A voice there is that whispers in my ear, (Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear) [breath, "Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take "And never gallop Pegasus to death; "Lest stiff and stately, void of fire or force, "You limp, like Blackmore, on a Lord Mayor's horse."

Farewel then, verse, and love, and ev'ry toy, The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy; What right, what true, what fit we justly call, Let this be all my care-for this is all: To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste, That ev'ry day will want, and most the last. But ask not to what Doctors I apply; Sworn to no master, of no sect am 1: As drives the storm, at any door I knock; And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke.

Sometimes a patriot, active in debate,
Mix with the world, and battle for the state,
Free as young Lyttelton her cause pursue,
Still true to virtue, and as warm as true:
Sometimes with Aristippus, or St. Paul,
Indulge my candour, and grow all to all;
Back to my native moderation slide,
And win my way by yielding to the tide.

Long as to him who works for debt the day,|| Long as the night to her whose love's away, Long as the year's dull circle seems to run When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one; So slow th' unprofitable moments roll, That lock up all the functions of my soul; That keep me from myself, and still delay Life's instant business to a future day: That task, which as we follow or despise, The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise: Which done, the poorest can no wants endure; And, which not done, the richest must be poor. Late as it is, I put myself to school, And feel some comfort not to be a fool. Weak tho' I am of limb, and short of sight, Far from a Lyax, and not a Giant quite; I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise, [eyes. To keep these limbs, and to preserve these Not to go back, is somewhat to advance; And men must walk at least before they dance.

Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move With wretched av'rice, or as wretched love? Know there are words and spells which can control,

Between the fits, this fever of the soul;
Know there are rhymes, which, fresh and fresh
applied,

Will cure the arrant'st puppy of his pride.
Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk,
Slave to a wife, or vassal to a punk,
A Switz, a High Dutch, or a Low Dutch bear;
All that we ask is but a patient ear.

La Belle Assemblée.-No. XLI.

Barnard in spirit, sense, and truth abounds; "Pray then, what wants he?" Fourscore thousand pounds;

A pension, or such harness for a slave
As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have.
Barnard, thou art a cit, with all thy worth;
And Bug and D-1, their honours and so forth.

Yet ev'ry child another song will sing;
"Virtue, brave boys! 'tis virtue makes a king."
True conscious honour is to feel no sin;
He's arm'd without that's innocent within:
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass,
Compar'd to this, a minister's an ass.

And say to which shall our applause belong, This new court jargon, or the good old song; The modern language of corrupted peers, Or what was spoke of Cressy or Poitiers? Who counsels best! who whispers, "Be but great,

"With praise or infamy, leave that to fate;

Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; "If not, by any means get wealth and place." For what? to have a box where Eunuchs sing, And foremost in the circle eye a KingOr he, who bids thee face with steady view Proud Fortune, and look shallow Greatness thro', [too? And, while he bids thee, sets th' example, If such a doctrine in St. James's air [stare; Should chance to make the well-dress'd rabble If honest S-z take scandal at a Spark That less admires the Palace than the Park, Faith I shall give the answer reynard gave :— "I cannot like, dread Sir, your royal cave; "Because I see, by all the tracks about, "Full many a beast goes in but none come

out."

Call'd" happy dog" the beggar at his door ;
And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.

Or shall we every decency confound,

Thro' taverus, stews, and baguios take our round;

Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo
K-s lewd cargo, or Ty-y's crew,
From Latian Syreus, French Chicæ in feasts,
Retura'd well travell'd, and transform'd to
beasis;

Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,
Renonuce our country and degrade our name.
If, after all, we inust with Wilmot own,
The cordial drop of life is love alone,
And Swift cry wisely," Fire la Bagatelle!"
The man that loves and laughs must sure do
well.

Adien-if this advice appear the worst,
Ev'n take the counsel which I gave you first;
Or better precepts if you can impart,
Why do; I'll follow them with all my heart.

EPISTLE I. BOOK II.

TO AUGUSTUS.

WHILE you, great patron of mankind! sus

tain

The balanc'd world, and open all the main ; Your country's chief, in arms abroad defend, At home with morals, arts, and laws ameud ; How shall the muse from such a monarch steal

Just in one instance, be it yet confess'd, Your people, Sir, are partial in the rest : Foes to all living worth except your own, And advocates for fully dead and gone. Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old,

An hour, and not defraud the public weal?

Edward and Heary now the boast of fame, And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name, After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd The Gaul subdu'd, or property secur'd, Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd, Or laws establish'd, and the world reform'd ; Clos'd their long glories with a sigh, to find Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind! All buman virtue to bis latest breath, Finds cavy never conquer'd but by death. The great Alcides, every labour past, Had still this monster to subdue at last. Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray Each star of meauer merit fades away! Oppres'd we feel the beam directly beat, Those suns of glory please not till they set.

To thee the world its present homage pays,

The harvest early, but mature the praise : Great friend of liberty! in kings a naine Above all Greeks, above all Roman fame: Whose word is truth, as sacred and rever'd As Heaven's own oracle from altars heard. Wonder of kings! like whom to mortal eyes None e'er has risen, none e'er shall rise.

It is the rust we value, not the gold.
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote:
One likes no language but the Faery Queen;
A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o'er the
Green;

And cach true Briton is to Ben so civil,

He swears the muses met him at the Devil.

Tho' justly Greece her eldest sons admires, Why should not we be wiser than our sires? In ev'ry public virtue we excel;

We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well;

And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us trembling thro' a hoop.

If time improve our wits as well as wine,
Say at what age a poet grows divine?
Shail we, or shall we not, accouat him so,
Who died, perhaps, au hundred years ago?
End all dispute, and fix the year precise
When British bards begin t' immortalize?

"Who lasts a century can have no flaw? "I hold that wit a classic, good in law.” Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? [sound? And shall we deem him ancient, right, and Or damn to all eternity at once,

At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?
"We shall not quarrel for a year or two;
"By courtesy of England he may do.”

Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail
bare,

I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,
And melt down ancients like a heap of snow,
While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe;
And, estimating authors by the year,
Bestow a garland only on a bier.

Shakspear (whom you and ev'ry playhouse
bill

Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing'd bis roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed
The life to come, in ev'ry poet's creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his epic, nay Pindaric art!
But still I love the language of his heart.

"Yet surely, surely these were famous men! "What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben?

"In all debates where critics bear a part, "Not one but nods, and talks of Johnson's art,

"Of Shakspear's nature, and of Cowley's wit; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ;

66

"How Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow,
But, for the passions, Southern sure and
Rowe,
[stage,
"These, only these, support the crowded
"From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age."
All this may be, the people's voice is odd;
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
To Gammer Garton if it gives the bays,
And yet deny the Careless Husband praise,
Or say our fathers never broke a rule;
Why then, I say, the public is a fool.
But let them own that greater faults than we
They had, and greater virtues I'll agree.
Spenser himself affects the obsoletc,
And Sydney's verse balts ill on Roman feet:
Milton's strong pinion now not heaven can
bound,
[ground;
Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the
In quibbles, angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school-divine.
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,
Like slashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook;
Or damn all Shakspear, like th' affected fool
At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.
But for the wits of either Charles's days,
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more
(Like twinkling stars the miscellanies o'er),
One simile, that solitary shines

In the dry desert of a thousand lines, [a page,
Or lengthen'd thought that gleams thro' mauy
Has sanctified whole poems for an age.
I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censur'd not as bad, but new;
While, if our elders break all reason's laws,
These fools demand not pardon, but applause.
On Avon's bank, where flow`rs eternal blow,
If I but ask if any weed can grow;

One tragic sentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignified,
Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis pro-
claims.

(Tho' but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names,)
How will our fathers rise up in a rage,
And swear all shame is lost in George's age!
You'd think no fools disgrac'd the former reign,
Did not some grave examples yet remain,
Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill,
And, having once been wrong, will be so still.
He, who to seem more deep than you or I,
Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy,
Mistake him not: he envies, not admires;
And, to debase the sons, exalts the sires.
Had ancient times conspir'd to disallow
What then was new, what had been ancient

now?

Or what remain'd so worthy to be read
By learned critics of the mighty dead?

In days of ease, when how the weary sword Was sheath'd, and luxury with Charles restor'd; In ev'ry taste of foreign courts improv'd,

All, by the king's example, liv'd and lov`d." Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excel;

Newmarket's glory rose as Britain's fell;'
The soldier breath'd the gallantries of France,
And ev'ry flow'ry courtier writ romance.
Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm;
And yielding metal flow'd to human form :
Lely on animated canvas stole

The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.
No wonder then, when all was love and sport,
The willing muses were debauch'd at court:
On each enervate string they taught the wote
To pant or tremble thro' an eunuch's throat.

But Britain, changeful as a child at play, Now calls in princes, and now turns away. Now Whig, now Tory, what we lov'd we hate; Now all for pleasure, now for church and state; Now for prerogative, and now for laws; Effects unhappy! from a noble cause.

Time was, a sober Englishman would knock His servants up, and rise by five o'clock; Instruct his family in ev'ry rule, And send his wife to church, his son to school. To worship like his fathers was his care; To teach their frugal virtues to his heir; To prove, that luxury could never hold; And place, on good security, his gold. Now times are chang'd, and one poetic itch Has sciz'd the court and city, poor and rich : Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays,

Our wives read Milton, and our daughters

plays;

To theatres and to rehearsals throng;
And all our grace at table is a song!
I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie;
Not -'s self e'er tells more fibs than I.
When, sick of muse, our follies we deplore,
And promise our best friends to rhyme no

more;

We wake next morning in a raging fit,
And call for pen and ink to shew our wit.

He serv'd a 'prenticeship who sets up shop; Ward tried on puppies, and the poor, his drop ; Even Radcliff's doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance.

Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? (Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile.)

But those who cannot write, and those who

can,

All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble to a man.