The Poems of Charles Sackville Sixth Earl of Dorset: Edited by Brice Harris |
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I. Literary Matters
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The Poems of Charles Sackville | ||
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I. Literary Matters
5
To Sir Thomas St. Serfe: on the Printing his Play Call'd “Tarugo's Wiles”
Tarugo gave us wonder and delight
When he oblig'd the world by candlelight.
But now he's ventur'd on the face of day,
T'oblige and serve his friends a nobler way,
Make all our old men wits, statesmen the young,
And teach ev'n Englishmen the English tongue.
James, on whose reign all peaceful stars did smile,
Did but attempt th'uniting of our isle.
What kings and nature only cou'd design
Shall be accomplished by this work of thine.
For who is such a Cockney in his heart,
Proud of the plenty of the Southern part,
To scorn that union by which he may
Boast 'twas his countryman that writ this play?
When he oblig'd the world by candlelight.
But now he's ventur'd on the face of day,
T'oblige and serve his friends a nobler way,
Make all our old men wits, statesmen the young,
And teach ev'n Englishmen the English tongue.
James, on whose reign all peaceful stars did smile,
Did but attempt th'uniting of our isle.
What kings and nature only cou'd design
Shall be accomplished by this work of thine.
For who is such a Cockney in his heart,
Proud of the plenty of the Southern part,
To scorn that union by which he may
Boast 'twas his countryman that writ this play?
Phoebus himself, indulgent to thy muse,
Has to thy country sent this kind excuse:
“Fair Northern lass, it is not through neglect
I court thee at a distance, but respect.
I cannot act, my passion is so great,
But I'll make up in light what wants in heat.
On these I will bestow my longest days
And crown thy sons with everlasting bays.
My beams that reach thee shall employ their powers
To ripen souls of men, not fruits or flowers.
Let warmer climes my fading favours boast:
Poets and stars shine brightest in thy frost.”
Has to thy country sent this kind excuse:
6
I court thee at a distance, but respect.
I cannot act, my passion is so great,
But I'll make up in light what wants in heat.
On these I will bestow my longest days
And crown thy sons with everlasting bays.
My beams that reach thee shall employ their powers
To ripen souls of men, not fruits or flowers.
Let warmer climes my fading favours boast:
Poets and stars shine brightest in thy frost.”
7
To Mr. Edward Howard, on his Incomparable, Incomprehensible Poem Called “The British Princes”
8
For, read it backward like a witch's prayer,
'Twill do as well; throw not away your jests
On solid nonsense that abides all tests.
Wit, like tierce claret, when 't begins to pall,
Neglected lies and's of no use at all;
But in its full perfection of decay,
Turns vinegar and comes again in play.
This simile shall stand in thy defence
'Gainst such dull rogues as now and then write sense.
He lies, dear Ned, who says thy brain is barren,
Where deep conceits, like vermin, breed in carrion;
Thou hast a brain, such as thou hast, indeed—
On what else should thy worm of fancy feed?
Yet in a filbert I have often known
Maggots survive when all the kernel's gone.
Thy style's the same whatever be the theme,
As some digestions turn all meat to phlegm:
Thy stumbling, founder'd jade can trot as high
As any other Pegasus can fly.
As skillful divers to the bottom fall
Sooner than those that cannot swim at all,
So in this way of writing without thinking
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking:
9
And with acquired dullness and new arts
Of studied nonsense tak'st kind readers' heart.
So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud
Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood.
Therefore, dear Ned, at my advice forbear
Such loud complaints 'gainst critics to prefer,
Since thou art turn'd an arrant libeller:
Thou sett'st thy name to what thyself dost write;
Did ever libel yet so sharply bite?
10
Epilogue to “Every Man in his Humour”
Entreaty shall not serve, nor violence,
To make me speak in such a play's defence;
A play where wit and humour do agree
To break all practis'd laws of comedy.
The scene (what more absurd!) in England lies,
No gods descend nor dancing devils rise;
No captive prince from nameless country brought,
No battle, nay there's not a duel fought,
And something yet more sharply might be said,
But I consider the poor author's dead:
Let that be his excuse—now for our own,
Why—faith, in my opinion, we need none.
The parts were fitted well, but some will say,
“Pox on 'em, rogues, what made 'em choose this play?”
I do not doubt but you will credit me
It was not choice but mere necessity;
To all our writing friends in town we sent,
But not a wit durst venture out in Lent:
Have patience but 'till Easter term, and then
You shall have jig and hobbyhorse again.
Here's Mr. Matthew, our domestic wit,
Does promise one of the ten plays h'as writ;
But since great bribes weigh nothing with the just,
Know we have merits and in them we trust.
When any fasts or holidays defer
The public labors of the theatre,
We ride not forth, although the day be fair,
On ambling tit to take the suburb air;
But with our authors meet, and spend that time
To make up quarrels between sense and rhyme.
Wednesday and Fridays constantly we sate,
Till after many a long and free debate,
For divers weighty reasons 'twas thought fit,
Unruly sense should still to rhyme submit.
This, the most wholesome law we ever made,
So strictly in this epilogue obey'd,
Sure no man here will ever dare to break.
[Enter Johnson's Ghost.]To make me speak in such a play's defence;
A play where wit and humour do agree
To break all practis'd laws of comedy.
The scene (what more absurd!) in England lies,
No gods descend nor dancing devils rise;
No captive prince from nameless country brought,
No battle, nay there's not a duel fought,
And something yet more sharply might be said,
But I consider the poor author's dead:
Let that be his excuse—now for our own,
Why—faith, in my opinion, we need none.
The parts were fitted well, but some will say,
11
I do not doubt but you will credit me
It was not choice but mere necessity;
To all our writing friends in town we sent,
But not a wit durst venture out in Lent:
Have patience but 'till Easter term, and then
You shall have jig and hobbyhorse again.
Here's Mr. Matthew, our domestic wit,
Does promise one of the ten plays h'as writ;
But since great bribes weigh nothing with the just,
Know we have merits and in them we trust.
When any fasts or holidays defer
The public labors of the theatre,
We ride not forth, although the day be fair,
On ambling tit to take the suburb air;
But with our authors meet, and spend that time
To make up quarrels between sense and rhyme.
Wednesday and Fridays constantly we sate,
Till after many a long and free debate,
For divers weighty reasons 'twas thought fit,
Unruly sense should still to rhyme submit.
This, the most wholesome law we ever made,
So strictly in this epilogue obey'd,
Sure no man here will ever dare to break.
Hold, and give way, for I myself will speak;
Can you encourage so much insolence,
And add new faults still to the great offence
Your ancestors so rashly did commit
Against the mighty powers of art and wit?
When they condemn'd those noble works of mine,
Sejanus and my best lov'd Cataline:
Repent, or on your guilty heads shall fall
The curse of many a rhyming pastoral.
The three bold Beauchamps shall revive again,
And with the London prentice conquer Spain.
All the dull follies of the former age,
Shall rise and find applause upon this stage.
But if you pay the great arrears of praise
So long since due to my much-injured plays,
From all past crimes I first will set you free,
And then inspire some one to write like me.
Can you encourage so much insolence,
And add new faults still to the great offence
Your ancestors so rashly did commit
Against the mighty powers of art and wit?
When they condemn'd those noble works of mine,
Sejanus and my best lov'd Cataline:
Repent, or on your guilty heads shall fall
The curse of many a rhyming pastoral.
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And with the London prentice conquer Spain.
All the dull follies of the former age,
Shall rise and find applause upon this stage.
But if you pay the great arrears of praise
So long since due to my much-injured plays,
From all past crimes I first will set you free,
And then inspire some one to write like me.
13
Epilogue to “Tartuffe”
Many have been the vain attempts of witAgainst the still prevailing hypocrite.
Once, and but once, a poet got the day,
And vanquish't Busy in a puppet play.
But Busy rallying, arm'd with zeal and rage,
Possessed the pulpit and pull'd down the stage.
To laugh at English knaves is dangerous then,
Whilst English fools will think them honest men.
But sure no zealous Rabbi will deny us
Free leave to act our Monsieur Ananias.
A man may say without being thought an atheist
There are damn'd rogues amongst the French and Papist
That fix salvation to short bands and hair,
That belch and snuffle to prolong a prayer,
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Plain whoring, gluttony, and drunkenness;
And in a decent way perform them too,
As well, nay better far, alas, than you
Whose fleshly failings are but fornication—
We Godly phrase it “gospel propagation,”
Just as rebellion was call'd reformation.
Though zeal stand sentry at the gate of sin,
Yet all that have the word pass freely in;
Silent and in the dark for fear of spies
We march and take damnation by surprise.
There's not a roaring blade about the town
Can go so far towards Hell for half a crown
As I for sixpence, because I know the way:
For want of guides, men are too apt to stray.
Therefore give ear to what I shall advise:
Let every married man that's rich and wise
Take a Tartuffe of known ability
To teach and to increase his family,
Who may to settle lasting reformation
First get his son, then give him education.
15
On Mr. Edward Howard upon his “New Utopia”
16
Thou foil to Flecknoe! Prithee tell from whence
Does all this mighty stock of dullness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?
Is't all thy own, or hast thou from Snow Hill
Th'assistance of some ballad-making quill?
No, they fly higher yet; thy plays are such
I'd swear they were translated out of Dutch:
And who the devil was e'er yet so drunk
To own the volumes of Mynheer Van Dunk?
Fain would I know what diet thou dost keep,
If thou dost always or dost never sleep.
Sure hasty pudding is thy chiefest dish;
With lights and livers and with stinking fish,
Oxcheek, tripe, garbage, thou dost treat thy brain,
Which nobly pays this tribute back again.
With daisy roots thy dwarfish muse is fed:
A giant's body with a pigmy's head.
Canst thou not find 'mongst all thy num'rous race
One friend so kind to tell thee that thy play's
Laugh'd at by box, pit, gallery, nay stage
And grown the nauseous grievance of this age?
Think on't a while, and thou wilt quickly find
Thy body made for labor, not thy mind.
No other use of paper thou should'st make
But carrying loads of reams upon thy back.
Carry vast burdens 'till thy shoulders shrink,
But curs'd be he that gives thee pen and ink:
Those dang'rous weapons should be kept from fools,
As nurses from their children keep edge tools.
For thy dull muse a muckender were fit
To wipe the slav'rings of her infant wit,
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Should like blind, new-born puppies yet be drown'd.
For were it not we must respect afford
To any muse that's grandchild to a lord,
Thine in the ducking stool should take her seat,
Drench'd like herself in a great chair of state,
Where like a muse of quality she'll die,
And thou thyself shalt make her elegy
In the same strain thou writ'st thy comedy.
18
To Mr. Bays
Thou mercenary renegade, thou slave,Thou ever changing, still to be a knave:
What sect, what error wilt thou next disgrace?
Thou art so lewd, so scandalously base,
That antichristian Popery may be
Asham'd of such a proselite as thee.
Not all the rancour and felonious spite
Which animates thy lumpish soul to write
Could have contriv'd a satire more severe,
Or more disgrac'd the cause thou wouldst prefer.
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It suits with thy poetic genius best.
There thou. . . .
Thy mind, disus'd to truth, must entertain
With tales more monstrous, fanciful, and vain
Than ev'n thy poetry could ever feign.
Or sing the lives of thy own fellow saints—
'Tis a large field and thy assistance wants.
Thence copy out new operas for the stage,
And with their miracles divert the age.
Such is thy faith, if thou hast faith indeed,
For well we may distrust the poet's creed;
Rebel to God, blasphemer of the king,
Oh, tell whence could this strange compliance spring:
So may'st thou prove to thy new gods as true
As thy old friend the Devil has been to you;
Still conscience and religion's the pretence,
But food and drink the mythologic sense.
'Twas interest reconcil'd thee to the cheat,
And vain ambition prompted thee to eat.
Oh, how persuasive is the want of bread!
Not reasons from strong box more strongly plead.
A convert thou! Why, 'tis past all believing,
'Tis a damn'd scandal of thy foes' contriving,
A jest of that malicious monster, fame:
The honest layman's faith is still the same.
21
The Duel
22
Of Clineas' and Dametas' sharper fight
I've neither leisure nor design to write;
Of blood and wounds let bolder poets sing:
My muse shall of our modern heroes sing.
In humble verse I'll only dare to tell
How brawny Bavius and slim Maevius fell
At odds, and in their bloodless rhyming strife
There was no jeopardy of limbs or life.
Bold's thy attempt, Will Maevius, to engage
Bob Bavius, the macninny of the age:
Redoubled blockhead, eminently dull,
The lyric poet with the sevenfold skull.
A head that's guarded has a sure defence
Against the weak attacks of wit and sense.
Thus arm'd, the mighty hero takes the field,
And in his fist a swinging pen does wield,
Drawn from a swan's white wing with art and care,
One of the largest weapons poets wear;
For swan and goose and crow, sometimes we see,
Afford the rhyming crew artillery.
With this dire weapon, harmless without skill,
He vows to be reveng'd on whiffling Will:
I've neither leisure nor design to write;
Of blood and wounds let bolder poets sing:
My muse shall of our modern heroes sing.
In humble verse I'll only dare to tell
How brawny Bavius and slim Maevius fell
At odds, and in their bloodless rhyming strife
There was no jeopardy of limbs or life.
Bold's thy attempt, Will Maevius, to engage
Bob Bavius, the macninny of the age:
Redoubled blockhead, eminently dull,
The lyric poet with the sevenfold skull.
A head that's guarded has a sure defence
Against the weak attacks of wit and sense.
Thus arm'd, the mighty hero takes the field,
And in his fist a swinging pen does wield,
Drawn from a swan's white wing with art and care,
One of the largest weapons poets wear;
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Afford the rhyming crew artillery.
With this dire weapon, harmless without skill,
He vows to be reveng'd on whiffling Will:
Will, a pert youth, a scandal scribbling elf,
Whom Bob had brought up dully like himself;
He taught his feeble hand to trail a quill
And nicely did direct him to write ill.
He shew'd him first the art or surest way
Of writing an insipid roundelay.
Of any word Bob makes a mercury,
For any dunce can write as well as he;
When this Will knew, he straight rejects his sway,
And tho' a minor blockhead, scorns to obey,
Undone by false admirers of his wit,
For some dull coxcombs prais'd what he had writ.
Pamper'd with praise, the fop grows proud and vain,
And foolish commendation turn'd his brain.
This made him in poetic frenzy raise
Legions of verse to fight for blasted bays;
That sneering, sniveling, scribbling knight, his friend,
Has levy'd rhymes, and both with Bob contend,
But such a wretched rhymer he is found,
With lasting fame for dullness, he is crown'd.
Whom Bob had brought up dully like himself;
He taught his feeble hand to trail a quill
And nicely did direct him to write ill.
He shew'd him first the art or surest way
Of writing an insipid roundelay.
Of any word Bob makes a mercury,
For any dunce can write as well as he;
When this Will knew, he straight rejects his sway,
And tho' a minor blockhead, scorns to obey,
Undone by false admirers of his wit,
For some dull coxcombs prais'd what he had writ.
Pamper'd with praise, the fop grows proud and vain,
And foolish commendation turn'd his brain.
This made him in poetic frenzy raise
Legions of verse to fight for blasted bays;
That sneering, sniveling, scribbling knight, his friend,
Has levy'd rhymes, and both with Bob contend,
But such a wretched rhymer he is found,
With lasting fame for dullness, he is crown'd.
Angry at their revolt, with passion wild,
Bob Bavius swore he'd ne'er be reconcil'd;
In wrath contracts his forehead with a frown,
And with his pen's butt end knocks poor Will down.
Will whips his crow quill up in his defence,
And swore the world should judge who writ most sense.
When pigmies fight, the cranes straight part the fray,
And whirl the little combatants away.
Let this similitude give no offence,
For gyant Bob like Will's a dwarf in sense.
Bob Bavius swore he'd ne'er be reconcil'd;
In wrath contracts his forehead with a frown,
And with his pen's butt end knocks poor Will down.
Will whips his crow quill up in his defence,
And swore the world should judge who writ most sense.
When pigmies fight, the cranes straight part the fray,
And whirl the little combatants away.
Let this similitude give no offence,
For gyant Bob like Will's a dwarf in sense.
Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina Maevi.
25
A True Account of the Birth and Conception of a Late Famous Poem call'd “The Female Nine”
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When Monmouth the chaste read those impudent lines
Which ty'd her dear monkey so fast by the loins,
Show'd his jackanapes tricks and his apish false smiles,
And set him a chattering aloft on the tiles,
She saw with a fright,
Howe'er they came by't,
The rogues had describ'd pretty whirligig right.
And none can be certain, when scandals begin
To draw so near home, but that they shall come in.
Which ty'd her dear monkey so fast by the loins,
Show'd his jackanapes tricks and his apish false smiles,
And set him a chattering aloft on the tiles,
She saw with a fright,
Howe'er they came by't,
The rogues had describ'd pretty whirligig right.
And none can be certain, when scandals begin
To draw so near home, but that they shall come in.
She heard that the nine ladies' turn would be next,
And fearing some bungler should mangle the text
And paint her sweet person like some hagged elf,
She wisely contriv'd how to draw it herself;
And luckily hit
On a method most fit
At once to display both her virtue and wit,
Not doubting to have from herself a good word,
And thus she bespoke the kind help of her lord:
And fearing some bungler should mangle the text
And paint her sweet person like some hagged elf,
She wisely contriv'd how to draw it herself;
And luckily hit
On a method most fit
At once to display both her virtue and wit,
Not doubting to have from herself a good word,
And thus she bespoke the kind help of her lord:
“Methinks the same nine which they count so well writ
Has nothing of air, bon sens, or l'esprit.
The numbers so rough and so harsh the cadence,
As would blister a mouth embellished in France.
Come pour amusement
Let us make a song
And so do ourselves right, whome'er we do wrong.
We'll give a beau tour to the feminine nine,
Among whom my prudence and virtue shall shine.
Has nothing of air, bon sens, or l'esprit.
The numbers so rough and so harsh the cadence,
As would blister a mouth embellished in France.
Come pour amusement
Let us make a song
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We'll give a beau tour to the feminine nine,
Among whom my prudence and virtue shall shine.
You yourself shall appear the great Turk of the scene
And I'll recommend you so far to the Queen,
And soothe the vain humor to which you incline,
As to make you belov'd by two of the nine.
And that's very fair
For a poor, sickly peer,
Who to my certain knowledge has nothing to spare;
And since these lampoons are the wit of the times,
I'll furnish the sense if you'll tag it with rhymes.”
And I'll recommend you so far to the Queen,
And soothe the vain humor to which you incline,
As to make you belov'd by two of the nine.
And that's very fair
For a poor, sickly peer,
Who to my certain knowledge has nothing to spare;
And since these lampoons are the wit of the times,
I'll furnish the sense if you'll tag it with rhymes.”
Her spouse, fir'd at this, scream'd aloud and leapt forth,
And fetching his dead-doing pen in his wrath,
He workt off his piece with such art of the pen
That he aim'd at the ladies but wounded the men;
And labour'd so hard
The doors were all barr'd,
And none was admitted but trusty Blanchard.
'Twas writ in such haste, you're desir'd to dispense
With the want of true grammar, good English and sense.
And fetching his dead-doing pen in his wrath,
He workt off his piece with such art of the pen
That he aim'd at the ladies but wounded the men;
And labour'd so hard
The doors were all barr'd,
And none was admitted but trusty Blanchard.
'Twas writ in such haste, you're desir'd to dispense
With the want of true grammar, good English and sense.
The Poems of Charles Sackville | ||