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.

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Now times are chang'd, and one Poetic Itch
Has seiz'd the Court and City, poor and rich:
Sons, Sires, and Grandsires, all will wear the bays,

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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,

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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 show our Wit.

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He serv'd a 'Prenticeship, who sets up shop;
Ward try'd on Puppies, and the Poor, his Drop1;
Ev'n 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 Ripley3 venture, all the world would smile)
But those who cannot write, and those who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
Yet, Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great;
These Madmen never hurt the Church or State:
Sometimes the Folly benefits Mankind;
And rarely Av'rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a Pen,
He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men:
Flight of Cashiers, or Mobs, he'll never mind;
And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.
To cheat a Friend, or Ward, he leaves to Peter5;

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The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,
Enjoys his Garden and his book in quiet;
And then-a perfect Hermit in his diet.

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Of little use the Man you may suppose,
Who says in verse what others say in prose;
Yet let me show, a Poet's of some weight,
And (tho' no Soldier) useful to the State".

1 Ward.] A famous Empiric, whose Pill and Drop had several surprizing effects, and were one of the principal subjects of writing and conversation at this time. P.

2 Ev'n Radcliff's Doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance.] By no means an insinuation as if these travelling Doctors had misspent their time. Radcliff had sent them on a medicinal mission, to examine the produce of each Country, and see in what it might be made subservient to the art

of healing. The native commodity of France is DANCING. SCRIBL.

3 [Cf. Pope's note to Moral Essays, Ep. iv. v. 18.] 4 [Bowles cites Coxe's Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole for an account of the flight of Knight, the cashier of the South Sea Company.]

5 [Conjectured by Bowles to refer to the cheating of Mr George Pitt, in the management of his estates, by Peter Walter.]

6 And (tho' no Soldier)] Horace had not

What will a Child learn sooner than a Song?
What better teach a Foreigner the tongue?
What's long or short, each accent where to place,
And speak in public with some sort of grace?

I scarce can think him such a worthless thing,
Unless he praise some Monster of a King;
Or Virtue, or Religion turn to sport,
To please a lewd or unbelieving Court.
Unhappy Dryden!-In all Charles's days,
Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays1;
And in our own (excuse some Courtly stains2)
No whiter page than Addison remains.
He, from the taste obscene reclaims our youth,
And sets the Passions on the side of Truth,
Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art,
And pours each human Virtue in the heart.
Let Ireland tell, how Wit upheld her cause,
Her Trade supported, and supplied her Laws;
And leave on SWIFT this grateful verse engrav'd:
'The Rights a Court attack'd, a Poet sav'd3.'
Behold the hand that wrought a Nation's cure,
Stretch'd to relieve the Idiot and the Poor 4,
Proud Vice to brand, or injur'd Worth adorn,
And stretch the Ray to Ages yet unborn.
Not but there are, who merit other palms;

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Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with Psalms5:

The Boys and Girls whom charity maintains,
Implore your help in these pathetic strains:
How could Devotion touch the country pews,
Unless the Gods bestow'd a proper Muse?

Verse cheers their leisure, Verse assists their work,

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acquitted himself much to his credit in this capacity (non bene relicta parmula) in the battle of Philippi. It is manifest he alludes to himself, in this whole account of a Poet's character; but with an intermixture of irony: Vivit siliquis et pane secundo has a relation to his Epicurism; Os tenerum pueri, is ridicule: The nobler office of a Poet follows, Torquet ab obscænis-Mox etiam pectus Recte facta refert, etc. which the Imitator has apply'd where he thinks it more due than to himself. He hopes to be pardon'd, if, as he is sincerely inclined to praise what deserves to be praised, he arraigns what deserves to be arraigned, in the 210, 211, and 212th

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1720; the Drapier's Letters (written to oppose the patent of coining copper halfpence to be current in Ireland, granted to William Wood through the influence of the Duchess of Kendal, favourite of George I.) appeared in 1723. Swift thus writes to Pope (May 31st, 1737), after reading the above tribute: Your admirers here, I mean every man of taste, affect to be certain that the profession of friendship to me will not suffer you to be thought a flatterer. My happiness is that you are too far engaged, and in spite of you the ages to come will celebrate me, and know you were a friend who loved and esteemed me, although I died the object of Court and Party hatred.']'

4 the Idiot and the Poor.] A foundation for the maintenance of Idiots, and a Fund for assisting the Poor, by lending small sums of money on demand. P.

5 [The time-honoured version of the Psalms by Thomas Sternhold, a courtier of King Edward VI., and John Hopkins, a Suffolk schoolmaster, in which they were assisted by others, was first published as a complete collection in 1562. The germ of this amusing passage will be found in Pope's letter to Swift of Oct. 15, 1725.]

Verse prays for Peace, or sings down Pope and Turk.
The silenc'd Preacher yields to potent strain,

And feels that grace his pray'r besought in vain;
The blessing thrills thro' all the lab'ring throng,
And Heav'n is won by Violence of Song,

Our rural Ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain:
The joy their wives, their sons, and servants share,
Ease of their toil, and part'ners of their care:
The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bowl,
Smooth'd ev'ry brow, and open'd_ev'ry soul:
With growing years the pleasing Licence grew,
And Taunts alternate innocently flew.
But Times corrupt, and Nature, ill-inclin'd,
Produc'd the point that left a sting behind;
Till friend with friend, and families at strife,
Triumphant Malice rag'd thro' private life.

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Who felt the wrong, or fear'd it, took th' alarm,
Appeal'd to Law, and Justice lent her arm.

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At length, by wholesome dread of statutes bound1,
The Poets learn'd to please, and not to wound:
Most warp'd to Flatt'ry's side; but some, more nice,
Preserv'd the freedom, and forbore the vice.
Hence Satire rose, that just the medium hit,
And heals with Morals what it hurts with Wit.

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We conquer'd France, but felt our Captive's charms;
Her Arts victorious triumph'd o'er our Arms;
Britain to soft refinements less a foe,

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Wit grew polite, and Numbers learn'd to flow.
Waller was smooth2; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic March, and Energy divine3.
Tho' still some traces of our rustic vein
And splay-foot verse, remain'd, and will remain.
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tir'd Nation breath'd from civil war.
Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire,
Show'd us that France had something to admire.
Not but the Tragic spirit was our own,
And full in Shakespear, fair in Otway shone1:

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[There is no direct historical allusion in this; the law of libel was still very indefinite even in Pope's times.]

2 Waller was smooth;] Mr. Waller, about this time with the Earl of Dorset, Mr. Godolphin, and others, translated the Pompey of Corneille; and the more correct French Poets began to be in reputation. P.

3 [Cf. Essay on Criticism, vv. 358—384.]

4 [Racine, the younger of the two great French tragedians, was more frequently translated by

the English dramatists of the Restoration than Corneille; although Hallam is doubtless right in agreeing with Sir Walter Scott that the unnatural dialogue which prevailed in the English.tragedies of that age was derived from baser models than these, viz. the French romances referred to ante, v. 145. The pathetic Otway (1651-1685) was indeed among the translators and adapters of Racine; but his Venice Preserved and Orphan, on which his fame rests, were, as dramatic pieces, original.]

But Otway fail'd to polish or refine,
And fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line1.
Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot 2,
The last and greatest Art, the Art to blot.
Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire
The humbler Muse of Comedy require.
But in known Images of life, I guess
The labour greater, as th' indulgence less.
Observe how seldom ev'n the best succeed:
Tell me if Congreve's Fools are Fools indeed3?
What pert, low Dialogue has Farquhar writ1!
How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit5!
The stage how loosely does Astræa tread ",
Who fairly puts all Characters to bed!
And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,
To make poor Pinky eat with vast applause?!
But fill their purse, our Poet's work is done,
Alike to them, by Pathos or by Pun.

O you! whom Vanity's light bark conveys
On Fame's mad voyage by the wind, of praise,
With what a shifting gale your course you ply,
For ever sunk too low, or borne too high!
Who pants for glory finds but short repose,
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.
Farewell the stage! if just as thrives the play,
The silly bard grows fat, or falls away.

There still remains, to mortify a Wit,
The many-headed Monster of the Pit:
A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd;
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clatt'ring their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the Farce, the Bear, or the Black-joke.
What dear delight to Britons Farce affords!
Ever the taste of Mobs, but now of Lords;
(Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies

' [I remember the players often mentioned it as an honour to S., that in his writings, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, 'Would he had blotted out a thousand.' Ben Jonson's Discoveries.]

2 Ev'n copious Dryden] copious aggravated the fault. For when a writer has great stores, he is inexcusable not to discharge the easy task of choosing from the best. Warburton.

3 [Another fault which often may befal, Is, when the wit of some great poet shall So overflow, that is, be none at all

That ev'n his fools speak sense, as if possessed, And each by inspiration breaks his jest.' Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, Essay on Poetry.]

4 [George Farquhar (1678—1707), the author of Sir Harry Wildair and the Beaux' Stratagem.]

[John Vanbrugh (1672-1726), author of the Relapse, and architect of Blenheim. His come

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dies, though offensive on the ground mentioned by Pope, are perhaps healthier in feeling than those of any of his contemporaries.]

P.

6 Astræa] A Name taken by Mrs. Behn, Authoress of several obscene Plays, etc. [Mrs Aphra Behn owed her popularity not only to her sins, but to a wonderful knack of contriving ingenious stage-situations which must arouse the envy of modern sensational playwrights. Astræa is the title of a French romance by Honoré d'Urfé, published in 1610.]

7 [Poor Pinky is the popular low comedian, William Pinkethman, of whose face some writers, according to Cibber, made a livelihood; and concerning whom the Tatler informs posterity,' among other things, that 'he devours a cold chicken with great applause' (in the character of Harlequin). See Geneste's History of the Stage, 111. pp. 136-9.]

8 [i. e. the black-pudding.]

From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes1.)
The Play stands still; damn action and discourse,
Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse;
Pageants on Pageants, in long order drawn,
Peers, Heralds, Bishops, Ermine, Gold and Lawn;
The Champion too! and, to complete the jest,
Old Edward's Armour beams on Cibber's breast 2.
With laughter sure Democritus had died,
Had he beheld an Audience gape so wide.
Let Bear or Elephant be e'er so white,
The people, sure, the people are the sight!
Ah luckless Poet! stretch thy lungs and roar,
That Bear or Elephant shall heed thee more;
While all its throats the Gallery extends,
And all the Thunder of the Pit ascends!
Loud as the Wolves, on Orcas' stormy steep3,
Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep.
Such is the shout, the long-applauding note,
At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;
Or when from Court a birth-day suit bestow'd,
Sinks the lost Actor in the tawdry load.
Booth enters-hark! the Universal peal!

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"But has he spoken?" Not a syllable.

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What shook the stage, and made the People stare?

Cato's long Wig, flow'r'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.

Yet lest you think I rally more than teach,

Or praise malignly Arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once presume t'instruct the times,
To know the Poet from the Man of rhymes:
'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each Passion that he feigns;
Enrage, compose, with more than magic Art,
With Pity, and with Terror, tear my heart;
And snatch me, o'er the earth, or thro' the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.
But not this part of the Poetic state

Alone, deserves the favour of the Great;
Think of those Authors, Sir, who would rely

More on a Reader's sense, than Gazer's eye.
Or who shall wander where the Muses sing?

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Who climb their mountain, or who taste their spring?

1 From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.] From Plays to Operas, and from Operas to Pantomimes. Warburton. [Pantomimes were brought into the full blaze of public favour by Rich, manager of Covent Garden, in 1723; and Cibber, at Drury Lane, was obliged to produce the same kind of entertainment in self-defence.]

2 Old Edward's Armour beams on Cibber's breast.] The Coronation of Henry VIII. and Queen Anne Boleyn, in which the Playhouses vied with each other to represent all the pomp of a Coronation. In this noble contention, the Armour of one of the Kings of England was bor