The boys, and girls, whom charity maintains, 231
Implore your help in these pathetic strains :
How could Devotion touch the country pews,
Unless the gods bestow'd a proper Muse?
Verse cheers their leisure, verse assists their work,
Verse prays for peace, or sings down Pope and
The silenc'd preacher yields to potent strain,
And feels that grace his pray'r besought in vain;
The blessing thrills through all the lab'ring throng,
And heav'n is won by violence of song.
Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labor, when the end was rest,
Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain :
The joy their wives, their sons, and servants, share,
Ease of their toil, and partners of their care; 246
The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bowl,
Smooth'd ev'ry brow, and open'd-ev'ry soul :
With growing years the pleasing license grew,
And taunts alternate innocently flew.
But times corrupt, and nature ill-inclin'd,
Produc'd the point that left a sting behind;
Till friend with friend, and families at strife,
Triumphant malice rag'd through private life.
Who felt the wrong, or fear'd it, took th' alarm,
Appeal'd to Law, and Justice lent her arm.
256 At length, by wholesome dread of statutes bound, The poets learn'd to please, and not to wound ;
Most warp'd to Flatt'ry's side; but some, more nice,
Preserv'd the freedom, and forebore the vice. 260 Hence Satire rose, that just the medium hit,
And heals, with morals, what it hurts with wit. We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's charms;
Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms;
Britain to soft refinements less a foe,
Wit grew polite, and numbers learn'd to flow.
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine;
Though still some traces of our rustic vein, 270
And splay-foot verse, remain'd, and will remain.
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tir'd nation, breath'd from Civil war.
Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire
Show'd us that France had something to admire.
Not but the tragic spirit was our own,
And full, in Shakespeare, fair, in Otway, shone;
But Otway fail'd to polish, or refine,
And fluent Shakespeare scarce effac'd a line.
Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last, and greatest art, the art to blot.
Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire,
The humbler Muse of Comedy require.
But in known images of life I guess
The labor greater, as th' indulgence less.
Observe how seldom ev'n the best succeed;
Tell me if Congreve's fools are fools indeed?
What pert low dialogue has Farquhar writ!
How Van. wants grace, who never wanted wit!
The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
Who fairly puts all characters to bed!
And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,
To make poor Pinkey, eat with vast applause!
But fill their purse, our Poet's work is done,
Alike to them by Pathos, or by Pun.
O you! whom vanity's light bark conveys
On Fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise,
With what a shifting gale your course you ply,
For ever sunk too low, or borne too high!
Who pants for glory finds but short repose; 300
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.
Farewel the stage! if just as thrives the play,
The silly bard grows fat, or falls away.
There still remains, to mortify a wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit;
A senseless, worthless, and unhonor'd crowd,
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clatt'ring their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the Farce, the Bear, or the Black-Joke.
What dear delights to Britons farce affords! 310
Ever the taste of mobs, but now of lords!
(Taste! that eternal wanderer, which flies
From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.)
The play stands still; damn action, and discourse;
Back fly the scenes; and enter foot and horse; 315
Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn ;
Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn;
The champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward's armor beams on Cibber's breast.
With laughter sure Democritus had dy'd
Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.
Let bear, or elephant, be e'er so white,
The people, sure, the people are the sight!
Ah, luckless Poet! stretch thy lungs and roar,
That bear, or elephant, shall heed thee more;
While all its throats the gallery extends,
And all the thunder of the pit ascends !
Loud as the wolves on Orcas' stormy steep,
Howl to the roarings of the northern deep;
Such is the shout, the long-applauding note, 330
At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;
Or when from Court a birth-day suit bestow'd
Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load.
Booth enters-hark! the universal peal!
But has he spoken ?'-Not a syllable.
• What shook the stage, and made the people stare?'
Cato's long wig, flow'r'd gown, and lacker'd chair.
Yet, lest you think I rally more than teach, Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach, Let me for once presume t' instruct the times, To know the poet from the man of rhymes. 341 'Tis he who gives my breast a thousand pains, Can make me feel each passion that he feigns; Enrage, compose, with more than magic art; With pity, and with terror, tear my heart; 345
And snatch me o'er the earth, or through the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.
But not this part of the poetic state
Alone deserves the favor of the great.
Think of these authors, Sir, who would rely 350
More on a reader's sense, than gazer's eye.
Or who shall wander where the Muses sing? Who climb their mountain, or who taste their spring?
How shall we fill a library with wit,
When Merlin's cave is half unfurnish'd yet? 355 My Liege! why writers little claim your thought, I guess; and, with their leave, will tell the fault. We poets are (upon a Poet's word)
Of all mankind the creatures most absurd :
The season when to come, and when to
To sing, or cease to sing, we never know;
And if we will recite nine hours in ten,
You lose your patience just like other men.
Then, too, we hurt ourselves when, to defend
A single verse, we quarrel with a friend;
Repeat, unask'd; lament the wit's too fine
For vulgar eyes, and point out ev'ry line;
But most when, straining with too weak a wing,
We needs will write epistles to the King;
And from the moment we oblige the Town, 370
Expect a place, or pension, from the Crown;
Or, dubb'd Historians, by express command,
T'eurol your triumphs o'er the seas and land,
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