Damns all your thoughts as low and little,
Sit still, and swallow down your spittle:
Be silent as a politician,
For talking may beget suspicion;
Or praise the judgment of the Town,
And help yourself to run it down ;—
And critics have no partial views,
The vilest dogg'rel Grubstreet sends
Will pass for your's with foes and friends,
And you must bear the whole disgrace,
Till some fresh blockhead takes your place.
Your secret kept, your poem sunk,
And sent in quires to line a trunk,
If still you be dispos'd to rhyme,
Go try your hand a second time.
Again you fail; yet Safe's the word;
courage, and attempt a third : But first with care employ your thoughts Where critics mark'd your former faults;
The trivial turns, the borrow'd wit,
The similies that nothing fit;
The cant which ev'ry fool repeats,
Town-jests, and coffeehouse conceits;
Descriptions tedious, flat, and dry,
And introduc'd the Lord knows why;
Or where we find your fury set
Against the harmless alphabet;
A p-m-t or den of thieves;
A pickpurse at the bar or bench,
A duchess or a suburb-wench;
"An House of Prs, a gaming crew,
"A griping - or a Jew."
Or oft', when epithets you link
In gaping lines to fill a chink,
Like stepping-stones to save a stride
In streets where kennels are too wide;
Or like a heel-piece to support
A cripple with one foot too short;
Or like a bridge that joins a marish
To moorlands of a diff'rent parish.
So have I seen ill-coupled hounds
Drag diff'rent ways in miry grounds;
So geographers in Afric maps
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
But tho' you miss your third essay,
You need not throw your pen away.
Lay now aside all thoughts of fame,
To spring more profitable game.
From party-merit seek support;
The vilest verse thrives best at court:
And may you ever have the luck
To rhyme almost as ill as Duck;
And tho' you never learn'd to scan verse,
Come out with some lampoon on D'Anvers.
A pamphlet in Sir Bob's defence
Will never fail to bring in pence:
Nor be concern'd about the sale,
He pays his workmen on the nail.
Display the blessings of the nation,
And praise the whole administration:
Extol the bench of B-ps round;
Who at them rail, bid
What tho' they don't believe in
Deny them Protestants-thou liest.
A prince, the moment he is crown'd,
Inherits ev'ry virtue round,
As emblems of the sov'reign pow'r,
Like other baubles in the Tow'r;
Is gen'rous, valiant, just, and wise,
And so continues till he dies :
His humble Senate this professes
In all their speeches, votes, addresses;
But once you fix him in a tomb,
His virtues fade, his vices bloom,
And each perfection, wrong imputed,
Is fully at his death confuted.
The loads of poems in his praise,
Ascending, make one funeral blaze;
His panegyrics then are ceast;
He grows a tyrant, dunce, or beast:
As soon as you can hear his knell,
This god on earth turns d-l in hell:
And, lo! his ministers of state,
Transform'd to imps, his levee wait,
Where, in the scenes of endless woe,
They ply their former arts below;
And as they sail in Charon's boat,
Contrive to bribe the judge's vote.
To Cerberus they give a sop,
His triple barking mouth to stop;
Or in the iv'ry gate of dreams *
Project Excise and South-Sea schemes;
Or hire their party-pamphleteers
To set Elysium by the ears.
Then, Poet! if you mean to thrive, Employ your Muse on kings alive, With prudence gath'ring up a cluster Of all the virtues you can muster,
*Sunt geminæ somni portæ, &c.
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephante. Virg.
Which form'd into a garland sweet,
Lay humbly at your monarch's feet,
Who, as the odours reach his throne,
Will smile, and think them all his own;
For law and gospel doth determine
All virtues lodge in royal ermine;
(I mean the oracles of both,
Who shall depose it upon oath.)
Your garland in the following reign,
Change but the names, will do again.
But if you think this trade too base,
(Which seldom is the dunce's case)
Put on the critic's brow, and sit
At Will's the puny judge of wit.
A nod, a shrug, a scornful smile,
With caution us'd, may serve a while:
Proceed no farther in your part
Before you learn the terms of art,
For you can never be too far gone
In all our modern critics' jargon :
Then talk with more authentic face
Of unities in time and place;
Get scraps of Horace from your friends,
And have them at your fingers' ends;
Learn Aristotle's Rules by rote,
And at all hazards boldly quote;
Judicious Rymer oft' review,
Wise Dennis, and profound Bossu :
Read all the prefaces of Dryden,
For these our critics much confide in,
|