer'd Nature, should preside o'er Wit. Horace still charms with graceful negligence, And without method talks us into sense; Will, like a friend, familiarly convey The truest notions in the easiest way. He who, supreme in judgement as in wit, Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ; Yet judg'd with coolness, though he sung with fire;

His precepts teach but what his works inspire. Our critics take a contrary extreme; [phelgin; They judge with fury, but they write with Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations By wits, than critics in as wrong quotations.

See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine, And call new beauties forth from ev'ry line!

Fancy and art in gay Petronius please; The scholar's learning, with the courtier's ease. In grave Quintilian's copious work, we find The justest rules and clearest method join'd: Thus useful arms in magazines we place, All rang'd in order, and dispos'd with grace;

But less to please the eye, than arm the hand; Still fit for use, and ready at command.

Thee, bold Longinus, all the Nine inspire, And bless their critic with a poet's fire: An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust, With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;

Whose own example strengthens all his laws; And is himself that great sublime he draws.

Thus long succeeding critics justly reign'd,
Licence repress'd, and useful laws ordain'd:
Learning and Rome alike in empire grew,
And arts still follow'd where her eagles flew ;
From the same foes, at last, both felt their
doom;

And the same age saw learning fall, and Rome.
With tyranny then superstition join'd;
As that the body, this enslav'd the mind:
Much was believ'd, but little understood;
And to be dull was construed to be good;
A second deluge learning thus o'er-ran ;
And the monks finish'd what the Goths began.

At length Erasmus, that great injur'd name, (The glory of the priesthood, and the shame!) Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barb'rous age, And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.

But see! each muse, in Leo's golden days, Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays;

Rome's ancient genius, o'er its ruins spread,
Shakes off the dust, and rears its rev'rend head.
Then sculpture and her sister-arts revive;
Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live:
With sweeter notes each rising temple rung;
A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung.
Immortal Vida! on whose honour'd brow
The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow:
Cremona now shall ever boast thy name,
As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!

But soon, by impious arms from Latium chas'd,
Their ancient bounds the banish'd muses pass'd;
Thence arts all o'er the northern world advance,
But critic-learning flourish'd most in France;
The rules a nation born to serve obeys,
And Boileau still in right of Horace sways.
But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despis'd,
And kept unconquer'd and uncivilis'd;
Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,
We still defied the Romans, as of old.
Yet some there were, among the sounder few
Of those who less presum'd, and better knew,
Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,
And here restor'd wit's fundamental laws.
Such was the muse whose rules and practice tell,
"Nature's chief master-piece is writing well."
Such was Roscommon, not more learn'd than
good,

With manners gen'rous as his noble blood;
To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
And ev'ry author's merit but his own.
Such late was Walsh, the muse's judge and friend,
Who justly knew to blame or to commend ;
To failings mild, but zealous for desert;
The clearest head, and the sincerest heart,