The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Rash author, 'tis a vain presumptuous crime,
To undertake the sacred art of rhyme;
If at thy birth the stars that ruled thy sense
Shone not with a poetic influence,
In thy strait genius thou wilt still be bound,
Find Phœbus deaf, and Pegasus unsound.

You, then, that burn with the desire to try
The dangerous course of charming poetry,
Forbear in fruitless verse to lose your time,
Or take for genius the desire of rhyme;
Fear the allurements of a specious bait,
And well consider your own force and weight.

Nature abounds in wits of every kind,
And for each author can a talent find.
One may in verse describe an amorous flame,
Another sharpen a short epigram;
Waller a hero's mighty acts extol,
Spencer sing Rosalind in pastoral:
But authors, that themselves too much esteem,
Lose their own genius, and mistake their theme;
Thus in times past Dubartas vainly writ,
Allaying sacred truth with trifling wit;

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Impertinently, and without delight,
Described the Israelites' triumphant flight;
And, following Moses o'er the sandy plain,
Perished with Pharaoh in the Arabian main.

Whate'er you write of pleasant or sublime,
Always let sense accompany your rhyme.
Falsely they seem each other to oppose;
Rhyme must be made with Reason's laws to close;
And when to conquer her you bend your force,
The mind will triumph in the noble course.
To Reason's yoke she quickly will incline,
Which, far from hurting, renders her divine;
But if neglected, will as easily stray,
And master Reason, which she should obey.
Love Reason, then; and let whate'er you write
Borrow from her its beauty, force, and light.
Most writers mounted on a resty muse,
Extravagant and senseless objects chuse;
They think they err, if in their verse they fall
On any thought that's plain or natural.
Fly this excess; and let Italians be
Vain authors of false glittering poetry.
All ought to aim at sense; but most in vain
Strive the hard pass and slippery path to gain;
You drown, if to the right or left you stray;
Reason to go has often but one way.
Sometimes an author, fond of his own thought,
Pursues its object till it's overwrought:
If he describes a house, he shows the face,
And after walks you round from place to place;
Here is a vista, there the doors unfold,
Balconies here are ballustred with gold;
Then counts the rounds and ovals in the halls,
“The festoons, friezes, and the astragals:”
Tired with his tedious pomp, away I run,
And skip o'er twenty pages, to be gone.
Of such descriptions the vain folly see,
And shun their barren superfluity.

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All that is needless carefully avoid;
The mind once satisfied is quickly cloyed:
He cannot write, who knows not to give o'er;
To mend one fault, he makes a hundred more:
A verse was weak, you turn it much too strong,
And grow obscure for fear you should be long.
Some are not gaudy, but are flat and dry;
Not to be low, another soars too high.
Would you of every one deserve the praise?
In writing vary your discourse and phrase;
A frozen style, that neither ebbs nor flows,
Instead of pleasing, makes us gape and dose.
Those tedious authors are esteemed by none
Who tire us, humming the same heavy tone.
Happy who in his verse can gently steer,
From grave to light; from pleasant to severe:
His works will be admired wherever found,
And oft with buyers will be compassed round.
In all you write, be neither low nor vile;
The meanest theme may have a proper style.

The dull burlesque appeared with impudence,
And pleased by novelty in spite of sense.
All, except trivial points, grew out of date;
Parnassus spoke the cant of Billingsgate;
Boundless and mad, disordered rhyme was seen;
Disguised Apollo changed to Harlequin.
This plague, which first in country towns began,
Cities and kingdoms quickly overran;
The dullest scribblers some admirers found,
And the “Mock Tempest” was a while renowned.
But this low stuff the town at last despised,
And scorned the folly that they once had prized;
Distinguished dull from natural and plain,
And left the villages to Flecknoe's reign.
Let not so mean a style your muse debase,
But learn from Butler the buffooning grace;

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And let burlesque in ballads be employed,
Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid;
Nor think to raise, though on Pharsalia's plain,
“Millions of mourning mountains of the slain:”
Nor with Dubartas bridle up the floods,
And periwig with wool the baldpate woods.
Chuse a just style; be grave without constraint,
Great without pride, and lovely without paint:
Write what your reader may be pleased to hear,
And for the measure have a careful ear.
On easy numbers fix your happy choice;
Of jarring sounds avoid the odious noise:
The fullest verse, and the most laboured sense,
Displease us, if the ear once take offence.
Our ancient verse, as homely as the times,
Was rude, unmeasured, only tagged with rhymes;
Number and cadence, that have since been shown,
To those unpolished writers were unknown.
Fairfax was he, who, in that darker age,
By his just rules restrained poetic rage;

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Spenser did next in pastorals excel,
And taught the noble art of writing well;
To stricter rules the stanza did restrain,
And found for poetry a richer vein.
Then D'Avenant came, who, with a new-found art,
Changed all, spoiled all, and had his way apart;
His haughty muse all others did despise,
And thought in triumph to bear off the prize,
'Til the sharp-sighted critics of the times,
In their Mock-Gondibert, exposed his rhymes;
The laurels he pretended did refuse,
And dashed the hopes of his aspiring muse.
This headstrong writer falling from on high,
Made following authors take less liberty.
Waller came last, but was the first whose art
Just weight and measure did to verse impart;
That of a well-placed word could teach the force,
And showed for poetry a nobler course;
His happy genius did our tongue refine,
And easy words with pleasing numbers join;
His verses to good method did apply,
And changed hard discord to soft harmony.
All owned his laws; which, long approved and tried,
To present authors now may be a guide.
Tread boldly in his steps, secure from fear,
And be, like him, in your expressions clear.
If in your verse you drag, and sense delay,
My patience tires, my fancy goes astray;
And from your vain discourse I turn my mind,
Nor search an author troublesome to find.

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There is a kind of writer pleased with sound,
Whose fustian head with clouds is compassed round,
No reason can disperse them with its light:
Learn then to think ere you pretend to write.
As your idea's clear, or else obscure,
The expression follows perfect or impure:
What we conceive with ease we can express;
Words to the notions flow with readiness.
Observe the language well in all you write,
And swerve not from it in your loftiest flight.
The smoothest verse, and the exactest sense,
Displease us, if ill English give offence:
A barbarous phrase no reader can approve;
Nor bombast, noise, or affectation love.
In short, without pure language, what you write
Can never yield us profit or delight.
Take time for thinking; never work in haste;
And value not yourself for writing fast.
A rapid poem, with such fury writ,
Shows want of judgment, not abounding wit.
More pleased we are to see a river lead
His gentle streams along a flowery mead,
Than from high banks to hear loud torrents roar,
With foamy waters on a muddy shore.
Gently make haste, of labour not afraid;
A hundred times consider what you've said:
Polish, repolish, every colour lay,
And sometimes add, but oftener take away.
'Tis not enough, when swarming faults are writ,
That here and there are scattered sparks of wit:
Each object must be fixed in the due place,
And differing parts have corresponding grace;
Till, by a curious art disposed, we find
One perfect whole, of all the pieces joined.
Keep to your subject close in all you say;
Nor for a sounding sentence ever stray.
The public censure for your writings fear,
And to yourself be critic most severe.
Fantastic wits their darling follies love;
But find you faithful friends that will reprove,
That on your works may look with careful eyes,
And of your faults be zealous enemies:

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Lay by an author's pride and vanity,
And from a friend a flatterer descry,
Who seems to like, but means not what he says:
Embrace true counsel, but suspect false praise.
A sycophant will every thing admire;
Each verse, each sentence sets his soul on fire:
All is divine! there's not a word amiss!
He shakes with joy, and weeps with tenderness;
He overpowers you with his mighty praise.
Truth never moves in those impetuous ways;

A faithful friend is careful of your fame,
And freely will your heedless errors blame;
He cannot pardon a neglected line,
But verse to rule and order will confine;
Reprove of words the too-affected sound;—
Here the sense flags, and your expression's round,
Your fancy tires, and your discourse grows vain,
Your terms improper; make it just and plain.—
Thus 'tis a faithful friend will freedom use;
But authors, partial to their darling muse,
Think to protect it they have just pretence,
And at your friendly counsel take offence.—
Said you of this, that the expression's flat?
Your servant, sir, you must excuse me that,
He answers you.—This word has here no grace,
Pray leave it out;—that, sir, 's the properest place.—
This turn I like not;—'tis approved by all.
Thus, resolute not from one fault to fall,
If there's a syllable of which you doubt,
'Tis a sure reason not to blot it out.
Yet still he says you may his faults confute,
And over him your power is absolute.
But of his feigned humility take heed;
'Tis a bait laid to make you hear him read.
And when he leaves you happy in his muse,
Restless he runs some other to abuse,
And often finds; for in our scribbling times
No fool can want a sot to praise his rhymes.
The flattest work has ever in the court
Met with some zealous ass for its support;
And in all times a forward scribbling fop
Has found some greater fool to cry him up.

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CANTO II.

PASTORAL.

As a fair nymph, when rising from her bed,
With sparkling diamonds dresses not her head,
But without gold, or pearl, or costly scents,
Gathers from neighbouring fields her ornaments;
Such, lovely in its dress, but plain withal,
Ought to appear a perfect Pastoral.
Its humble method nothing has of fierce,
But hates the rattling of a lofty verse;
There native beauty pleases, and excites,
And never with harsh sounds the ear affrights.
But in this style a poet often spent,
In rage throws by his rural instrument,
And vainly, when disordered thoughts abound,
Amidst the Eclogue makes the trumpet sound:
Pan flies alarmed into the neighbouring woods,
And frighted nymphs dive down into the floods.
Opposed to this, another, low in style,
Makes shepherds speak a language base and vile:
His writings, flat and heavy, without sound,
Kissing the earth, and creeping on the ground,
You'd swear that Randal, in his rustic strains,
Again was quavering to the country swains,
And changing, without care of sound or dress,
Strephon and Phyllis, into Tom and Bess.
'Twixt these extremes 'tis hard to keep the right;
For guides take Virgil, and read Theocrite:

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Be their just writings, by the gods inspired,
Your constant pattern, practised, and admired.
By them alone you'll easily comprehend
How poets, without shame, may condescend
To sing of gardens, fields, of flowers, and fruit,
To stir up shepherds, and to tune the flute;
Of love's rewards to tell the happy hour,
Daphne a tree, Narcissus made a flower,
And by what means the Eclogue yet has power
To make the woods worthy a conqueror:
This of their writings is the grace and flight;
Their risings lofty, yet not out of sight.

ELEGY.

The Elegy, that loves a mournful style,
With unbound hair weeps at a funeral pile;
It paints the lover's torments and delights,
A mistress flatters, threatens, and invites:
But well these raptures if you'll make us see,
You must know love as well as poetry.
I hate those lukewarm authors, whose forced fire
In a cold style describes a hot desire;
That sigh by rule, and, raging in cold blood,
Their sluggish muse whip to an amorous mood;
Their feigned transports appear but flat and vain;
They always sigh, and always hug their chain,
Adore their prison, and their sufferings bless,
Make sense and reason quarrel as they please.
'Twas not of old in this affected tone,
That smooth Tibullus made his amorous moan;
Nor Ovid, when instructed from above,
By nature's rules he taught the art of love.
The heart in Elegies forms the discourse.

ODE.

The Ode is bolder, and has greater force;
Mounting to heaven in her ambitious flight,
Amongst the gods and heroes takes delight;
Of Pisa's wrestlers tells the sinewy force,

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And sings the dusty conqueror's glorious course;
To Simois' streams does fierce Achilles bring,
And makes the Ganges bow to Britain's king,
Sometimes she flies like an industrious bee,
And robes the flowers by nature's chemistry,
Describes the shepherd's dances, feasts, and bliss,
And boasts from Phyllis to surprise a kiss,
When gently she resists with feigned remorse,
That what she grants may seem to be by force:
Her generous style at random oft will part,
And by a brave disorder shows her art.
Unlike those fearful poets, whose cold rhyme
In all their raptures keeps exactest time,
That sing the illustrious hero's mighty praise
(Lean writers!) by the terms of weeks and days;
And dare not from least circumstances part,
But take all towns by strictest rules of art:
Apollo drives those fops from his abode;
And some have said that once the humorous god
Resolving all such scribblers to confound,
For the short Sonnet ordered this strict bound;
Set rules for the just measure, and the time,
The easy running and alternate rhyme;
But above all, those licences denied
Which in these writings the lame sense supplied;
Forbade an useless line should find a place,
Or a repeated word appear with grace.
A faultless Sonnet, finished thus, would be
Worth tedious volumes of loose poetry.
A hundred scribbling authors without ground,
Believe they have this only phœnix found:
When yet the exactest scarce have two or three,
Among whole tomes from faults and censure free.
The rest, but little read, regarded less,
Are shovelled to the pastry from the press.
Closing the sense within the measured time,
'Tis hard to fit the reason to the rhyme.

EPIGRAM.

The Epigram, with little art composed,
Is one good sentence in a distich closed.

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These points that by Italians first were prized,
Our ancient authors knew not, or despised:
The vulgar dazzled with their glaring light,
To their false pleasures quickly they invite;
But public favour so increased their pride,
They overwhelmed Parnassus with their tide
The Madrigal at first was overcome,
And the proud Sonnet fell by the same doom;
With these grave Tragedy adorned her flights,
And mournful Elegy her funeral rites:
A hero never failed them on the stage,
Without his point a lover durst not rage;
The amorous shepherds took more care to prove
True to his point, than faithful to their love.
Each word, like Janus, had a double face;
And prose, as well as verse, allowed it place:
The lawyer with conceits adorned his speech,
The parson without quibbling could not preach.
At last affronted Reason looked about,
And from all serious matters shut them out;
Declared that none should use them without shame,
Except a scattering in the Epigram;
Provided that by art, and in due time,
They turned upon the thought, and not the rhyme.
Thus in all parts disorders did abate:
Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate;
Insipid jesters, and unpleasant fools,
A corporation of dull punning drolls.
'Tis not, but that sometimes a dexterous muse
May with advantage a turned sense abuse,
And on a word may trifle with address;
But above all avoid the fond excess,
And think not, when your verse and sense are lame,
With a dull point to tag your Epigram.

Each poem his perfection has apart;
The British round in plainness shows his art.
The Ballad, though the pride of ancient time,
Has often nothing but his humorous rhyme;
The Madrigal may softer passions move,
And breathe the tender ecstasies of love.
Desire to show itself, and not to wrong,
Armed Virtue first with Satire in its tongue.

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SATIRE.

Lucilius was the man, who, bravely bold,
To Roman vices did his mirror hold,
Protected humble goodness from reproach,
Showed worth on foot, and rascals in the coach.
Horace his pleasing wit to this did add,
And none uncensured could be fool or mad:
Unhappy was that wretch, whose name might be
Squared to the rules of their sharp poetry.
Persius obscure, but full of sense and wit,
Affected brevity in all he writ;
And Juvenal, learned as those times could be,
Too far did stretch his sharp hyperbole;
Though horrid truths through all his labours shine,
In what he writes there's something of divine,
Whether he blames the Caprean debauch,
Or of Sejanus' fall tells the approach,
Or that he makes the trembling senate come
To the stern tyrant to receive their doom;
Or Roman vice in coarsest habits shows,
And paints an empress reeking from the stews:
In all he writes appears a noble fire;
To follow such a master then desire.
Chaucer alone, fixed on this solid base,
In his old style conserves a modern grace:
Too happy, if the freedom of his rhymes
Offended not the method of our times.
The Latin writers decency neglect;
But modern authors challenge our respect,
And at immodest writings take offence,
If clean expression cover not the sense.
I love sharp Satire, from obsceneness free;
Not impudence, that preaches modesty:
Our English, who in malice never fail,
Hence in lampoons and libels learn to rail;
Pleasant detraction, that by singing goes
From mouth to mouth, and as it marches grows:
Our freedom in our poetry we see,
That child of joy begot by liberty.
But, vain blasphemer, tremble when you chuse
God for the subject of your impious muse:

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At last, those jests which libertines invent,
Bring the lewd author to just punishment.
Even in a song there must be art and sense;
Yet sometimes we have seen that wine, or chance,
Have warmed cold brains, and given dull writers mettle,
And furnished out a scene for Mr. Settle.
But for one lucky hit, that made thee please,
Let not thy folly grow to a disease,
Nor think thyself a wit; for in our age
If a warm fancy does some fop engage,
He neither eats nor sleeps till he has writ,
But plagues the world with his adulterate wit.
Nay, 'tis a wonder, if, in his dire rage,
He prints not his dull follies for the stage;
And in the front of all his senseless plays,
Makes David Logan crown his head with bays.

CANTO III.

TRAGEDY.

There's not a monster bred beneath the sky,
But well-disposed by art, may please the eye:
A curious workman by his skill divine,
From an ill object makes a good design.
Thus to delight us, Tragedy, in tears
For Œdipus, provokes our hopes and fears;
For parricide Orestes asks relief,
And, to increase our pleasure, causes grief.
You, then, that in this noble art would rise,
Come, and in lofty verse dispute the prize.
Would you upon the stage acquire renown,
And for your judges summon all the town?
Would you your works for ever should remain,
And after ages past be sought again?

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In all you write, observe with care and art
To move the passions, and incline the heart.
If in a laboured act, the pleasing rage
Cannot our hopes and fears by turns engage,
Nor in our mind a feeling pity raise,
In vain with learned scenes you fill your plays:
Your cold discourse can never move the mind
Of a stern critic, naturally unkind,
Who, justly tired with your pedantic flight,
Or falls asleep, or censures all you write.
The secret is, attention first to gain;
To move our minds, and then to entertain;
That from the very opening of the scenes,
The first may show us what the author means.
I'm tired to see an actor on the stage,
That knows not whether he's to laugh or rage;
Who, an intrigue unravelling in vain,
Instead of pleasing keeps my mind in pain.
I'd rather much the nauseous dunce should say
Downright, my name is Hector in the play;
Than with a mass of miracles, ill-joined,
Confound my ears, and not instruct my mind.
The subject's never soon enough exprest;
Your place of action must be fixed, and rest.
A Spanish poet may with good event,
In one day's space whole ages represent;
There oft the hero of a wandering stage
Begins a child, and ends the play of age:
But we, that are by reason's rules confined,
Will, that with art the poem be designed;
That unity of action, time, and place,
Keep the stage full, and all our labours grace.
Write not what cannot be with ease conceived;
Some truths may be too strong to be believed.
A foolish wonder cannot entertain;
My mind's not moved if your discourse be vain.

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You may relate what would offend the eye:
Seeing, indeed, would better satisfy;
But there are objects that a curious art
Hides from the eyes, yet offers to the heart.
The mind is most agreeably surprised,
When a well-woven subject, long disguised,
You on a sudden artfully unfold,
And give the whole another face and mould.
At first the Tragedy was void of art;
A song, where each man danced and sung his part,
And of god Bacchus roaring out the praise,
Sought a good vintage for their jolly days:
Then wine and joy were seen in each man's eyes,
And a fat goat was the best singer's prize.
Thespis was first, who, all besmeared with lee,
Began this pleasure for posterity:
And with his carted actors, and a song,
Amused the people as he passed along.
Next Æschylus the different persons placed,
And with a better mask his players graced:
Upon a theatre his verse expressed,
And showed his hero with a buskin dressed.
Then Sophocles, the genius of his age,
Increased the pomp and beauty of the stage,
Engaged the chorus song in every part,
And polished rugged verse by rules of art:
He in the Greek did those perfections gain,
Which the weak Latin never could attain.
Our pious fathers, in their priest-rid age,
As impious and profane, abhorred the stage:
A troop of silly pilgrims, as 'tis said,
Foolishly zealous, scandalously played,
Instead of heroes, and of love's complaints,
The angels, God, the Virgin, and the saints.

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At last, right Reason did his laws reveal,
And showed the folly of their ill-placed zeal,
Silenced those nonconformists of the age,
And raised the lawful heroes of the stage:
Only the Athenian mask was laid aside,
And chorus by the music was supplied.
Ingenious love, inventive in new arts,
Mingled in plays, and quickly touched our hearts:
This passion never could resistance find,
But knows the shortest passage to the mind.
Paint then, I'm pleased my hero be in love;
But let him not like a tame shepherd move;
Let not Achilles be like Thyrsis seen,
Or for a Cyrus show an Artamen;
That struggling oft, his passions we may find,
The frailty, not the virtue of his mind.
Of romance heroes shun the low design;
Yet to great hearts some human frailties join:
Achilles must with Homer's heat engage;
For an affront I'm pleased to see him rage.
Those little failings in your hero's heart
Show that of man and nature he has part.
To leave known rules you cannot be allowed;
Make Agamemnon covetous and proud,
Æneas in religious rites austere.
Keep to each man his proper character.
Of countries and of times the humours know;
From different climates different customs grow:
And strive to shun their fault, who vainly dress
An antique hero like some modern ass;

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Who make old Romans like our English move,
Show Cato sparkish, or make Brutus love.
In a romance those errors are excused:
There 'tis enough that, reading, we're amused:
Rules too severe would there be useless found;
But the strict scene must have a juster bound;
Exact decorum we must always find.
If, then, you form some hero in your mind,
Be sure your image with itself agree;
For what he first appears, he still must be.
Affected wits will naturally incline
To paint their figures by their own design;
Your bully poets, bully heroes write;
Chapman in Bussy D'Ambois took delight,
And thought perfection was to huff and fight.
Wise nature by variety does please;
Clothe differing passions in a differing dress.
Bold anger, in rough haughty words appears;
Sorrow is humble, and dissolves in tears.
Make not your Hecuba with fury rage,
And show a ranting grief upon the stage;
Or tell in vain how the rough Tanais bore
His sevenfold waters to the Euxine shore:
These swoln expressions, this affected noise,
Shows like some pedant that declaims to boys.
In sorrow you must softer methods keep;
And, to excite our tears, yourself must weep.
Those noisy words with which ill plays abound,
Come not from hearts that are in sadness drowned.

The theatre for a young poet's rhymes
Is a bold venture in our knowing times:
An author cannot easily purchase fame;
Critics are always apt to hiss, and blame:
You may be judged by every ass in town,
The privilege is bought for half-a-crown.
To please, you must a hundred changes try;
Sometimes be humble, then must soar on high;
In noble thoughts must everywhere abound,
Be easy, pleasant, solid, and profound;
To these you must surprising touches join,
And show us a new wonder in each line;

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That all, in a just method well-designed,
May leave a strong impression in the mind.
These are the arts that tragedy maintain:

THE EPIC.

But the Heroic claims a loftier strain.
In the narration of some great design,
Invention, art, and fable, all must join:
Here fiction must employ its utmost grace;
All must assume a body, mind, and face:
Each virtue a divinity is seen;
Prudence is Pallas; Beauty, Paphos' queen.
'Tis not a cloud from whence swift lightnings fly,
But Jupiter, that thunders from the sky;
Nor a rough storm that gives the sailor pain,
But angry Neptune plowing up the main;
Echo's no more an empty airy sound,
But a fair nymph that weeps her lover drowned.
Thus in the endless treasure of his mind,
The poet does a thousand figures find;
Around the work his ornaments he pours,
And strows with lavish hand his opening flowers.
'Tis not a wonder if a tempest bore
The Trojan fleet against the Libyan shore;
From faithless fortune this is no surprise,
For every day 'tis common to our eyes:
But angry Juno, that she might destroy,
And overwhelm the rest of ruined Troy;
That Æolus, with the fierce goddess joined,
Opened the hollow prisons of the wind;
Till angry Neptune, looking o'er the main,
Rebukes the tempest, calms the waves again,
Their vessels from the dangerous quicksands steers.
These are the springs that move our hopes and fears:
Without these ornaments before our eyes,
The unsinewed poem languishes and dies:
Your poet in his art will always fail,
And tell you but a dull insipid tale.
In vain have our mistaken authors tried
To lay these ancient ornaments aside,

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Thinking our God, and prophets that he sent,
Might act like those the poet did invent,
To fright poor readers in each line with hell,
And talk of Satan, Ashtaroth, and Bel.
The mysteries which Christians must believe,
Disdain such shifting pageants to receive:
The gospel offers nothing to our thoughts
But penitence, or punishment for faults;
And mingling falsehoods with these mysteries,
Would make our sacred truths appear like lies.
Besides, what pleasure can it be to hear
The howlings of repining Lucifer,
Whose rage at your imagined hero flies,
And oft with God himself disputes the prize?
Tasso, you'll say, has done it with applause:—
It is not here I mean to judge his cause:
Yet though our age has so extolled his name,
His works had never gained immortal fame,
If holy Godfrey in his ecstasies
Had only conquered Satan on his knees;
If Tancred and Armida's pleasing form
Did not his melancholy theme adorn.
'Tis not, that Christian poems ought to be
Filled with the fictions of idolatry;
But, in a common subject, to reject
The gods, and heathen ornaments neglect;
To banish Tritons, who the seas invade,
To take Pan's whistle, or the Fates degrade,
To hinder Charon in his leaky boat
To pass the shepherd with the man of note,
Is with vain scruples to disturb your mind,
And search perfection you can never find:
As well they may forbid us to present
Prudence or Justice for an ornament,
To paint old Janus with his front of brass,
And take from Time his scythe, his wings, and glass,
And everywhere, as 'twere idolatry,
Banish descriptions from our poetry.
Leave them their pious follies to pursue;
But let our reason such vain fears subdue:

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And let us not, amongst our vanities,
Of the true God create a god of lies.
In fable we a thousand pleasures see,
And the smooth names seem made for poetry;
As Hector, Alexander, Helen, Phyllis,
Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Achilles:
In such a crowd, the poet were to blame
To choose King Chilperic for his hero's name.
Sometimes the name, being well or ill applied,
Will the whole fortune of your work decide.
Would you your reader never should be tired,
Choose some great hero, fit to be admired,
In courage signal, and in virtue bright;
Let even his very failings give delight;
Let his great actions our attention bind,
Like Cæsar, or like Scipio, frame his mind,
And not like Œdipus his perjured race;
A common conqueror is a theme too base.
Choose not your tale of accidents too full;
Too much variety may make it dull:
Achilles' rage alone, when wrought with skill,
Abundantly does a whole Iliad fill.
Be your narrations lively, short, and smart;
In your descriptions show your noblest art:
There 'tis your poetry may be employed.
Yet you must trivial accidents avoid,
Nor imitate that fool, who, to describe
The wondrous marches of the chosen tribe,
Placed on the sides, to see their armies pass,
The fishes staring through the liquid glass;
Described a child, who, with his little hand,
Picked up the shining pebbles from the sand.
Such objects are too mean to stay our sight;
Allow your work a just and nobler flight.
Be your beginning plain; and take good heed
Too soon you mount not on the airy steed;
Nor tell your reader, in a thundering verse,
“I sing the conqueror of the universe.”
What can an author after this produce?
The labouring mountain must bring forth a mouse.
Much better are we pleased with his address,
Who, without making such vast promises,

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Says, in an easier style and plainer sense,
“I sing the combats of that pious prince,
Who from the Phrygian coasts his armies bore,
And landed first on the Lavinian shore.”
His opening muse sets not the world on fire,
And yet performs more than we can require:
Quickly you'll hear him celebrate the fame,
And future glory of the Roman name;
Of Styx and Acheron describe the floods,
And Cæsar's wandering in the Elysian woods;
With figures numberless his story grace,
And everything in beauteous colours trace.
At once you may be pleasing and sublime:
I hate a heavy melancholy rhyme:
I'd rather read Orlando's comic tale,
Than a dull author always stiff and stale,
Who thinks himself dishonoured in his style,
If on his works the Graces do but smile.
'Tis said that Homer, matchless in his art,
Stole Venus' girdle to engage the heart:
His works indeed vast treasures do unfold,
And whatsoe'er he touches turns to gold:
All in his hands new beauty does acquire;
He always pleases, and can never tire.
A happy warmth he everywhere may boast;
Nor is he in too long disgressions lost:
His verses without rule a method find,
And of themselves appear in order joined;
All without trouble answers his intent;
Each syllable is tending to the event.
Let his example your endeavours raise;
To love his writings is a kind of praise.

A poem, where we all perfections find,
Is not the work of a fantastic mind;
There must be care, and time, and skill, and pains;
Not the first heat of inexperienced brains.
Yet sometimes artless poets, when the rage
Of a warm fancy does their minds engage,
Puffed with vain pride, presume they understand,
And boldly take the trumpet in their hand:
Their fustian muse each accident confounds;
Nor can she fly, but rise by leaps and bounds,

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Till, their small stock of learning quickly spent,
Their poem dies for want of nourishment.
In vain mankind the hot-brained fool decries,
No branding censures can unveil his eyes;
With impudence the laurel they invade,
Resolved to like the monsters they have made.
Virgil, compared to them, is flat and dry;
And Homer understood not poetry:
Against their merit if this age rebel,
To future times for justice they appeal.
But waiting till mankind shall do them right,
And bring their works triumphantly to light,
Neglected heaps we in bye-corners lay,
Where they become to worms and moths a prey.
Forgot, in dust and cobwebs let them rest,
Whilst we return from whence we first digrest.

The great success which tragic writers found,
In Athens first the comedy renowned.
The abusive Grecian there, by pleasing ways,
Dispersed his natural malice in his plays:
Wisdom and virtue, honour, wit, and sense,
Were subject to buffooning insolence:
Poets were publicly approved, and sought,
That vice extolled, and virtue set at nought;
A Socrates himself, in that loose age,
Was made the pastime of a scoffing stage.
At last the public took in hand the cause,
And cured this madness by the power of laws;
Forbade at any time, or any place,
To name the person, or describe the face.
The stage its ancient fury thus let fall,
And comedy diverted without gall:
By mild reproofs recovered minds diseased,
And, sparing persons, innocently pleased.
Each one was nicely shown in this new glass,
And smiled to think he was not meant the ass:
A miser oft would laugh at first, to find
A faithful draught of his own sordid mind;
And fops were with such care and cunning writ,
They liked the piece for which themselves did sit.
You, then, that would the comic laurels wear,
To study nature be your only care.

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Whoe'er knows man, and by a curious art
Discerns the hidden secrets of the heart;
He who observes, and naturally can paint
The jealous fool, the fawning sycophant,
A sober wit, an enterprising ass,
A humorous Otter, or a Hudibras,—
May safely in those noble lists engage,
And make them act and speak upon the stage.
Strive to be natural in all you write,
And paint with colours that may please the sight.
Nature in various figures does abound,
And in each mind are different humours found;
A glance, a touch, discovers to the wise,
But every man has not discerning eyes.
All-changing time does also change the mind,
And different ages different pleasures find;
Youth, hot and furious, cannot brook delay,
By flattering vice is easily led away;
Vain in discourse, inconstant in desire,
In censure, rash; in pleasures, all on fire.
The manly age does steadier thoughts enjoy;
Power and Ambition do his soul employ;
Against the turns of fate he sets his mind;
And by the past the future hopes to find.
Decrepit age, still adding to his stores,
For others heaps the treasure he adores;
In all his actions keeps a frozen pace;
Past times extols, the present to debase:
Incapable of pleasures youth abuse,
In others blames what age does him refuse.
Your actors must by reason be controlled;
Let young men speak like young, old men like old.
Observe the town, and study well the court;
For thither various characters resort.
Thus 'twas great Jonson purchased his renown,
And in his art had borne away the crown,
If, less desirous of the people's praise,
He had not with low farce debased his plays;
Mixing dull buffoonery with wit refined,
And Harlequin with noble Terence joined.

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When in the Fox I see the tortoise hist,
I lose the author of the Alchemist.
The comic wit, born with a smiling air,
Must tragic grief and pompous verse forbear;
Yet may he not, as on a market-place,
With bawdy jests amuse the populace;
With well-bred conversation you must please,
And your intrigue unravelled be with ease;
Your action still should reason's rules obey,
Nor in an empty scene may lose its way.
Your humble style must sometimes gently rise;
And your discourse sententious be, and wise:
The passions must to nature be confined;
And scenes to scenes with artful weaving joined.
Your wit must not unseasonably play;
But follow business, never lead the way.
Observe how Terence does this error shun:
A careful father chides his amorous son;
Then see that son, whom no advice can move,
Forget those orders, and pursue his love:
'Tis not a well-drawn picture we discover;
'Tis a true son, a father, and a lover.
I like an author that reforms the age,
And keeps the right decorum of the stage;
That always pleases by just reason's rule:
But for a tedious droll, a quibbling fool,
Who with low nauseous bawdry fills his plays,
Let him be gone, and on two tressels raise
Some Smithfield stage, where he may act his pranks,
And make Jack-Puddings speak to mountebanks.

CANTO IV.

In Florence dwelt a doctor of renown,
The scourge of God, and terror of the town,
Who all the cant of physic had by heart,
And never murdered but by rules of art.

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The public mischief was his private gain:
Children their slaughtered parents sought in vain;
A brother here his poisoned brother wept;
Some bloodless died, and some by opium slept;
Colds, at his presence, would to phrenzies turn,
And agues, like malignant fevers, burn.
Hated, at last, his practice gives him o'er;
One friend, unkilled by drugs, of all his store,
In his new country-house affords him place
('Twas a rich abbot, and a building ass).
Here first the doctor's talent came in play;
He seems inspired, and talks like Wren or May;
Of this new portico condemns the face,
And turns the entrance to a better place;
Designs the staircase at the other end:
His friend approves, does for his mason send.
He comes; the doctor's arguments prevail;
In short, to finish this our humorous tale,
He Galen's dangerous science does reject,
And from ill doctor turns good architect.

In this example we may have our part;
Rather be mason ('tis a useful art)
Than a dull poet; for that trade accurst,
Admits no mean betwixt the best and worst.
In other sciences, without disgrace,
A candidate may fill a second place;
But poetry no medium can admit,
No reader suffers an indifferent wit:
The ruined stationers against him bawl,
And Herringman degrades from his stall.
Burlesque at least our laughter may excite;
But a cold writer never can delight.
The Counter-scuffle has more wit and art,
Than the stiff formal style of Gondibert.
Be not affected with that empty praise
Which your vain flatterers will sometimes raise;

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And when you read, with ecstasy will say,
“The finished piece! the admirable play!”
Which, when exposed to censure and to light,
Cannot endure a critic's piercing sight.
A hundred authors' fates have been foretold,
And Shadwell's works are printed, but not sold.
Hear all the world; consider every thought;
A fool by chance may stumble on a fault:
Yet, when Apollo does your muse inspire,
Be not impatient to expose your fire;
Nor imitate the Settles of our times,
Those tuneful readers of their own dull rhymes,
Who seize on all the acquaintance they can meet,
And stop the passengers that walk the street:
There is no sanctuary you can chuse
For a defence from their pursuing muse.
I said before, be patient when they blame;
To alter for the better is no shame.
Yet yield not to a fool's impertinence;
Sometimes conceited sceptics, void of sense,
By their false taste condemn some finished part,
And blame the noblest flights of wit and art.
In vain their fond opinions you deride,
With their loved follies they are satisfied;
And their weak judgment, void of sense and light,
Thinks nothing can escape their feeble sight:
Their dangerous counsels do not cure, but wound;
To shun the storm they run your verse aground,
And thinking to escape a rock, are drowned.
Chuse a sure judge to censure what you write,
Whose reason leads, and knowledge gives you light,
Whose steady hand will prove your faithful guide,
And touch the darling follies you would hide:
He, in your doubts, will carefully advise,
And clear the mist before your feeble eyes.
'Tis he will tell you, to what noble height
A generous Muse may sometimes take her flight;
When too much fettered with the rules of art,
May from her stricter bounds and limits part:
But such a perfect judge is hard to see,
And every rhymer knows not poetry;
Nay some there are for writing verse extolled,
Who know not Lucan's dross from Virgil's gold.

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Would you in this great art acquire renown?
Authors, observe the rules I here lay down.
In prudent lessons everywhere abound;
With pleasant join the useful and the sound:
A sober reader a vain tale will slight;
He seeks as well instruction as delight.
Let all your thoughts to virtue be confined,
Still offering nobler figures to our mind:
I like not those loose writers, who employ
Their guilty muse, good manners to destroy;
Who with false colours still deceive our eyes,
And show us vice dressed in a fair disguise.
Yet do I not their sullen muse approve,
Who from all most writings banish love;
That stript the playhouse of its chief intrigue,
And make a murderer of Roderigue:
The lightest love, if decently exprest,
Will raise no vicious motions in our breast.
Dido in vain may weep, and ask relief;
I blame her folly, whilst I share her grief.
A virtuous author, in his charming art,
To please the sense needs not corrupt the heart:
His heat will never cause a guilty fire:
To follow virtue then be your desire.
In vain your art and vigour are exprest;
The obscene expression shows the infected breast.
But, above all, base jealousies avoid,
In which detracting poets are employed.
A noble wit dares liberally commend,
And scorns to grudge at his deserving friend.
Base rivals, who true wit and merit hate,
Caballing still against it with the great,
Maliciously aspire to great renown,
By standing up, and pulling others down.
Never debase yourself by treacherous ways,
Nor by such abject methods seek for praise:
Let not your only business be to write;
Be virtuous, just, and in your friends delight.
'Tis not enough your poems be admired;
But strive your conversation be desired:
Write for immortal fame; nor ever chuse
Gold for the object of a generous muse.

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I know a noble wit may, without crime,
Receive a lawful tribute for his time:
Yet I abhor those writers, who despise
Their honour, and alone their profits prize;
Who their Apollo basely will degrade,
And of a noble science make a trade.
Before kind Reason did her light display,
And government taught mortals to obey,
Men, like wild beasts, did nature's laws pursue,
They fed on herbs, and drink from waters drew;
Their brutal force, on lust and rapine bent,
Committed murder without punishment:
Reason at last, by her all-conquering arts,
Reduced these savages, and tuned their hearts;
Mankind from bogs, and woods, and caverns calls,
And towns and cities fortifies with walls:
Thus fear of justice made proud rapine cease,
And sheltered innocence by laws and peace.

These benefits from poets we received;
From whence are raised those fictions since believed,
That Orpheus, by his soft harmonious strains,
Tamed the fierce tigers of the Thracian plains;
Amphion's notes, by their melodious powers,
Drew rocks and woods, and raised the Theban towers:
These miracles from numbers did arise;
Since which, in verse Heaven taught his mysteries,
And by a priest, possessed with rage divine,
Apollo spoke from his prophetic shrine.
Soon after, Homer the old heroes praised,
And noble minds by great examples raised;
Then Hesiod did his Grecian swains incline
To till the fields, and prune the bounteous vine.
Thus useful rules were, by the poet's aid,
In easy numbers to rude men conveyed,
And pleasingly their precepts did impart;
First charmed the ear, and then engaged the heart;
The Muses thus their reputation raised,
And with just gratitude in Greece were praised.
With pleasure mortals did their wonders see,
And sacrificed to their divinity;
But want, at last, base flattery entertained,
And old Parnassus with this vice was stained;

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Desire of gain dazzling the poets' eyes,
Their works were filled with fulsome flatteries.
Thus needy wits a vile revenue made,
And verse became a mercenary trade.
Debase not with so mean a vice thy art;
If gold must be the idol of thy heart,
Fly, fly the unfruitful Heliconian strand!
Those streams are not enriched with golden sand;
Great wits, as well as warriors, only gain
Laurels and honours for their toil and pain.
But what? an author cannot live on fame,
Or pay a reckoning with a lofty name:
A poet, to whom fortune is unkind,
Who when he goes to bed has hardly dined,
Takes little pleasure in Parnassus' dreams,
Or relishes the Heliconian streams;
Horace had ease and plenty when he writ,
And free from cares for money or for meat,
Did not expect his dinner from his wit.
'Tis true; but verse is cherished by the great,
And now none famish who deserve to eat:
What can we fear, when virtue, arts, and sense,
Receive the stars' propitious influence;
When a sharp-sighted prince, by early grants,
Rewards your merits, and prevents your wants?
Sing then his glory, celebrate his fame;
Your noblest theme is his immortal name.
Let mighty Spenser raise his reverend head,
Cowley and Denham start up from the dead;
Waller his age renew, and offerings bring,
Our monarch's praise let bright-eyed virgins sing:
Let Dryden with new rules our stage refine,
And his great models form by this design.
But where's a second Virgil, to rehearse
Our hero's glories in his epic verse?
What Orpheus sing his triumph o'er the main,
And make the hills and forests move again;
Show his bold fleet on the Batavian shore,
And Holland trembling as his cannons roar;
Paint Europe's balance in his steady hand,
Whilst the two worlds in expectation stand
Of peace or war, that wait on his command?

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But, as I speak, new glories strike my eyes,
Glories, which Heaven itself does give, and prize,
Blessings of peace; that with their milder rays
Adorn his reign, and bring Saturnian days.
Now let rebellion, discord, vice, and rage,
That have in patriots' forms debauched our age,
Vanish with all the ministers of hell;
His rays their poisonous vapours shall dispel:
'Tis he alone our safety did create,
His own firm soul secured the nation's fate,
Opposed to all the boutefeus of the state.
Authors, for him your great endeavours raise;
The loftiest numbers will but reach his praise.
For me, whose verse in satire has been bred,
And never durst heroic measures tread;
Yet you shall see me, in that famous field,
With eyes and voice, my best assitance yield;
Offer you lessons, that my infant muse
Learnt, when she Horace for her guide did chuse;
Second your zeal with wishes, heart, and eyes,
And afar off hold up the glorious prize.
But pardon too, if, zealous for the right,
A strict observer of each noble flight,
From the fine gold I separate the allay,
And show how hasty writers sometimes stray;
Apter to blame, than knowing how to mend;
A sharp, but yet a necessary friend.