Poets and women have an equal right
To hate the dull, who, dead to all delight,
SACRED MAJESTY THE QUEEN-MOTHER. Feel pain alone, and have no joy but spite.
ON THE DEATH OF MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE.
RESPITE, great queen, your just and hasty fears:
There's no infection lodges in our tears.
Though our unhappy air be arm'd with death,
Yet sighs have an untainted guiltless breath.
Oh! stay a while, and teach your equal skill
To understand, and to support our ill.
You that in mighty wrongs an age have spent,
And seem to have out-liv'd ev'n banishment;
Whom traitorous Mischief sought its earliest prey,
When to most sacred blood it made its way,
And did thereby its black design impart,
To take his head, that wounded first his heart:
You that, unmov'd, great Charles's ruin stood,
When three great nations sunk beneath the load;
Then a young daughter lost, yet balsam found
To stanch that new and freshly-bleeding wound;
And, after this, with fixt and steady eyes
Beheld your noble Gloucester's obsequies;
And then sustain'd the royal princess' fall:
You only can lament her funeral.
But you will hence remove, and leave behind
Our sad complaints lost in the empty wind;
Those winds that bid you stay, and loudly roar
Destruction, and drive back to the firm shore;
Shipwreck to safety, and the envy fly
Of sharing in this scene of tragedy:
While sickness, from whose rage you post away,
Relents, and only now contrives your stay;
The lately fatal and infectious ill
Courts the fair princess, and forgets to kill:
In vain on fevers curses we dispense,
And vent our passion's angry eloquence:
In vain we blast the ministers of Fate,
And the forlorn physicians imprecate;
Say they to Death new poisons add and fire,
Murder securely for reward and hire;
Art basilisks, that kill whome'er they see,
And truly write bills of mortality,
Who, lest the bleeding corpse should them betray,
First drain those vital speaking streams away.
And will you, by your flight, take part with these?
Become yourself a third and new disease?
If they have caus'd our loss, then so have you,
Who take yourself and the fair princess too:
For we, depriv'd, an equal damage have
When France doth ravish hence, as when the grave:
But that your choice th' unkindness doth improve,
And dereliction adds to your remove.
ROCHESTER, Of Wadham College.
SOME few, from wit, have this true maxim got,
"That 'tis still better to be pleas'd than not ;"
And therefore never their own torment plot.
While the malicious critics still agree
To loath each play they come and pay to see.
The first know 'tis a meaner part of sense
To find a fault, than taste an excellence :
Therefore they praise, and strive to like, while these
Are dully vain of being hard to please.
'Twas impotence did first this vice begin;
Fools censure wit, as old men rail at sin:
Who envy pleasure which they cannot taste,
And, good for nothing, would be wise at last.
Since therefore to the women it appears,
That all the enemies of wit are theirs,
Our poet the dull herd no longer fears.
Whate'er his fate may prove, 'twill be his pride
To stand or fall with beauty on his side.
TO THE TENTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.
WELL, sir, 't is granted; I said Dryden's rhymes
Were stolen, unequal, nay, dull, many times:
What foolish patron is there found of his,
So blindly partial to deny me this?
But that his plays, embroider'd up and down
With wit and learning, justly pleas'd the town,
In the same paper I as freely own.
Yet, having this allow'd, the heavy mass
That stuffs up his loose volumes, must not pass;
For by that rule I might as well admit
Crown's tedious scenes for poetry and wit.
"Tis therefore not enough, when your false sense
Hits the false judgment of an audience
Of clapping fools, assembling, a vast crowd,
Till the throng'd play-house crack'd with the dull
load;
Though ev'n that talent merits, in some sort,
That can divert the rabble and the court,
Which blundering Settle never could obtain,
And puzzling Otway labours at in vain :
But within due proportion circumscribe
Whate'er you write, that with a flowing tide
The style may rise, yet in its rise forbear
With useless words t' oppress the weary'd ear.
Here be your language lofty, there more light,
Your rhetoric with your poetry unite.
For elegance sake, sometimes allay the force
Of epithets, 'twill soften the discourse:
A jest in scorn points out and hits the thing
More home, than the remotest satire's sting.
Shakspeare and Jonson did in this excel,
And might herein be imitated well,
Whom refin'd Etherege copies not at all,
But is himself a sheer original.
Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindaric strains,
Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains,
And rides a jaded Muse, whipt, with loose reins.
When Lee makes temperate Scipio fret and rave,
And Hannibal a whining amorous slave,
I laugh, and wish the hot-brain'd fustian fool
In Busby's hands, to be well lash'd at school.
Of all our modern wits, none seem to me
Once to have touch'd upon true comedy,
But hasty Shadwell, and slow Wycherley.
Shadwell's unfinish'd works do yet impart
Great proofs of force of Nature, none of Art;
With just bold strokes he dashes here and there,
Showing great mastery with little care,
Scorning to varnish his good touches o'er,
To make the fools and women praise them more.
But Wycherley earns hard whate'er he gains,
He wants no judgment, and he spares no pains:
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He frequently excels, and, at the least,
Makes fewer faults, than any of the rest.
Waller, by Nature for the bays design'd,
With force and fire, and fancy unconfin'd,
In panegyric does excel mankind.
He best can turn, enforce, and soften things,
To praise great conquerors, and flatter kings.
For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,
The best good man, with the worst-natur'd Muse.
For songs and verses mannerly obscene,
That can stir Nature up by springs unseen,
And, without forcing blushes, warm the queen;
Sedley has that prevailing gentle art,
That can with a resistless power impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart,
Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Betwixt declining virtue and desire,
Till the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away,
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.
Dryden in vain try'd this nice way of wit;
For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit
To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob,
And thus he got the name of Poet Squab.
But, to be just, 't will to his praise be found,
His excellencies more than faults abound:
Nor dare I from his sacred temples tear
The laurel, which he best deserves to wear.
But does not Dryden find e'en Jonson dull?
Beaumont and Fletcher uncorrect, and full
Or when the poor-fed poets of the town
For scabs and coach-room cry my verses down?
I loath the rabble; 't is enough for me
If Sedley, Shadwell, Shephard, Wycherley,
Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
And some few more, whom I omit to name,
Approve my sense: I count their censure fame.
TO SIR CAR SCROPE'.
To rack and torture thy unmeaning brain,
In Satire's praise, to a low untun'd strain,
In thee was most impertinent and vain.
When in thy person we more clearly see
That satire's of divine authority,
For God made one on man when he made thee;
To show there were some men, as there are apes,
Fram'd for mere sport, who differ but in shapes:
In thee are all these contradictions join'd,
That make an ass prodigious and refin'd.
A lump deform'd and shapeless wert thou born,
Begot in Love's despight and Nature's scorn;
And art grown up the most ungrateful wight,
Harsh to the car, and hideous to the sight;
Yet Love 's thy business, Beauty thy delight.
Curse on that silly hour that first inspir'd
Thy madness, to pretend to be admir'd;
To paint thy grisly face, to dance, to dress,
Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakspeare's style And all those awkward follies that express
Stiff and affected? To his own the while
Allowing all the justice that his pride
So arrogantly had to these deny'd?
And may not I have leave impartially
To search and censure Dryden's works, and try
If those gross faults his choice pen doth commit
Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit?
Or if his lumpish fancy does refuse
Spirit and grace to his loose slattern Muse?
Five hundred verses every morning writ,
Prove him no more a poet than a wit;
Such scribbling authors have been seen before;
Mustapha, the Island Princess, forty more,
Were things perhaps compos'd in half an hour.
To write what may securely stand the test
Of being well read over thrice at least,
Compare each phrase, examine every line,
Weigh every word, and every thought refine;
Scorn all applause the vile rout can bestow,
And be content to please those few who know.
Canst thou be such a vain mistaken thing,
To wish thy works might make a play-house ring
With the unthinking laughter and poor praise
Of fops and ladies, factious for thy plays?
Then send a cunning friend to learn thy doom
From the shrewd judges in the drawing-room.
I've no ambition on that idle score,
But say with Betty Morice heretofore,
When a court lady call'd her Buckhurst's whore';
"I please one man of wit, am proud on 't too,
Let all the coxcombs dance to bed to you."
Should I be troubled when the purblind knight,
Who squints more in his judgment than his sight,
Picks silly faults, and censures what I write?
The same probably who is celebrated by lord Buckhurst (or Dorset) in his poems. See Gent. Mag. 1780, p. 218.
Thy loathsome love, and filthy daintiness.
Who needs wilt be an ugly beau-garçon,
Spit at, and shunn'd by every girl in town;
Where dreadfully Love's scarecrow thou art play'd,
To fright the tender flock that long to taste:
While every coming maid, when you appear,
Starts back for shame, and straight turns chaste
for fear;
For none so poor or prostitute bave prov'd,
Where you made love, endure to be belov'd.
"T were labour lost, or else I would advise;
But thy half wit will ne'er let thee be wise.
Half witty, and half mad, and scarce half brave,
Half honest (which is very much a knave)
Made up of all these halves, thou canst not pass
For any thing entirely, but an ass.
As charms are nonsense, nonsense seems a charm,
Which hearers of all judgment does disarm;
For songs and scenes a double audience bring,
And doggrel takes, which smiths in satin sing.
Now to machines and a dull mask you run;
We find that Wit 's the monster you would shun,
And by my troth 'tis most discreetly done.
For since with vice and folly Wit is fed,
Through mercy 'tis most of you are not dead.
Players furn puppets now at your desire,
In their mouth 's nonsense, in their tail 's a wire,
They fly through crowds of clouts and showers of
fire.
Sir Car Scrope, who thought himself reflected on at the latter end of the preceding poem, published a poem, In Defence of Satire, which occasioned this reply.
EPILOGUE...ELEGY ON THE EARL OF ROCHESTER.
A kind of losing Loadum is their game,
Where the worst writer has the greatest fame.
To get vile plays like theirs shall be our care;
But of such awkward actors we despair.
False taught at first-
Like boxls ill-biass'd, still the more they run,
They're further off than when they first begun.
In comedy their unweigh'd action mark,
There's one is such a dear familiar spark,
He yawns, as if he were but half awake,
And fribbling for free-speaking does mistake;
False accent and neglectful action too:
They have both so nigh good, yet neither true,
That both together, like an ape's mock-face,
By near resembling man, do man disgrace.
Thorough-pac'd ill actors may, perhaps, be cur'd;
Half players, like half wits, can't be endur'd.
Yet these are they, who durst expose the age
Of the great wonder of the English stage;
Whom Nature seem'd to form for your delight,
And bid him speak, as she bid Shakspeare write.
Those blades indeed are cripples in their art,
Mimic his foot, but not his speaking part.
Let them the Traitor or Volpone try,
Could they
Rage like Cethegus, or like Cassius die,
They ne'er had sent to Paris for such fancies,
As monsters heads and Merry-Andrew's dances.
Wither'd, perhaps, not perish'd, we appear;
But they are blighted, and ne'er came to bear.
Th' old poets dress'd your mistress Wit before;
These draw you on with an old painted whore,
And sell, like bawds, patch'd plays for maids twice
Yet they may scorn our house and actors too,
Since they have swell'd so high to hector you.
They cry, "Pox o' these Covent-Garden men,
Damn them, not one of them but keeps out ten.
Where they once gone, we for those thundering
blades
Should have an audience of substantial trades,
Who love our muzzled boys and tearing fellows,
My lord, great Neptune, and great nephew Æolus."
O how the merry citizen 's in love
Psyche, the goddess of each field and grove.
He cries, "I' faith, methinks 'tis well enough;"
But you roar out, and cry, ""Tis all damn'd stuff!"
So to their house the graver fops repair,
While men of wit find one another here.
SPOKEN AT THE COURT AT WHITEHALL, BEFORE KING
CHARLES II.
BY THE LADY ELIZABETH HOWARD.
Wir has of late took up a trick t' appear
Unmannerly, or at the best, severe :
And poets share the fate by which we fall,
When kindly we attempt to please you all.
'Tis hard your scorn should against such prevail,
Whose ends are to divert you, though they fail.
You men would think it an ill-natur'd jest,
Should we laugh at you when you do your best.
2 Major Mohun.
Then rail not here, though you see reason for 't;
If Wit can find itself no better sport,
Wit is a very foolish thing at court.
Wit's business is to please, and not to fright;
'Tis no wit to be always in the right;
You'll find it none, who dare be so to-night.
Few so ill-bred will venture to a play,
To spy out faults in what we women say.
For us, no matter what we speak, but how:
How kindly can we say I hate you now!
And for the men, if you 'll laugh at them, do;
They mind themselves so much, they 'll ne'er mind
But why do I descend to lose a prayer [you.
On those small saints in wit? the god sits there!
To you, great sir, my message hither tends,
From Youth and Beauty, your allies and friends;
See my credentials written in my face,
They challenge your protection in this place;
And hither come with such a force of charms,
As may give check ev'n to your prosperous arms.
Millions of Cupids hovering in the rear,
Like eagles following fatal troops, appear:
All waiting for the slaughter which draws nigh,
Of those bold gazers who this night must die.
Nor can you 'scape our soft captivity,
From which old age alone must set you free.
Then tremble at the fatal consequence, [prince,
Since 'tis well known, for your own part, great
'Gainst us you still have made a weak defence.
Be generous and wise, and take our part:
Remember we have eyes, and you a heart;
Else you may find, too late, that we are things
Born to kill vassals, and to conquer kings.
Bat oh, to what vain conquest I pretend!
While Love is our commander, and your friend.
Our victory your empire more assures,
For Love will ever make the triumph yours.
ELEGY ON THE EARL OF ROCHESTER.
BY MRS. WHARTON'.
DEEP waters silent roll; so grief like mine
Tears never can relieve, nor words define.
Stop then, stop your vain source, weak springs of
grief,
Let tears flow from their eyes whom tears relieve.
They from their heads show the light trouble there,
Could my heart weep, its sorrows 'twould declare:
When drops of blood, my Heart, thou'st lost; thy
pride,
The cause of all thy hopes and fears, thy guide!
He would have led thee right in Wisdom's way,
And 'twas thy fault whene'er thou went'st astray:
1 See in p. 71 and 80, Mr. Waller's verses on the elegy here printed; and verses also on Mrs. Wharton's Paraphrase on the Lord's Prayer. Waller's two cantos of Divine Poesy were " occasioned upon sight of the 53d chapter of Isaiah, turned into verse by Mrs. Wharton." Her Verses to Mr. Waller are mentioned by Ballard; and her translation of Penelope to Ulysses is printed in Tonson's edition of Ovid's Epistles. For further particulars of this lady, see Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, 1780, vol. i. p. 51. vol. ii. p. 319.
And since thou stray'dst when guided and led on,
Thou wilt be surely lost now left alone.
It is thy elegy I write, not his :
He lives immortal and in highest bliss,
But thou art dead, alas! my Heart, thou 'rt dead:
He lives, that lovely soul for ever fled,
But thou 'mongst crowds on Earth art buried.
Great was thy loss, which thou canst ne'er express,
Nor was th' insensible dull nation's less;
He civiliz'd the rude, and taught the young,
Made fools grow wise; such artful magic hung
Upon his useful, kind, instructing tongue.
His lively wit was of himself a part,
Not, as in other men, the work of Art;
For, though his learning like his wit was great,
Yet sure all learning came below his wit;
As God's immediate gifts are better far
Than those we borrow from our likeness here,
He was-but I want words, and ne'er can tell,
Yet this I know, he did mankind excel.
He was what no man ever was before,
Nor can indulgent Nature give us more,
For, to make him, she exhausted all her store.
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