At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And flimsy jest applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute, thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays:
And gives the sign where he expects their praise.
Why have I learn'd, say'st thou, if, thus con
I choke the noble vigour of my mind?
[fin'd,
Know, the wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head.
Fine fruits of learning! old ambitious fool,
Dar'st thou apply that adage of the school:
As if 'tis nothing worth that lies conceal'd,
And science is not science till reveal'd?
Oh, but 'tis brave to be admir'd, to see
The crowd, with pointing fingers, cry, That's he:
That's he whose wondrous poem is become
A lecture for the noble youth of Rome!
Who, by their fathers, is at feasts renown'd;
And often quoted when the bowls go round.
Full gorg'd and flush'd, they wantonly rehearse;
And add to wine the luxury of verse.
One, clad in purple, not to lose his time,
Eats, and recites some lamentable rhyme:
Some senseless Phillis, in a broken note,
Snuffling at nose, and croaking in his throat:
Then graciously the mellow audience nod:
Is not th' immortal author made a God?
Are not his manes blest, such praise to have?
Lies not the turf more lightly on his grave?
And roses (while his loud applause they sing)
Stand ready from his sepulchre to spring?
All these, you cry, but light objections are;
Meer malice, and you drive the jest too far.
For does there breathe a man, who can reject
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
In cedar tablets worthy to appear,
That need not fish, or frankincense, to fear?
Thou, whom I make the adverse part, to bear, Be answer'd thus: If I by chance succeed In what I write, (and that's a chance indeed) Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard, Not to feel praise, or fame's deserv'd reward: But this I cannot grant, that thy applause Is my work's ultimate, or only cause. Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize: For mark what vanity within it lies. Like Labeo's Iliads, in whose verse is found Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound: Such little elegies as nobles write, Who would be poets, in Apollo's spight. Them and their woeful works the Muse defies. Products of citron-beds, and golden canopics. To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart To make a supper, with a fine dessert; [part. And to thy thread-bare friend, a cast old suit im
Thus brib'd, thou thus bespeak'st him, Tell me friend,
(For I love truth, nor can plain truth offend,)
What says the world of me and of my Muse?
The poor dare nothing tell but flattering news:
But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched rhyme;
And all thy labours are but loss of time.
Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high;
Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry.
All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus like, a face behind,
To see the people, what splay-mouths they make;
To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back:
Their tongues loll'd out, a foot beyond the pitch,
When most a-thirst, of an Apulian bitch:
But noble scribblers are with flattery fed;
For none dare find their faults, who eat their bread.
To pass the poets of patrician blood,
What is 't the common reader takes for good?
The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow,
Soft without sense, and without spirit slow:
So smooth and equal, that no sight can find
The rivet, where the polish'd piece was join'd.
So even all, with such a steady view,
As if he shut one eye to level true.
Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings,
The people's riots, or the rage of kings,
The gentle poet is alike in all;
His reader hopes to rise, and fears no fall. Friend. Hourly we see, some raw pin-feather'd thing
Attempts to mount, and fights and heroes sing;
Who, for false quantities, was whipt at school
But t' other day, and breaking grammar-rule,
Whose trivial art was never try'd above
The brave description of a native grove ;
Who knows not how to praise the country store,
The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar;
Nor paint the flowery fields that paint themselves
before.
Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born,
Whose shining plough-share was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife returning home,
And rustically joy'd, as chief of Rome :
She wip'd the sweat from the dictator's brow;
And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw;
The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant (
plough.
Some love to hear the fustian poet roar ;
And some on antiquated authors pore:
Rummage for sense; and think those only good
Who labour most, and least are understood.
When thou shalt see the blear-ey'd fathers teach
Their sons, this harsh and mouldy sort of speech;
Or others, new affected ways to try,
Of wanton smoothness, female poetry;
One would enquire from whence this motly stile
Did first our Roman purity defile:
For our old dotards cannot keep their seat;
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.
Others, by foolish ostentation led,
When call'd before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes, instead of solid sense:
And mind their figures more than their defence.
Are pleas'd to hear their thick-skull'd judges cry,
Well mov❜d, oh finely said, and decently:
Theft (says th' accuser) to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius: what does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times,
With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes;
'He robb'd not, but he borrow'd from the poor;
And took but with intention to restore.'
He lards with flourishes his long harangue;
'Tis fine, say'st thou; what, to be prais'd, and hang?
Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a ship-wreck'd sailor sing his woe,
Would'st thou be mov'd to pity, or bestow
An alms? What's more preposterous than to see
A merry beggar? Mirth in misery!
Persius. He seems a trap, for charity to lay: And cons, by night, his lessons for the day.
Friend. But to raw numbers, and unfinish'd verse, Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse: 'Tis tagg'd with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys, The mid-part chimes with art, which never flatis, 'The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave, ⚫ Or he who in his line, can chine the long-ribb'd Persius. All this is doggrel stuff. [Appennine.' Friend. What if I brin A nobler verse? · Arms and the man I sing.'
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