Mr. Cooke's Original Poems with Imitations and Translations of Several Select Passages of the Antients, In Four Parts: To which are added Proposals For perfecting the English Language |
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| II. | CANTO II. |
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 | Mr. Cooke's Original Poems |  |
CANTO II.
Some panting, many fearful, for the Day,
Eusden a laurel'd Bard, by Fortune rais'd,
Who has by few been read, by fewer prais'd,
From Place to Place forlorn and breathless flys,
And offers Bribes immense for strong Allys.
In vain he spends the Day the Night in vain;
All to his Offers deaf his Bribes disdain.
Of dreadful Wounds receiv'd in former Wars,
He most apply'd for Aid; to whom the Sage
Thus spoke, delib'rate from the Fears of Age.
In Fields of Fight I shall appear no more.
E'en now I feel, not heal'd by Length of Days,
What I have suffer'd from great Dryden's Lays;
Nor Patience, nor devouring Time, can cure
What from immortal Garth I now endure;
Say therefore what of Glory can I hope,
From Garth and Dryden to descend to Pope?
Or what Renown could the Insulter gain,
To have reported he has slay'd the slain?
Who, thus repuls'd by all the War, declin'd;
With Heart dejected he return'd alone,
Upon the Banks of Cam to make his Moan,
Resolv'd to pass his future Days in Ease,
And toil in Verse himself alone to please,
Nor ever court again so coy a Dame.
Firm as an Oak beneath the Weight of Snow,
True Foe to Vice, of modern Bards the Dread,
Who spurious Wit has oft' in Triumph led,
Rears, as Apollo and the Nine inspire,
With Hands tremendous, the vindictive Fire.
Dauntless he ranges o'er the hostile Ground;
And of the slumb'ring Chiefs the Labours round
He views, and seizes in th'unguarded Hour
From each an Off'ring to th'offended Pow'r.
From Pope he bears no slender Sacrifice;
In flaming Rolls Volumes on Volumes rise:
With the mar'd Greecian Storys seed the Flame
Thy Praise Cecilia, and thy Temple Fame.
Light mounts, impartial Doom! the maukish Lay,
Where Sylphs preside, and Belles at Ombre play;
Where well bred Lords and softest Bosoms rage;
And Clenches and Conundrums croud the Page:
Where for the Critic's Wreath he strives in vain,
Of Knowledge barren, much affects to know,
While like the Severn rough his Numbers flow.
Ye Nymphs of Drury mourn the Labour fir'd
Which Envy and some Succubus inspir'd;
Chetwood for you was with the Jordan crown'd,
Whose Semicircle's like a watry Round:
Where Malice weakly jumbles Right and Wrong.
Let Fancy image, to her utmost Pow'r,
The Poet's Anguish in the lab'ring Hour:
Behold the Bard; aghast his Eyeballs roll;
And the malignant Passion shakes his Soul;
And with the fellest Venom swells his Veins;
At ev'ry Age, and at each Sex, he flings,
And with his Satire daubs but never stings:
He scribles on, but what he scarcely knows,
While from his Pen the scurril Nonsense flows!
Slander and Lewdness he for Wit would pass,
As Knaves would oft' for Gold impose their Brass.
Too long the Task, the Toil of Moons, to name,
His ev'ry guilty Line that fed the Flame,
How he purloin'd from the immortal dead,
And in his Thefts converted Gold to Lead.
To this Confession Justice sways the Mind,
That in the Mass confus'd we Beautys find,
But so dispos'd, as in the rustic Dance
Colin treads courtly from th'Effect of Chance,
Beautys like Vi'lets which adorn the Ground
That Briars, Thorns, and Weeds, and Mud, surround.
Not one escap'd the Critic's vengeful Hand;
High rais'd they ly upon the fatal Fire,
And in one Blaze, to live no more, expire.
From whom, bless'd Bards, but scanty Off'rings rise;
Thin and but hardly seen their Errors ly,
Like Weeds which cheat the careful Florist's Eye.
Slow-pacing, homeward, and uprose the Day.
As on he went he saw approaching nigh
The Form of one that seem'd, and was, a Spy,
Thick stuff'd his Pockets and his Sides with Rhyme,
And mutt'ring as he walk'd one endless Chime:
As on he wander'd, like a Wretch possess'd,
The Critic seiz'd him, and unman'd his Breast:
His Crimes were many, and his Judge severe.
With Anger and Contempt thus spoke the Sage,
Austere but just, his Brows denouncing Rage:
Say, conscious Traytor, such you seem to me,
What can your Bus'ness in the Forest be,
Thus arm'd, alone, now scarce the Night is fled,
To kill the living, or to strip the dead?
Tell me, for 'tis in vain to hope to fly,
Your Name your Purpose, or expect to dy.
With Tone terrific to the Sons of Song,
And Sounds emphatic which the Words prolong,
O! venerable Sire, the Captive cry'd,
Phœbus forbid your Will should be deny'd!
To smooth the Rigour of impending Fate,
(Spying the Cane unfriendly o'er his Pate,)
I'll Truth, unsully'd with a Ly, relate.
To him the Sage reply'd: no more despair;
Speak Truth and longer breathe the vital Air.
Then he, of all the Wretch's Might the Bane,
No more suspended held the pond'rous Cane;
Behold, he cry'd, the Object of thy dread,
The Cane no longer trembling o'er thy Head:
Proceed. Encourag'd thus the Wretch began,
Louder his Voice, and almost like a Man.
Who to the Ills of Poetry was born.
From Pope deputed, from my Heart's Ally,
To yonder Camp I tend a dauntless Spy.
Thro great and many Dangers safe I go,
My only Guard my Falsehood to the Foe;
Before a Friend profess'd they know no Fear,
But trust their Secrets to a faithless Ear;
I watch their Motions, and each Word they say,
And all, and more than all, I know, betray:
In kind Return he cheers my Soul with Praise,
And mends, where such he finds, my feeble Lays.
Enough thy Folly speaks, enough thy Guile,
To him the Sage with aweful Voice rejoin'd.
What Mercy, Traytor, can you hope to find?
To thee the Promise of thy Life I gave,
A false, a fawning, and a witless, Slave;
But now thy Soul appears so mean, so black,
That Justice bids me call that Promise back.
He paus'd a-while, then spoke. Thy Life I give;
Thy greatest Torment, Wretch, must be to live.
Thro the prismatic Glass deceiv'd you see,
Believing all Things, as they seem, to be;
And shew that they who flatter most despise.
Thy Friends were many when thy Faults were less,
Whom not thy Merit gain'd, but thy Distress;
While those you teaz'd all harmless with your Rhyme,
And scribbling Nonsence was your greatest Crime,
Pity and Scorn they cherish'd but conceal'd;
Now Scorn and Hate prevail, and those reveal'd:
Such is of Spys like thee the certain Fate,
Whether the Spys of Verse, or Spys of State.
Reads of each Piece a Verse, and reads no more,
Then, with these Words, returns the wond'rous Lay,
Nor tragic, comic, neither grave, nor gay.
Whose winter Fruit can not survive the Spring.
He ends, and drives him homeward in his Sight,
And sighs and pitys from his Soul and Wight.
The Forest warbles, and the Bards uprise;
They view their Forces, and review, with Care,
And see th'avenging Hand of Phœbus there:
And some with Eyes of Grief reproachful see.
While for his ravish'd Verses Pope complain'd,
And Heav'n, and Earth, and Hell, by Turns arraign'd,
Philips approach'd with a selected Throng,
From Cells and Courts, judicious Sons of Song:
His Helm was made with more than human Care;
And Pindar, with his Theban Lyre, is there.
Lo! on his Shield the deathless Mantuan stands,
And bowing gives his Pipe to British Hands;
There stands Orestes in his wild Despair,
Humfrey the good, and Gwendolen the fair.
Swift, who foresaw the Danger of his Stay,
Posted regardless of his Friend away.
Thus, with the Voice of Pray'r, to Phœbus cry'd.
By Foes surrounded, and a Friend betray'd:
Restore my Arms, restore my plunder'd Lays
And annually thy Bard shall sing thy Praise;
Or whelm me in the Center of the Ball,
Rather than Philips should behold my Fall.
Prefer'd in vain, for all his Vows were Air.
At last the desp'rate Bard the Foe defy'd;
And on the past'ral Lay his Hopes rely'd;
Which, now to perish, such the God's Command,
Escap'd the Vengeance of the Critic's Hand.
The Deity inspir'd th'attendant Throng
With Wisdom to decide this Strife of Song,
Who judge, illfated Pope, thy rural Note
Like a Clown aukward in Sir Fopling's Coat;
But Philips charms all Hearers with his Strain,
A skilful, pure, and unaffected Swain;
His Numbers flow with Harmony and Ease,
And like the Country in her Beauty please.
This Commendation, Philips, is thy Due,
And this the Sentence of the judging few.
The Scene with Pœans loud to Philips rung;
Nor could the Song prevail to Granville sung.
The vanquish'd Bard in Words like these express'd
The Anguish and the Malice of his Breast.
By Turks and Indians read, by Sheffield prais'd,
Curll's Authors, Blockheads, Ribbands red and blue!
As to exert he strove the Voice of Spleen,
He wrung his Hands, and fainted on the Green.
Forth steps ELIZA of majestic Size,
Who, pleas'd the Progress of the Fight to see,
Had stood conceal'd behind an aged Tree.
Crying aloud, now sweet Revenge be mine,
To where a fragrant Bed of Nettles lay
Soft smiling bore him in her Lap away.
And thus, with friendly Voice, th'Allys address'd.
I come your Foe, or would your Merits wrong.
I, conscious of your Worth and high Renown,
Declin'd the Contest for the laurel Crown;
But urg'd by these our Friends, a glorious Train,
Late, and to Battel slow, I took the Plain.
The Foe expell'd, let us unite in Peace;
When Ignorance is fled Contentions cease.
If one distinguish'd with the Wreath must go,
The Gift let Phœbus as he likes bestow.
Thus spoke the Language of the judging few;
And what he spoke was with a graceful Ease:
He like Ulysses never fails to please.
Tho by the cens'ring Voice of Crouds inclin'd,
'E're Judgement had assum'd her Seat, the Mind,
Regard this Voice of Truth, the Voice of Praise.
And bid thy Nymphs in lonely Forests shine.
Swell in the Cause of Truth the tragic Page:
Who hears the free-born Soul of Vanoc rage,
Who sees the Hero brave assert his Right,
And yields resistless to tyrannic Might?
Or tune to diff'rent Strains thy manly Lyre,
And nobly let it breathe with Pindar's Fire;
Rescue the Theban Bard from Cowley's Pen,
That careless Poet, and that best of Men:
Or vary, as thy Mind directs, thy Lays,
Be thine, in ev'ry Kind, the foremost Praise.
Since all, who taste thy Verse, this Truth allow,
The laurel Glorys must adorn thy Brow.
And with the Evergreen his Temples crown'd.
This Gentleman was Poet-Laureat when these Lines were first printed in the folio Edition of the Battel of the Poets, and when the Edition in Octavo was printed. He and Sir Richard Blackmore are both dead since. 1740.
What Degree of Merit can we attribute to any one who immoderately vents his Rage on an Author, who had before been humbled by Dryden, Garth, and other their Contemporarys?
This Gentleman, since dead, had the Mortification to survive most of his Writings; yet he long lived the Terror of modern Poets. He is introduced here as a Machine in the Hands of Apollo, as an Executioner of the Sentence supposed to be passed by Apollo and the Muses. 1740.
The common Characteristic of this Poet is that of a good Versifyer. I know not how this Opinion prevailed, but none was ever more falsely grounded; for his Versification is mostly as faulty as his Sentiment; and in this Poem a nice Ear can not distinguish fifty Lines which please. This Judgement I shall not depart from, tho I may, in the Opinion of some, incur Part of the following Censure.
But are not Critics to their Judgment too?
Essay on Criticism.
The Game in the Dunciad to which this Passage alludes is so foolish and very obscene, that no Person can detect all the Absurditys in it, without offending against Modesty. The Author, in his Preface, would have us to understand that he imitated Virgil in that extraordinary Performance; and he has really imitated him, but as a Monkey does a Man. To imitate Virgil is not to have Games, and those beastly and unnatural, because Virgil has noble and reasonable Games, but to preserve a Purity of Manners, Propriety of Conduct founded on Nature, a Beauty and Exactness of Stile, and a continued Harmony of Verse concording with the Sense. If Mr. Pope's End was Satire in this, how is it answered by representing Curll and Chetwood pissing for Mrs. Haywood? If Satire was not his End, the Reader will easyly perceive how much he has erred in his Notion of Wit or Humour. I must here give another Instance of this Poet, or Critic, wandering from his own Precepts.
No Pardon vile Obscenity should find,Tho Wit and Art conspire to move your Mind,
But Dullness with Obscenity must prove
As shameless sure as Impotence in Love.
Essay on Criticism.
We must here observe that the Poet frequently gives Things different Appellations from what the Nature of them requires. We will instance the Rainbow; which the Author of the Dunciad first calls a Bow, and in the same Verse a watry Round, so that it is a Bow and it is not a Bow. I know not what poetical Licence he may pretend to have for this Custom, but I am sure his Master Homer, whom he serves very ill, even in one of his Slumbers, would not have called a Semicircle a whole Circle.
In later Editions of the Dunciad the Name of Chetwood is left out, and another inserted.
1740.The Reader must observe that the Author of this Poem alludes to none of Mr. Pope's Writings since the first Publication of the Dunciad, either in Commendation or Censure; but he is very sensible that Mr. Pope has since published what are Objects of both in a high Degree. 1740.
Homer, in his Character of Thersites, does not represent him as a ridiculous Person only, but as one of an evil Disposition; by which we may justly believe the Poet thought it not reasonable to expose him as an Object of Ridicule, without his being guilty of some Vice, which may justify his public Censure of him.
Mr. Pope seems to have had the same Person in his Eye, where, speaking of himself, he says
To fetch and carry Sing-Song up and down.
1740
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
Mr. Pope, speaking of himself, in the Preface to the Dunciad, says, of all those Men who have received Pleasure from his Writings (which by modest Computation may be about a hundred thousand in these Kingdoms of England and Ireland, not to mention Jersey, Guernsey, the Orcades, those in the new World, and Foreigners who have translated him into their Languages,) of all this Number, not a Man hath stood up to say one Word in his Defence. This is the most unreasonable Author that ever I read. He is not contented that the Public should buy, read, and be pleas'd with, his Works, but he is angry because they do not defend them. I hope he is sensible, by this Time, that he has passed no great Compliment on himself; for such of his Readers as have received Pleasure from his Writings seem to have no Power, or at least no Inclination, to say one Word in his Defence; and perhaps the most considerate of them have deserted him.
| Mr. Cooke's Original Poems | |