Or, with a fair complexion, to expose

Black eyes, black ringlets, but—a bottle nose!

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length, Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear. But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice, Await the poet, skilful in his choice; With native eloquence he soars along, Grace in his thoughts, and music in his song.

Let judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line:
This shall the author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select ;
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not if 'tis needful to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As Pitts has furnish'd us a word or two,
Which lexicographers declined to do ;)
So you indeed, with care,-(but be content
To take this license rarely)—may invent.
New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase.
What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,

As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs,
Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues ;
'Tis then-and shall be-lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in parliament.

As forests shed their foliage by degrees, So fade expressions which in season please; And we and ours, alas! are due to fate, And works and words but dwindle to a date. Though as a monarch nods, and commerce calls, Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;

Though swamps subdued, and marshes drain'd, sustain

The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,
And rising ports along the busy shore
Protect the vessel from old Ocean's roar,
All, all, must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive;
Though those shall sink, which now appear to
thrive,

9

As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey.

The immortal wars which gods and angels wage,

Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page? His strain will teach what numbers best belong To themes celestial told in epic song.

The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint The lover's anguish, or the friend's complaint. But which deserves the laurel-rhyme or blank? Which holds on Helicon the higher rank? Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. You doubt-see Dryden, Pope, St Patrick's dean.1 10

Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song hero rants in modern plays; Whilst modest Comedy her verse foregoes For jest and pun 11 in very middling prose. Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse, Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse. But so Thalia pleases to appear,

Poor virgin! damn'd some twenty times a year! Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight:

Adapt your language to your hero's state.
At times Melpomene forgets to groan,
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone;
Nor unregarded will the act pass by

Where angry Townly 12 lifts his voice on high.
Again our Shakspeare limits verse to kings,
When common prose will serve for common
things;

And lively Hal resigns heroic ire, To "hollowing Hotspur "13 and his sceptred

sire.

'Tis not enough, ye bards, with all your art, To polish poems; they must touch the heart: Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the song, Still let it bear the hearer's soul along;

Command your audience or to smile or weep, Whiche'er may please you-anything but sleep. The poet claims our tears; but, by his leave, Before I shed them, let me see him grieve.

If banish'd Romeo feign'd nor sigh nor tear, Lull'd by his languor, I should sleep or sneer.

Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face,
And men look angry in the proper place.
At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly,
And sentiment prescribes a pensive eye;
For nature form'd at first the inward man,
And actors copy nature-when they can.
She bids the beating heart with rapture bound,
Raised to the stars, or levell'd with the ground;
And for expression's aid, 'tis said, or sung,
She gave our mind's interpreter-the tongue,
Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense
(At least in theatres) with common sense;
O'erwhelm with sound the boxes, gallery, pit,
And raise a laugh with anything—but wit.

To skilful writers it will much import, Whence spring their scenes, from common life or court;

Whether they seek applause by smile or tear,
To draw a "Lying Valet," or a "Lear,"
A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school,
A wandering "Peregrine," or plain "John Bull;"
All persons please when nature's voice prevails,
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales.

Or follow common fame, or forge a plot Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not? One precept serves to regulate the scene:Make it appear as if it might have been.

If some Drawcansir14 you aspire to draw, Present him raving, and above all law : If female furies in your scheme are plann'd, Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your hand;

For tears and treachery, for good and evil,
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the
Devil!

But if a new design you dare essay,
And freely wander from the beaten way,
True to your characters, till all be past,
Preserve consistency from first to last.

'Tis hard to venture where our betters fail, Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale; And yet, perchance, 'tis wiser to prefer A hackney'd plot, than choose a new, and err; Yet copy not too closely, but record, More justly, thought for thought than word for word;

Nor trace your prototype through narrow ways, But only follow where he merits praise.

For you, young bard! whom luckless fate may lead

To tremble on the nod of all who read,

Ere your first score of cantos time unrolls,
Beware for God's sake, don't begin like
Bowles ! 15

"Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”-
And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?—
He sinks to Southey's level in a trice,
Whose epic mountains never fail in mice!
Not so of yore awoke your mighty sire
The temper'd warblings of his master-lyre;
Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute,
"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit "
He speaks, but, as his subject swells along,
Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with the song.17