No reason can disperse 'em with its light:
Learn then to think ere you pretend to write.
As your idea 's clear, or else obscure,
Th' expression follows perfect or impure:
What we conceive, with ease we can express;
Words to the notions flow with readiness.
Observe the language well in all you write,
And swerve not from it in your loftiest flight.
The smoothest verse and the exactest sense
Displease us, if ill English give offense:
A barb'rous phrase no reader can approve;
Nor bombast, noise, or affectation love.
In short, without pure language, what you write
Can never yield us profit or delight.
Take time for thinking; never work in haste;
And value not yourself for writing fast.
A rapid poem, with such fury writ,
Shews want of judgment, not abounding wit.
More pleas'd we are to see a river lead
His gentle streams along a flow'ry mead,
Than from high banks to hear loud torrents
With foamy waters on a muddy shore.
Gently make haste, of labor not afraid;
A hundred times consider what you 've said:
Polish, repolish, every color lay,
And sometimes add, but oft'ner take away.
'Tis not enough, when swarming faults are
writ,
That here and there are scatter'd sparks of wit:
Each object must be fix'd in the due place,
And diff'ring parts have corresponding grace;
Till by a curious art dispos'd, we find
One perfect whole, of all the pieces join'd.
Keep to your subject close in all you say,
Nor for a sounding sentence ever stray.
The public censure for your writings fear,
And to yourself be critic most severe.
Fantastic wits their darling follies love:
But find you faithful friends that will reprove,
That on your works may look with careful eyes,
And of your faults be zealous enemies.
Lay by an author's pride and vanity,
And from a friend a flatterer descry,
Who seems to like, but means not what he says:
Embrace true counsel, but suspect false praise.
A sycophant will everything admire:
Each verse, each sentence sets his soul on fire;
All is divine! there's not a word amiss!
He shakes with joy, and weeps with tenderness;
He overpow'rs you with his mighty praise.
Truth never moves in those impetuous ways:
A faithful friend is careful of your fame,
And freely will your heedless errors blame; 200
He cannot pardon a neglected line,
But verse to rule and order will confine;
Reproves of words the too affected sound:
Here the sense flags, and your expression's
Your fancy tires, and your discourse grows vain,
Your terms improper - make them just and
Thus, resolute not from a fault to fall,
If there's a syllable of which you doubt,
'Tis a sure reason not to blot it out.
Yet still he says you may his faults confute,
And over him your pow'r is absolute:
But of his feign'd humility take heed;
'Tis a bait laid to make you hear him read.
And when he leaves you, happy in his Muse,
Restless he runs some other to abuse,
And often finds; for in our scribbling times
No fool can want a sot to praise his rhymes:
The flattest work has ever in the court
Met with some zealous ass for its support;
And in all times a forward, scribbling fop
Has found some greater fool to cry him up. 230
As a fair nymph, when rising from her bed,
With sparkling diamonds dresses not her head,
But without gold, or pearl, or costly scents,
Gathers from neighb'ring fields her ornaments;
Such, lovely in its dress, but plain withal,
Ought to appear a perfect Pastoral.
Its humble method nothing has of fierce,
But hates the rattling of a lofty verse:
There native beauty pleases, and excites,
And never with harsh sounds the ear affrights.
But in this style a poet often spent,
In rage throws by his rural instrument,'
And vainly, when disorder'd thoughts abound,
Amidst the Eclogue makes the trumpet sound:
Pan flies, alarm'd, into the neighb'ring woods,
And frighted nymphs dive down into the floods.
Oppos'd to this, another, low in style,
Makes shepherds speak a language base and
vile:
His writings, flat and heavy, without sound,
Kissing the earth, and creeping on the ground;
You'd swear that Randal, in his rustic strains,
Again was quav'ring to the country swains, 282
And changing, without care of sound or dress,
Strephon and Phyllis into Tom and Bess.
'Twixt these extremes 'tis hard to keep the
right;
For guides take Virgil, and read Theocrite:
Be their just writings, by the gods inspir'd,
Your constant pattern, practic'd and admir'd.
By them alone you'll easily comprehend
How poets, without shame, may condescend 260
To sing of gardens, fields, of flow'rs, and fruit,
To stir up shepherds, and to tune the flute;
Of love's rewards to tell the happy hour,
Daphne a tree, Narcissus made a flow'r,
And by what means the Eclogue yet has pow'r
To make the woods worthy a conqueror:
This of their writings is the grace and flight;
Their risings lofty, yet not out of sight.
The Elegy, that loves a mournful style, With unbound hair weeps at a funeral pile; 270 It paints the lover's torments and delights; A mistress flatters, threatens, and invites: But well these raptures if you'll make us see, You must know love as well as poetry.
I hate those lukewarm authors, whose forc'd fire
In a cold style describes a hot desire;
That sigh by rule, and, raging in cold blood,
Their sluggish Muse whip to an amorous mood:
Their feign'd transports appear but flat and
vain;
They always sigh, and always hug their chain,
Adore their prison, and their suff'rings bless,
Make sense and reason quarrel as they please.
'T was not of old in this affected tone
That smooth Tibullus made his amorous moan;
Nor Ovid, when, instructed from above,
By nature's rules he taught the Art of Love.
The heart in Elegies forms the discourse.
The Ode is bolder, and has greater force; Mounting to heav'n in her ambitious flight, Amongst the gods and heroes takes delight; 290 Of Pisa's wrestlers tells the sinewy force, And sings the dusty conqueror's glorious
To Simois' streams does fierce Achilles bring,
And makes the Gauges bow to Britain's king.
Sometimes she flies, like an industrious bee,
And robs the flow'rs by nature's chymistry;
Describes the shepherds' dances, feasts, and
bliss,
And boasts from Phyllis to surprise a kiss,
When gently she resists with feign'd remorse,
That what she grants may seem to be by force:
Her generous style at random oft will part, 201
And by a brave disorder shows her art:
Unlike those fearful poets, whose cold rhyme
In all their raptures keep exactest time,
That sing th' illustrious hero's mighty praise
(Lean writers!) by the terms of weeks and
days,
And dare not from least circumstances part,
But take all towns by strictest rules of art.
Apollo drives those fops from his abode;
And some have said, that once the humorous
Resolving all such scribblers to confound,
For the short Sonnet order'd this strict bound:
Set rules for the just measure, and the time,
The easy running, and alternate rhyme;
But, above all, those licenses denied
Which in these writings the lame sense sup
Forbade an useless line should find a place,
Or a repeated word appear with grace.
A faultless Sonnet, finish'd thus, would be
Worth tedious volumes of loose poetry.
A hundred scribbling authors, without ground,
Believe they have this only Phoenix found;
When yet th' exactest scarce have two or three,
Among whole tomes, from faults and censure
free.
The rest, but little read, regarded less,
Are shovel'd to the pastry from the press.
Closing the sense within the measur'd time,
'Tis hard to fit the reason to the rhyme.
The Epigram, with little art compos'd, Is one good sentence in a distich clos'd. These points, that by Italians first were priz'd, Our ancient authors knew not, or despis'd: The vulgar, dazzled with their glaring light, To their false pleasures quickly they invite; But public favor so increas'd their pride, They overwhelm'd Parnassus with their tide. The Madrigal at first was overcome, And the proud Sonnet fell by the same doom; With these grave Tragedy adorn'd her flights, And mournful Elegy her funeral rites: A hero never fail'd'em on the stage, Without his point a lover durst not rage; The amorous shepherds took more care to
True to their point, than faithful to their love.
Each word, like Janus, had a double face;
And prose, as well as verse, allow'd it place:
The lawyer with conceits adorn'd his speech,
The parson without quibbling could not preach.
At last affronted reason look'd about,
And from all serious matters shut 'em out; 350
Declar'd that none should use 'em without
Except a scattering in the Epigram;
Provided that by art, and in due time,
They turn'd upon the thought, and not the rhyme.
Thus in all parts disorders did abate;
Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate:
Insipid jesters, and unpleasant fools,
A corporation of dull punning drolls.
'Tis not, but that sometimes a dext'rous Muse
May with advantage a turn'd sense abuse,
And on a word may trifle with address;
But above all avoid the fond excess,
And think not, when your verse and sense are lame,
With a dull point to tag your Epigram.
Each poem his perfection has apart; The British Round in plainness shows his art. The Ballad, tho' the pride of ancient time, Has often nothing but his humorous rhyme; The Madrigal2 may softer passions move, And breathe the tender ecstasies of love: 370 Desire to show itself, and not to wrong, Arm'd Virtue first with Satire in its tongue.
2 An old way of writing, which began and ended with the
Lucilius was the man who, bravely bold, To Roman vices did this mirror hold, Protected humble goodness from reproach, Show'd worth on foot, and rascals in the coach. Horace his pleasing wit to this did add, And none uncensur'd could be fool, or mad: Unhappy was that wretch, whose name might be Squar'd to the rules of their sharp poetry. Persius, obscure, but full of sense and wit, Affected brevity in all he writ:
And Juvenal, learn'd as those times could be,
Too far did stretch his sharp hyperbole;
Tho' horrid truths thro' all his labors shine,
In what he writes there's something of divine,
Whether he blames the Caprean debauch,
Or of Sejanus' fall tells the approach,
Or that he makes the trembling senate come
To the stern tyrant to receive their doom;
Or Roman vice in coarsest habits shews,
And paints an empress reeking from the stews:
In all he writes appears a noble fire;
To follow such a master then desire.
Chaucer alone, fix'd on this solid base,
In his old style conserves a modern grace:
Too happy, if the freedom of his rhymes
Offended not the method of our times.
The Latin writers decency neglect;
But modern readers challenge our respect,
And at immodest writings take offense,
If clean expression cover not the sense.
I love sharp satire, from obsceneness free,
Not impudence that preaches modesty.
Our English, who in malice never fail,
Hence in lampoons and libels learnt to rail:
Pleasant detraction, that by singing goes
From mouth to mouth, and as it marches grows!
Our freedom in our poetry we see,
That child of joy, begot by liberty.
But, vain blasphemer, tremble when you choose
God for the subject of your impious Muse;
At last, those jests which libertines invent,
Bring the lewd author to just punishment.
Ev'n in a song there must be art and sense;
Yet sometimes we have seen that wine or
chance
Have warm'd cold brains, and given dull writers mettle,
And furnish'd out a scene for Mr. S.
But for one lucky hit that made thee please,
Let not thy folly grow to a disease,
Nor think thyself a wit; for in our age
If a warm fancy does some fop ingage,
He neither eats or sleeps till he has writ,
But plagues the world with his adulterate wit.
Nay, 't is a wonder, if in his dire rage
He prints not his dull follies for the stage;
And, in the front of all his senseless plays,
Makes David Logan' crown his head with bays.
THERE's not a monster bred beneath the sky, But, well-dispos'd by art, may please the eye; 430
A curious workman, by his skill divine,
From an ill object makes a good design.
Thus, to delight us, Tragedy, in tears
For Edipus, provokes our hopes and fears;
For parricide Orestes asks relief,
And, to encrease our pleasure, causes grief.
You then, that in this noble art would rise,
Come, and in lofty verse dispute the prize.
Would you upon the stage acquire renown,
And for your judges summon all the town? 440
Would you your works for ever should remain,
And after ages past be sought again?
In all you write observe with care and art
To move the passions and incline the heart.
If, in a labor'd act, the pleasing rage
Cannot our hopes and fears by turns ingage,
Nor in our mind a feeling pity raise,
In vain with learned scenes you fill your plays:
Your cold discourse can never move the mind
Of a stern critic, nat'rally unkind;
Who, justly tir'd with your pedantic flight,
Or falls asleep, or censures all you write.
The secret is, attention first to gain;
To move our minds, and then to entertain:
That, from the very op'ning of the scenes,
The first may show us what the author means.
I'm tir'd to see an actor on the stage
That knows not whether he's to laugh or rage;
Who, an intrigue unraveling in vain,
Instead of pleasing, keeps my mind in pain.
I'd rather much the nauseous dunce should say
Downright: "My name is Hector in the play;
Than with a mass of miracles, ill-join'd,
Confound my ears and not instruct my mind.
The subject's never soon enough express'd;
Your place of action must be fix'd, and rest.
A Spanish poet may, with good event,
In one day's space whole ages represent;
There oft the hero of a wand'ring stage
Begins a child, and ends the play of age:
But we,
that are by reason's rules confin'd,
Will that with art the poem be design'd,
That unity of action, time, and place,
Keep the stage full, and all our labors grace.
Write not what cannot be with ease conceiv'd;
Some truths may be too strong to be believ'd.
A foolish wonder cannot entertain:
My mind 's not mov'd, if your discourse be vain.
You may relate what would offend the eye:
Seeing, indeed, would better satisfy;
But there are objects that a curious art
Hides from the eyes, yet offers to the heart.
The mind is most agreeably surpris'd,
When a well-woven subject, long disguis'd,
You on a sudden artfully unfold,
And give the whole another face and mold.
At first the Tragedy was void of art;
A song, where each man danc'd and sung his
And with his carted actors, and a song,
Amus'd the people as he pass'd along.
Next Eschylus the diff'rent persons plac'd,
And with a better mask his players grac'd;
Upon a theater his verse express'd,
And show'd his hero with buskin dress'd. 500
Then Sophocles, the genius of his age,
Increas'd the pomp and beauty of the stage,
Ingag'd the chorus song in every part,
And polish'd rugged verse by rules of art:
He in the Greek did those perfections gain,
Which the weak Latin never could attain.
Our pious fathers, in their priest-rid age, As impious and profane abhorr'd the stage; A troop of silly pilgrims, as 't is said, Foolishly zealous, scandalously play'd (Instead of heroes, and of love's complaints) The angels, God, the Virgin, and the saints. At last, right Reason did his laws reveal, And show'd the folly of their ill-plac'd zeal, Silenc'd those nonconformists of the age, And rais'd the lawful heroes of the stage: Only th' Athenian mask was laid aside, And chorus by the music was supplied. Ingenious love, inventive in new arts, Mingled in plays, and quickly touch'd our hearts:
This passion never could resistance find,
But knows the shortest passage to the mind.
Paint then, I'm pleas'd my hero be in love;
But let him not like a tame shepherd move;
Let not Achilles be like Thyrsis seen,
Or for a Cyrus show an Artamène;1
That, struggling oft, his passions we may find;
The frailty, not the virtue of his mind.
Of romance heroes shun the low design;
Yet to great hearts some human frailties join: 530
Achilles must with Homer's heat ingage;
For an affront I'm pleas'd to see him rage.
Those little failings in your hero's heart
Show that of man and nature he has part.
To leave known rules you cannot be allow'd:
Make Agamemnon covetous and proud,
Eneas in religious rites austere ;
Keep to each man his proper character.
Of countries and of times the humors know;
From diff'rent climates diff'ring customs grow:
And strive to shun their fault, who vainly dress
An antique hero like some modern ass;
Who make old Romans like our English move,
Show Cato sparkish, or make Brutus love.
In a romance those errors are excus'd;
There 't is enough that, reading, we 're amus'd:
Rules too severe would then be useless found;
But the strict scene must have a juster bound:
Exact decorum we must always find.
If then you form some hero in your mind, 850
Be sure your image with itself agree;
For what he first appears, he still must be.
Affected wits will nat'rally incline
To paint their figures by their own design:
Your bully poets, bully heroes write;
Chapman in Bussy d'Ambois took delight,
And thought perfection was to huff and fight.
Wise nature by variety does please:
Clothe diff'ring passions in a diff'ring dress;
1 Artamène, the name of Cyrus in Scudéry's romance.
Bold anger in rough haughty words appears;
Sorrow is humble, and dissolves in tears.
Make not your Hecuba2 with fury rage,
And show a ranting grief upon the stage;
Or tell in vain how the rough Tanais bore
His sevenfold waters to the Euxine shore:
These swoln expressions, this affected noise,
Shows like some pedant that declaims to boys.
In sorrow, you must softer methods keep;
And, to excite our tears, yourself must weep.
Those noisy words with which ill plays abound
Come not from hearts that are in sadness
drown'd.
The theater for a young poet's rhymes Is a bold venture in our knowing times; An author cannot eas'ly purchase fame; Critics are always apt to hiss and blame: You may be judg'd by every ass in town; The privilege is bought for half a crown. To please, you must a hundred changes try; Sometimes be humble, then must soar on high: In noble thoughts must everywhere abound, 580 Be easy, pleasant, solid, and profound: To these you must surprising touches join, And show us a new wonder in each line; That all, in a just method well-design'd, May leave a strong impression in the mind. These are the arts that Tragedy maintain.
But the Heroid claims a loftier strain. In the narration of some great design, Invention, art, and fable, all must join: Here fiction must employ its utmost grace; 590 All must assume a body, mind, and face: Each virtue a divinity is seen;
Prudence is Pallas; beauty, Paphos' Queen. 'Tis not a cloud from whence swift lightnings
But Jupiter, that thunders from the sky;
Nor a rough storm that gives the sailor pain,
But angry Neptune, plowing up the main;
Echo 's no more an empty airy sound,
But a fair nymph that weeps her lover drown'd.
Thus in the endless treasure of his mind
The poet does a thousand figures find;
Around the work his ornaments he pours,
And strows with lavish hand his op'ning flow'rs.
'Tis not a wonder if a tempest bore
The Trojan fleet against the Libyan shore;
From faithless Fortune this is no surprise,
For every day 't is common to our eyes.
But angry Juno, that she might destroy
And overwhelm the rest of ruin'd Troy;
That Eolus, with the fierce goddess join'd, 1
Open'd the hollow prisons of the wind,
Till angry Neptune, looking o'er the main,
Rebukes the tempest, calms the waves again,
Their vessels from the dang 'rous quicksands
In vain have our mistaken authors tried
These ancient ornaments to lay aside,
Thinking our God, and prophets that he sent,
Might act like those the poets did invent,
To fright poor readers in each line with hell,
And talk of Satan, Ashtaroth, and Bel.
The mysteries which Christians must believe
Disdain such shifting pageants to receive:
The gospel offers nothing to our thoughts
But penitence, or punishment for faults;
And mingling falsehoods with those mysteries
Would make our sacred truths
like lies.
Besides, what pleasure can it be to hear
The howlings of repining Lucifer,
Whose rage at your imagin'd hero flies,
And oft with God himself disputes the prize?
Tasso, you'll say, has done it with applause:
It is not here I mean to judge his cause;
Yet, tho' our age has so extoll'd his name,
His works had never gain'd immortal fame,
If holy Godfrey in his ecstasies
Had only conquer'd Satan on his knees;
If Tancred, and Armida's pleasing form,
Did not his melancholy theme adorn.
'Tis not that Christian poems ought to be
Fill'd with the fictions of idolatry;
But in a common subject to reject
The gods, and heathen ornaments neglect;
To banish Tritons who the seas invade,
To take Pan's whistle, or the Fates degrade,
To hinder Charon in his leaky boat
To pass the shepherd with the man of note,
Is with vain scruples to disturb your mind,
And search perfection you can never find:"
As well they may forbid us to present
Prudence or Justice for an ornament,
To paint old Janus with his front of brass;
And take from Time his scythe, his wings, and
glass;
And everywhere, as 't were idolatry,
Banish descriptions from our poetry.
Leave 'em their pious follies to pursue,
But let our reason such vain fears subdue;
And let us not, amongst our vanities,
Of the true God create a God of lies.
In fable we a thousand pleasures see,
And the smooth names seem made for poetry;
As Hector, Alexander, Helen, Phyllis,
Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Achilles:
In such a crowd, the poet were to blame
To choose King Chilperic for his hero's name,
Sometimes, the name being well or ill applied,
Will the whole fortune of your work decide. 671
Would you your reader never should be tir'd?
Choose some great hero, fit to be admir'd,
In courage signal, and in virtue bright;
Let ev'n his very failings give delight;
Let his great actions our attention bind;
Like Cæsar, or like Scipio, frame his mind,
And not like Edipus his perjur'd race;
A common conqueror is a theme too base.
Choose not your tale of accidents too full;
Too much variety may make it dull:
Achilles' rage alone, when wrought with skill,
bundantly does a whole Iliad fill.
De your narrations lively, short, and smart;
In your descriptions show your noblest art:
There 't is your poetry may be employ'd;
Yet you must trivial accidents avoid.
Nor imitate that fool,' who, to describe
The wondrous marches of the chosen tribe,
Plac'd on the sides, to see their armies pass, 690
The fishes staring thro' the liquid glass;
Describ'd a child, who, with his little hand,
Pick'd up the shining pebbles from the sand.
Such objects are too mean to stay our sight;
Allow your work a just and nobler flight.
Be your beginning plain, and take good heed
Too soon you mount not on the airy steed;
Nor tell your reader, in a thund'ring verse,
I sing the conqueror of the universe." 2 What can an author after this produce? The lab'ing mountain must bring forth a mouse. Much better are we pleas'd with his address, Who, without making such vast promises, Says, in an easier style and plainer sense: "I sing the combats of that pious prince, Who from the Phrygian coast his armies bore, And landed first on the Lavinian shore." His op'ning Muse sets not the world on fire, And yet performs more than we can require: Quickly you 'll hear him celebrate the fame 10 And future glory of the Roman name; Of Styx and Acheron describe the floods, And Cæsars wand'ring in th' Elysian woods; With figures numberless his story grace, And everything in beauteous colors trace. At once you may be pleasing and sublime: I hate a heavy melancholy rhyme;
'd rather read Orlando's comic tale, Than a dull author always stiff and stale, Who thinks himself dishonor'd in his style, 20 If on his works the Graces do but smile. 'Tis said that Homer, matchless in his art, Stole Venus' girdle, to ingage the heart: His works indeed vast treasures do unfold, And whatsoe'er he touches turns to gold: All in his hands new beauty does aequire; He always pleases, and can never tire. A happy warmth he everywhere may boast, Nor is he in too long digressions lost: His verses without rule a method find, And of themselves appear in order join'd: All without trouble answers his intent; Each syllable is tending to th' event. Let his example your indeavors raise ; To love his writings is a kind of praise.
A poem where we all perfections find
Is not the work of a fantastic mind:
There must be care, and time, and skill, and
pains;
Not the first heat of unexperienc'd brains.
Yet sometimes artless poets, when the rage 740
Of a warm fancy does their minds ingage,
Puff'd with vain pride, presume they under-
And boldly take the trumpet in their hand; Their fustian Muse each accident confounds; Nor can she fly, but rise by leaps and bounds, Till, their small stock of learning quickly spent, Their poem dies for want of nourishment.
2 The frst line of Scudéry's Alaric.
3 Virgil's Eneids.
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