There is a kind of writer pleas'd with sound, Whose fustian head with clouds is compass'd round,

No reason can disperse them with its light:
Learn then to think ere you pretend to write.
As
your idea 's clear, or else obscure,
The expression follows perfect or impure :
What we conceive with ease we can express:
Words to the notions flow with readiness.

Observe the language well in all you write,
And swerve not from it in your loftiest flight,
The smoothest verse and the exactest sense
Displease us, if ill English give offence:
A barbarous phrase no reader can approve;
Nor bombast, noise, or affectation love.
In short, without pure language, what you write
Çan never yield us profit or delight.
Take time for thinking; never work in haste;
And value not yourself for writing fast.
A rapid poem, with such fury writ,
Shows want of judgment, not abounding wit.
More pleas'd we are to see a river lead
His gentle streams along a flow'ry mead,
Than from high banks to hear loud torrents roar,
With foamy waters on a muddy shore.
Gently make haste, of labour not afraid;
A hundred times consider what you 've said:
Polish, repolish, every colour lay,

And sometimes add, but oftener take away.
'Tis not enough when swarming faults are writ,
That here and there are scatter'd sparks of wit:
Each object must be fix'd in the due place,
And differing parts have corresponding grace:
Till by a curious art dispos'd, we find
One perfect whole, of all the pieces join'd.
Keep to your subject close in all you say;
Nor for a sounding sentence ever stray.
The public censure for your writings fear,
And to yourself be critic most severe.
Fantastic wits their darling follies love:
But find you faithful friends that will reprove,
That on your works may look with careful eyes,
And of your faults be zealous enemies :
Lay by an author's pride and vanity,
And from a friend a flatterer descry,

Reprove of words the too affected sound;
Here the sense flags, and your expression's
round,

Your fancy tires, and your discourse grows vain,
Your terms improper, make them just and plain.
Thus, 't is a faithful friend will freedom use;
But authors, partial to their darling muse,
Think to protect it they have just pretence,
And at your friendly counsel take offence.
Said you of this, that the expression's flat?
Your servant, Sir, you must excuse me that,
He answers you. This word has here no grace,
Pray leave it out: That, Sir, 's the properest
place.

This turn I like not; "T is approv'd by all.
Thus, resolute not from one fault to fall,
If there's a syllable of which you doubt,
'Tis a sure reason not to blot it out.
Yet still he says you may his faults confute,
And over him your power is absolute :
But of his feign'd humility take heed;
'Tis a bait laid to make you hear him read.
And when he leaves you happy in his muse,
Restless he runs some other to abuse,
And often finds; for in our scribbling times
No fool can want a sot to praise his rhymes;
The flattest work has ever in the court
Met with some zealous ass for his support;
And in all times a forward scribbling fop
Has found some greater fool to cry him up.

CANTO II.

PASTORAL.

says;

Embrace true counsel, but suspect false praise.
A sycophant will every thing admire:
Each verse, each sentence sets his soul on fire:
All is divine! there's not a word amiss!
He shakes with joy, and weeps with tenderness,
He overpowers you with his mighty praise.
Truth never moves in those impetuous ways:
A faithful friend is careful of your fame,
And freely will your heedless errors blame;
He cannot pardon a neglected line,
But verse to rule and order will confine.

And never with harsh sounds the ear affrights.
But in this style a poet often spent,
In rage throws by his rural instrument,
And vainly, when disorder'd thoughts abound,
Amidst the Eclogue makes the trumpet sound:
Pan flies alarm'd into the neighbouring woods,
And frighted nymphs dive down into the floods,
Oppos'd to this another, low in style,
Makes shepherds speak a language base and
vile:

His writings, flat and heavy, without sound,
Kissing the earth, and creeping on the ground;

You'd swear that Randal, in his rustic strains,
Again was quavering to the country swains,
And changing without care of sound or dress,
Strephon and Phyllis, into Tom and Bess.
"Twixt these extremes, 't is hard to keep the
right;

"For guides take Virgil, and read Theocrite:
Be their just writings, by the gods inspir'd,
Your constant pattern practis'd and admir'd.
By them alone you 'll easily comprehend
How poets, without shame, may condescend
To sing of gardens, fields, of flowers, and fruit,
To stir up shepherds, and to tune the flute;
Of love's rewards to tell the happy hour,
Daphne a tree, Narcissus made a flower,
And by what means the Eclogue yet has power
To make the woods worthy a conqueror:
This of their writings is the grace and flight;
Their risings lofty, yet not out of sight.

ELEGY.

The Elegy that loves a mournful style,
With unbound hair weeps at a funeral pile,
It paints the lovers' torments and delights,
A mistress flatters, threatens, and invites:
But well these raptures, if you 'll make us see,
You must know love as well as poetry.
I hate those lukewarm authors, whose forc'd fire
In a cold style describes a hot desire,
That sigh by rule, and raging in cold blood
Their sluggish muse whip to an amorous mood:
Their feign'd transports appear but flat and vain;
They always sigh, and always hug their chain,
Adore their prison, and their sufferings bless,
Make sense and reason quarrel as they please.
'T was not of old in this affected tone,
That smooth Tibullus made his amorous moan;
Nor Ovid, when instructed from above,
By nature's rules he taught the art of love.
The heart in Elegies forms the discourse.

ODE.

The Ode is bolder, and has greater force.
Mounting to heaven in her ambitious flight,
Amongst the gods and heroes takes delight;
Of Pisa's wrestlers tells the sinewy force,
And sings the dusty conqueror's glorious

course:

To Simois' streams does fierce Achilles bring, And makes the Ganges bow to Britain's king. Sometimes she flies like an industrious bee, And robs the flowers by nature's chymistry, Describes the sheperd's dances, feasts, and bliss,

And boasts from Phyllis to surprise a kiss, When gently she resists with feign'd remorse, That what she grants may seem to be by force:

Her generous style at random oft will part,
And by a brave disorder shows her art.
Unlike those fearful poets, whose cold rhyme
In all their raptures keep exactest time,
That sing the illustrious hero's mighty praise
(Lean writers!) by the terms of weeks and
days;

And dare not from least circumstances part,
But take all towns by strictest rules of art:
Apollo drives those fops from his abode;
And some have said that, once the humorous
god

Resolving all such scribblers to confound,
For the short Sonnet order'd this strict bound:
Set rules for the just measure, and the time,
The easy running and alternate rhyme ;
But above all, those licenses denied
Which in these writings the lame sense sup-
plied;

Forbad a useless line should find a place,
Or a repeated word appear with grace.
A faultless Sonnet, finish'd thus, would be
Worth tedious volumes of loose poetry.
A hundred scribbling authors, without ground,
Believe they have this only phoenix found:
When yet the exactest scarce have two or
three,

Among whole tomes, from faults and censure

free.

The rest but little read, regarded less,
Are shovell'd to the pastry from the press.
Closing the sense within the measur'd time,
T is hard to fit the reason to the rhyme

EPIGRAM.

The Epigram, with little art compos'd,
Is one good sentence in a distich clos'd.
These points that by Italians first were priz'd,
Our ancient authors knew not, or despis'd:
The vulgar dazzled with their glaring light,
To their false pleasures quickly they invite,
But public favour so increas'd their pride,
They overwhelm'd Parnassus with their tide.
The Madrigal at first was overcome,
And the proud Sonnet fell by the same doom;
With these grave Tragedy adorn'd her flights,
And mournful Elegy her funeral rites:
A hero never fail'd them on the stage,
Without his point a lover durst not rage;
The amorous shepherds took more care to
prove

True to his point, than faithful to their love.
Each word like Janus had a double face:
And prose, as well as verse, allow'd it place:
The lawyer with conceits adorn'd his speech,
The parson without quibbling could not preach.
At last affronted reason look'd about,
And from all serious matters shut them out.

shame,

Except a scattering in the Epigram;
Provided that by art, and in due time

They turn'd upon the thought and not the rhyme.
Thus in all parts disorders did abate:
Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate;
Insipid jesters, and unpleasant fools,
A corporation of dull punning drolls.
'Tis not, but that sometimes a dexterous muse
May with advantage a turn'd sense abuse,
And on a word may trifle with address;
But above all avoid the fond excess;
And think not, when your verse and sense are
With a dull point to tag your Epigram.

[lame,

Each poem his perfection has apart; The British round in plainness shows his art. The Ballad, though the pride of ancient time, Has often nothing but his humorous rhyme ; The Madrigal may softer passions move, And breathe the tender ecstasies of love. Desire to show itself, and not to wrong, Arm'd Virtue first with Satire in its tongue.

SATIRE.

Lucilius was the man who, bravely bold,
To Roman vices did this mirror hold,
Protected humble goodness from reproach,
Show'd worth on foot, and rascals in the coach,
Horace his pleasing wit to this did add,
And none uncensur'd could be fool or mad:
Unhappy was that wretch, whose name might be
Squar'd to the rules of their sharp poetry.
Persius obscure, but full of sense and wit,
Affected brevity in all he writ:
And Juvenal, learn'd as those times could be,
Too far did stretch his sharp hyperbole ;
Though horrid truths through all his labours
shine,

In what he writes there's something of divine,
Whether he blames the Caprean debauch,
Or of Sejanus' fall tells the approach,
Or that he makes the trembling senate come
To the stern tyrant to receive their doom;
Or Roman vice in coarsest habits shows,
And paints an empress reeking from the stews:
Imall he writes appears a noble fire:
To follow such a master then desire.
Chaucer alone, fix'd on this solid base,
In his old style conserves a modern grace :
Too happy, if the freedom of his rhymes
Offended not the method of our times.
The Latin writers decency neglect;
But modern authors challenge our respect,
And at immodest writings take offence,
If clean expression cover not the sense.
I love sharp Satire, from obsceneness free;
Not impudence that preaches modesty :

Hence in lampoons and libels learn to rail;
Pleasant detraction, that by singing goes
From mouth to mouth, and as it marches grows:
Our freedom in our poetry we see,
That child of joy begot by liberty.
But, vain blasphemer, tremble when you choose
God for the subject of your impious muse:
At last, those jests which libertines invent,
Bring the lewd author to just punishment.
Even in a song there must be art and sense :
Yet sometimes we have seen that wine, or
chance,
[mettle,

Have warm'd cold brains, and given dull writers
And furnish'd out a scene for Mr. Settle.
But for one lucky hit that made thee please,
Let not thy folly grow to a discase,
Nor think thyself a wit: for in our age
If a warm fancy does some fop engage,
He neither eats nor sleeps till he has writ,
But plagues the world with his adulterate wit.
Nay' tis a wonder,if in his dire rage
He prints not his dull follies for the stage;
And in the front of all his senseless plays,
Makes David Logan crown his head with bays.

CANTO III.

TRAGEDY.

THERE's not a monster bred beneath the sky, But, well-dispos'd by art, may please the eye: A curious workman by his skill divine, From an ill object makes a good design. Thus to delight us, Tragedy, in tears For Edipus, provokes our hopes and fears: For parricide Orestes asks relief; And to increase our pleasure causes grief. You then that in this noble art would rise, Come; and in lofty verse dispute the prize. Would you upon the stage acquire renown, And for your judges summon all the town? Would you your works for ever should remain, And after ages past be sought again? In all you write, observe with care and art To move the passions and incline the heart. If in a labour'd act, the pleasing rage Cannot our hopes and fears by turns engage, Nor in our mind a feeling pity raise; In vain with learned scenes you fill your plays: Your cold discourse can never move the mind Of a stern critic, naturally unkind; Who justly tir'd with your pedantic flight, Or falls asleep, or censures all you write. The secret is, attention first to gain; To move our minds, and then to entertain:

That from the very opening of the scenes,
The first may show us what the author means.
I'm tir'd to see an actor on the stage,
That knows not whether he 's to laugh or rage;
Who, an intrigue unraveiling in vain,
Instead of pleasing keeps my mind in pain.
I'd rather much the nauseous dunce should say
Downright, My name is Hector in the play;
Than with a mass of miracles, ill join'd,
Confound my ears, and not instruct my mind.
The subject's never soon enough exprest;
Your place of action must be fix'd, and rest.
A Spanish poet may, with good event,
In one day's space whole ages represent;
There oft the hero of a wandering stage
Begins a child, and ends the play of age:
But we, that are by reason's rules confin'd,
Will, that with art the poem be design'd,
That unity of action, time, and place,
Keep the stage full, and all our labours grace.
Write not what cannot be with ease conceiv'd;
Some truths may be too strong to be believ'd.
A foolish wonder cannot entertain:

My mind 's not mov'd if your discourse be vain.
You may relate what would offend the eye:
Seeing, indeed, would better satisfy;
But there are objects that a curious art
Hides from the eyes, yet offers to the heart.
The mind is most agreeably surpris'd,
When a well-woven subject long disguis'd,
You on a sudden artfully unfold,

And give the whole another face and mould.
At first the Tragedy was void of art;
A song; where each man danc'd and sung his
part;

And of god Bacchus roaring out the praise,
Sought a good vintage for their jolly days:
Then wine and joy were seen in each man's
eyes,

And a fat goat was the best singer's prize.
Thespis was first, who, all besmear'd with lee,
Began this pleasure for posterity:
And with his carted actors, and a song,
Amus'd the people as he pass'd along.
Next Eschylus the different persons plac'd,
And with a better mask his players grac'd:
Upon a theatre his verse express'd,
And show'd his hero with a buskin dress'd.
Then Sophocles, the genius of his age,
Increas'd the pomp and beauty of the stage,
Engag'd the chorus song in every part,
And polish'd rugged verse by rules of art:
He in the Greek did those perfections gain,
Which the weak Latin never could attain.
Our pious fathers, in their priest-rid age,
As impious and profane, abhorr'd the stage;
A troop of silly pilgrims, as 't is said,
Foolishly zealous, scandalously play'd,
VOL. 1.-26

U

Instead of heroes, and of love's complaints,
The angels, God, the virgin, and the saints.
At last, right reason did his laws reveal,
And show'd the folly of their ill-plac'd zeal,
Silenc'd those nonconformists of the age,
And rais'd the lawful heroes of the stage:
Only the Athenian mask was laid aside,
And chorus by the music was supplied.
Ingenious love, inventive in new arts,
Mingled in plays,and quickly touch'd our hearts:
This passion never could resistance find,
But knows the shortest passage to the mind.
Paint then, I'm pleas'd my hero be in love;
But let him not like a tame shepherd move;
Let not Achilles be like Thyrsis seen,
Or for a Cyrus show an Artamen ;
That struggling oft his passions we may find,
The frailty, not the virtue of his mind.
Of romance heroes shun the low design;
Yet to great hearts some human frailties join:
Achilles must with Homer's heat engage;
For an affront I 'm pleas'd to see him rage.
Those little failings in your hero's heart
Show that of man and nature he has part:
To leave known rules you cannot be allow'd;
Make Agamemnon covetous and proud,
Eneas in religious rites austere,

Keep to each man his proper character.

Of countries and of times the humours know;
From different climates different customs grow
And strive to shun their fault who vainly dress
An antique hero like some modern ass;
Who made old Romans like our English move
Show Cato sparkish, or make Brutus love.
In a romance those errors are excus'd:
There t' is enough that, reading, we 're amus'd:
Rules too severe would there be useless found:
But the strict scene must have a juster bound:
Exact decorum we must always find.
If then you form some hero in your mind,
Be sure your image with itself agree;
For what he first appears, he still must be.
Affected wits will naturally incline
To paint their figures by their own design:
Your bully poets, bully heroes write :
Chapman in Bussy D'Ambois took delight,
And thought perfection was to huff and fight.
Wise nature by variety does please;
Clothe differing passions in a differing dress:
Bold anger, in rough haughty words appears;
Sorrow is humble, and dissolves in tears.
Make not your Hecuba with fury rage,
And show a ranting grief upon the stage;
Or tell in vain how the rough Tanais bore
His seven-fold waters to the Euxine shore:
These swoln expressions, this affected noise,
Shows like some pedant that declaims to

boys.

In sorrow you must softer methods keep;
And to excite our tears yourself must weep.
Those noisy words with which ill plays abound,
Come not from arts that are in sadness drown'd.
The theatre for a young poet's rhymes
Is a bold venture in our knowing times:
An author cannot easily purchase fame;
Critics are always apt to hiss, and blame:
You may be judg'd by every ass in town,
The privilege is bought for half a crown.
To please, you must a hundred changes try;
Sometimes be humble, then must soar on high:
In noble thoughts must every where abound,
Be easy, pleasant, solid, and profound:
To these you must surprising touches join,
And show us a new wonder in each line;
That all, in a just method well-design'd,
May leave a strong impression in the mind.
These are the arts that tragedy maintain:

THE EPIC.

But the Heroic claims a loftier strain.
In the narration of some great design,
Invention, art, and fable, all must join:
Here fiction must employ its utmost grace;
All must assume a body, mind, and face:
Each virtue a divinity is seen;

Prudence is Pallas, beauty Paphos' queen.
'Tis not a cloud from whence swift lightnings
fly;

But Jupiter, that thunders from the sky :
Nor a rough storm that gives the sailor pain;
But angry Neptune ploughing up the main:
Echo's no more an empty airy sound;
But a fair nymph that weeps her lover drown'd.
Thus in the endless treasure of his mind
The poet does a thousand figures find;
Around the work his ornaments he pours,
And strows with lavish hand his opening flowers.
"T is not a wonder if a tempest bore
The Trojan fleet against the Libyan shore;
From faithless fortune this is no surprise,
For every day, 't is common to our eyes;
But angry Juno, that she might destroy,
And overwhelm the rest of ruin'd Troy:
That Eolus with the fierce goddess join'd,
Open'd the hollow prisons of the wind;
Till angry Neptune looking o'er the main,
Rebukes the tempest, calms the waves again,
Their vessels from the dangerous quicksands
[fears;
These are the springs that move our hopes and
Without these ornaments before our eyes,
The unsinew'd poem languishes and dies:
Your poet in his art will always fail,
And tell you but a dull insipid tale.
In vain have our mistaken authors tried
To lay these ancient ornaments aside,

steers;

Thinking our God, and prophets that he sent,
Might act like those the poets did invent,
To fright poor readers in each line with hell,
And talk of Satan, Ashtaroth, and Bel;
The mysteries which Christians must believe,
Disdain such shifting pageants to receive:
The gospel offers nothing to our thoughts
But penitence, or punishment for faults;
And mingling falsehoods with those mysteries,
Would make our sacred truths appear like lies.
Besides, what pleasure can it be to hear
The howlings of repining Lucifer,
Whose rage at your imagin'd hero flies,
And oft with God himself disputes the prize.
Tasso you'll say has done it with applause?
It is not here I mean to judge his cause:
Yet though our age has so extoll'd his name,
His works had never gain'd immortal fame,
If holy Godfrey in his ecstasies

[glass.

Had only conquer'd Satan on his knees; If Tancred and Armida's pleasing form Did not his melancholy theme adorn. 'Tis not, that Christian poems ought to be Fill'd with the fictions of idolatry; But in a common subject to reject The gods, and heathen ornaments neglect; To banish Tritons who the seas invade, To take Pan's whistle, or the Fates degrade, To hinder Charon in his leaky boat, To pass the shepherd with the man of note, Is with vain scruples to disturb your mind, And search perfection you can never find: As well they may forbid us to present Prudence or Justice for an ornament, To paint old Janus with his front of brass, And take from Time his scythe, his wings, and And every where as 't were idolatry, Banish descriptions from our poetry. Leave them their pious follies to pursue; But let our reason such vain fears subdue: And let us not, amongst our vanities, Of the true God create a God of lies. In fable we a thousand pleasures see, And the smooth names seem made for poetry; As Hector, Alexander, Helen, Phyllis, Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Achilles : In such a crowd, the poet were to blame To choose king Chilperic for his hero's name. Sometimes the name being well or ill applied Will the whole fortune of your work decide. Would you your reader never should be tir'd? Choose some great hero, fit to be admir'd, In courage signal, and in virtue bright, Let e'en his very failings give delight; Let his great actions our attention bind, Like Cæsar or like Scipio frame his mind, And not like Edipus his perjur'd race; A common conqueror is a theme too base.