And wonder with a foolish face of praise Who but must laugh if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he? What tho' my name stood rubric on the walls,

Or plaster'd posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad? I sought no homage from the race that write;

I kept, like Asian Monarchs, from their sight:

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Poems I heeded (now berhymed so long) No more than thou, great George! birthday song.

I ne'er with Wits or Witlings pass'd my days

To spread about the itch of verse and praise;
Nor like a puppy daggled thro' the town
To fetch and carry sing-song up and down;
Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and
cried,

With handkerchief and orange at my side;
But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,
To Bufo left the whole Castalian state. 230
Proud as Apollo on his forked hill
Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by ev'ry quill:
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
His library (where busts of poets dead,
And a true Pindar stood without a head)
Receiv'd of Wits an undistinguish'd race,
Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a
place:

Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his seat,

And flatter'd ev'ry day, and some days

Oh let me live my own, and die so too
(To live and die is all I have to do)!
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,
And see what friends, and read what books
I please;

Above a Patron, tho' I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my Friend.
I was not born for courts or great affairs;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,
Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead.
Why am I ask'd what next shall see the
light?

270

Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to

write?

Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?

'I found him close with Swift'-'Indeed? no doubt

(Cries prating Balbus) something will come out.'

"T is all in vain, deny it as I will; 'No, such a genius never can lie still:' And then for mine obligingly mistakes 279 The first lampoon Sir Will or Bubo makes.

Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,

When ev'ry coxcomb knows me by my style?

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,

That tends to make one worthy man my foe,

Give Virtue scandal, Innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's
peace,

Insults fall'n Worth, or Beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame Slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out;
That fop whose pride affects a patron's

name,

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That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;

The distant threats of vengeance on his head,

The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed; 349 The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown, Th' imputed trash and dulness not his own; The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,

The libell'd person, and the pictured shape; Abuse on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread, A friend in exile, or a father dead;

The whisper, that, to greatness still too

Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the

past:

For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the

last!

A. But why insult the poor? affront the

great?

360 P. A knave's a knave to me in ev'ry state; Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail; A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire; If on a Pillory, or near a Throne, He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own. Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,

Sappho can tell you how this man was bit: This dreaded Satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:

371

Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his

age.

No courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie. Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,

No language but the language of the heart. By Nature honest, by Experience wise, 400 Healthy by Temp'rance and by Exercise; His life, tho' long, to sickness pass'd unknown,

His death was instant and without a groan. O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.

O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!

for the increase of an absolute Empire; but to make the poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a Free People, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.

This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a Patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate; Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsole fieri, &c.; the other, that this piece was only a general Discourse of Poetry; whereas it was an Apology for the Poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries; first, against the Taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the Court and Nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the Theatre; and, lastly, against the Emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the Government. He shows (by a view of the progress of Learning, and the change of Taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the Polite Arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their Morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the State; and concludes, that it was upon them the Emperor himself must depend for his Fame with posterity.

We may further learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his court to this great Prince, by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character.

TO AUGUSTUS

WHILE you, great Patron of Mankind!

sustain

The balanced world, and open all the main ; Your country, chief, in Arms abroad defend,

At home with Morals, Arts, and Laws amend ;

How shall the Muse, from such a monarch, steal

An hour, and not defraud the public weal? Edward and Henry, now the boast of

Fame,

And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,
After a life of gen'rous toils endured,
The Gaul subdued, or property secured, 10
Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd,
Or laws establish'd, and the world re-
form'd-

And each 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 every 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 tumbling thro' a hoop.

50

If time improve our Wit as well as Wine, Say at what age a poet grows divine ? Shall we, or shall we not, account him so Who died, perhaps, a 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?

And shall we deem him ancient, right, and sound,

All this may be; the People's voice is odd;
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
To Gammer Gurton if it give 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 obsolete,
And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman
feet;