days To spread about the itch of verse and praise; With handkerchief and orange at my side; Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his seat, And flatter'd ev'ry day, and some days Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past: For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last! A. But why insult the poor? affront the great? 360 P. A knave's a knave to me in ev'ry state; Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail; A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire; If on a Pillory, or near a Throne, He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own. Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit: This dreaded Satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress: 371 No courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie. Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language but the language of the heart. By Nature honest, by Experience wise, 400 Healthy by Temp'rance and by Exercise; His life, tho' long, to sickness pass'd unknown, His death was instant and without a groan. O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I. O friend! may each domestic bliss be for the increase of an absolute Empire; but to make the poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a Free People, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours. This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a Patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate; Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsole fieri, &c.; the other, that this piece was only a general Discourse of Poetry; whereas it was an Apology for the Poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries; first, against the Taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the Court and Nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the Theatre; and, lastly, against the Emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the Government. He shows (by a view of the progress of Learning, and the change of Taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the Polite Arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their Morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the State; and concludes, that it was upon them the Emperor himself must depend for his Fame with posterity. We may further learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his court to this great Prince, by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character. 50 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 not, account him so Who died, perhaps, a hundred years ago? End all dispute; and fix the year precise When British bards begin t'immortalize? '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? And shall we deem him ancient, right, and sound, While you, to measure merits, look in And estimating authors by the year, Shakespeare (whom you and every playhouse 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. What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? |
