Here stopped the good old sire and wept for Much Heywood, Shirley,23 Ogleby24 there lay.
Near these a Nursery15 erects its head
Where queens are formed and future heroes
bred,
Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry,
Where infant trulls their tender voices try,
And little Maximins16 the gods defy.
Great Fletcher17 never treads in busking18 here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks19 appear; 80
But gentle Simkin just reception finds
Amidst this monument of vanished minds;
Pure clinches20 the suburbian muse affords
And Panton waging harmless war with words.
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,
Ambitiously designed his Shadwell's throne.
For ancient Dekker prophesied long since
That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,
Born for a scourge of wit and flail of sense,
To whom true dulness should some
ches''10 owe, But worlds of 'Misers' '21 from his pen
But loads of Shadwell almost choked the way.
Bilked stationers for yeomen25 stood prepared
And Herringman26 was captain of the guard.
The hoary prince27 in majesty appeared,
High on a throne of his own labours reared.
At his right hand our young Ascanius28 sate,
Rome's other hope and pillar of the state.
His brows thick fogs instead of glories grace,
And lambent dulness played around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come,
That nodding seemed to consecrate his head. Just at that point of time, if fame not lie, On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly. "Humorists''21 and Hypocrites it should pro- So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's 'brook,
Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
The admiring throng loud acclamations make
And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head,
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed
Full on the filial dulness: long he stood,
Repelling from his breast the raging god;
At length burst out in this prophetic mood:
"Heavens bless my son! from Ireland let him
reign
To far Barbadoes on the western main; 140
Of his dominion may no end be known
And greater than his father's be his throne;
Beyond 'Love's Kingdom' let him stretch his
He paused, and all the people cried "Amen."
Then thus continued he: "My son, advance
Still in new impudence, new ignorance.
Success let others teach, learn thou from me
Pangs without birth and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos '33 in five years be writ,
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit. 150
Let gentle George34 in triumph tread the stage,
Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;
Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
And in their folly show the writer's wit.
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence
And justify their author's want of sense.
Let them be all by thy own model made
Of dulness and desire no foreign aid,
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same,
All full of thee and differing but in name.
But let no alien Sedley35 interpose
This is thy province, this thy wondrous way,
New humours to invent for each new play:
This is that boasted bias of thy mind,
By which one way to dulness 'tis inclined, 190
Which makes thy writings lean on one side
still,
And, in all changes, that way bends thy will.
Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence
Of likeness; thine's a tympany41 of sense.
| A tun of man42 in thy large bulk is writ,
But sure thou 'rt but a kilderkin43 of wit.
Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep;
Thy tragic Muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep.
With whate'er gall thou setst thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite;
In thy felonious heart though venom lies,
160 It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics,45 but mild Anagram.
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy com-
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetoric thou
wouldst cull,
Trust nature, do not labour to be dull;
Some peaceful province in Acrostic land. There thou mayest wings display and altars raise,
Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute."
He said, but his last words were scarcely heard, For Bruce and Longville22 had a trap pre pared,
But write thy best and top,36 and in each line And torture one poor word ten thousand ways;
Sir Formal's37 oratory will be thine.
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill
And does thy northern dedications fill.38 .170
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name;39
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise
And uncle Ogleby24 thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part:
What share have we in nature or in art?
Where did his wit on learning fix a brand
And rail at arts he did not understand?
Where made he love in Prince Nicander 's40
vein
Promised a play and dwindled to a farce? When did his Muse from Fletcher17 scenes purloin,
As thou whole Etherege3+ dost transfuse to
thine?
But so transfused as oil on waters flow,
His always floats above, thine sinks below.
33 A play by Shadwell.
34 Etherege, a comic
dramatist; Dorimant, etc., are characters in his plays.
35 Writer of the prologue to Shadwell's Epsom Wells.
37 A character in Shadwell's Virtuoso.
38 Shadwell dedicated
much of his work
And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.
Sinking he left his drugget robe behind,
Borne upwards by a subterranean wind.
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part
With double portion of his father's art.
A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY.*
NOVEMBER 22, 1687.
44 Shadwell was not Irish and insisted that he had never been in Ireland more than a few hours.
to the Duke of 45 Iambics were the standard verse-form of satire Newcastle.
39 i. e.. by comparing
him with Jonson,
who was quite his
contrary (see alsb
1. 193)
40 A character in Shad-
well's Psyche.
*St. Cecilia, as patroness of music, is commonly represented in paintings with a harp or organ, and Dryden makes her the inventor of the latter. Public festivals in her honor were held annually at London at this period. Compare the following Ode, and also Pope's, p. 305.
The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead.
Then cold and hot and moist and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason1 closing full in Man.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound:
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blessed above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
Less than a god they thought there could not And Music shall untune the sky.
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation,
His valiant peers were placed around;
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: (So should desert in arms be crowned.)
The lovely Thais, by his side,
Sate like a blooming Eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
Depth of pains and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
1 A chord including all tones.
2 "The father of all such as handle the harp or organ." Gen. 4:21.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
ow give the hautboys breath; he comes, he For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures,
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
60 Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
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