University of Virginia Library

To painfull Creech my last Advice descends,
That he and Learning would at length be Friends;
That he'd command his dreadfull Forces home,
Not be a second Hannibal to Rome.
But since no Counsel his Resolves can bow,
Nor may thy fate, O Rome, resist his Vow;
Debarr'd from Pens as Lunaticks from Swords,
He shou'd be kept from waging war with Words.
Words which at first like Atoms did advance,
To the just measure of a tunefull Dance,
And jumpt to Form, as did his Worlds, by chance.
This pleas'd the Genius of the vicious Town;
The Wits confirm'd his Labours with renown,
And swear the early Atheist for their own.
Had he stopt here—But ruin'd by Success,
With a new Spawn he fill'd the burthen'd Press,
Till, as his Volumes swell'd, his Fame grew less.
So Merchants flattered with increasing Gain,
Still tempt the falshood of the doubtfull Main;
So the first running of the lucky Dice,
Does eager Bully to new Bets intice;
Till Fortune urges him to be undone,
And Ames-Ace loses what kind Sixes wone.
Witness this Truth Lucretia's wretched Fate,
Which better have I heard my Nurse relate;
The Matron suffers violence again,
Not Tarquin's Lust so vile as Chreech's Pen;
Witness those heaps his Midnight Studies raise,
Hoping to rival Ogilby in Praise:
Both writ so much, so ill; a doubt might rise,
Which with most Justice might deserve the Prize;
Had not the first the Town with Cutts appeas'd,
And where the Poem fail'd the Picture pleas'd.

Wits of a meaner rank I wou'd rehearse,
But will not plague your Patience nor my Verse:
In long oblivion may they happy lie,
And with their Writings may their Folly die.
Now why should we poor Ovid yet pursue,
And make his very Book an Exile too,
In words more barbarous than the place he knew?
If Virgil labour'd not to be translated,
Why suffers he the only thing he hated?
Had he foreseen some ill officious Tongue,
Wou'd in unequal Strains blaspheme his Song;
Nor Prayers, nor Force, nor Fame shou'd e'er prevent
The just Performance of his wise intent:
Smiling h'had seen his martyr'd Work expire,
Nor live to feel more cruel Foes than Fire.

Some Fop in Preface may those Thefts excuse,
That Virgil was the draught of Homer's Muse:
That Horace's by Pindar's Lyre was strung,
By the great Image of whose Voice he sung;
They found the Mass, 'tis true, but in their Mould
They purg'd the drossy Oar to current Gold:
Mending their Pattern, they escap'd the Curse,
Yet had they not writ better, they'd writ worse.
But when we bind the Lyric up to rhime,
And lose the Sense to make the Poem chime:
When from their Flocks we force Sicilian Swains,
To ravish Milk-maids in our English Plains;
And wandring Authors, e'er they touch our shore,
Must, like our Locust Hugonots, be poor.
I'de bid th'importing Club thier pains forbear,
And traffick in our own, tho' homely ware,
Whilst from themselves the honest Vermin spin,
I'de like the Texture, tho' the Web be thin;
Nay, take Crown's Plays, because his own, for wit;
And praise what D'urfey, not translating, writ.