While the clean current, though serene and bright,
Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.
But now my muse a softer strain rehearse,
Turn every line with art, and smooth thy verse;
The courtly Waller next commands thy lays :
Muse, turn thy verse, with art, to Waller's praise !
While tender airs and lovely dames inspire
Soft melting thoughts, and propagate desire ;
So long shall Waller's strains our passion move,
And Sacharissa's beauties kindle love.
Thy verse, harmonious bard, and flattering song,
Can make the vanquish'd great, the coward strong.
Thy verse can show even Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
O, had thy muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne !
How had his triumphs glitter'd in thy page,
And warm'd thee to a more exalted rage!
What scenes of death and horror had we view'd,
And how had Boyne's wide current reek'd in blood!
Or if Maria's charms thou would'st rehearse,
In smoother numbers and a softer verse;
Thy pen had well described her graceful air,
And Gloriana would have seem'd more fair.
Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by,
That makes even rules a noble poetry;
Rules whose deep sense and heavenly numbers
show
The best of critics, and of poets too.
Nor, Denham, must we e'er forget thy strains,
While Cooper's Hill commands the neighbouring
But see where artful Dryden next appears
Grown old in rime, but charming even in years.
Great Dryden next, whose tuneful muse affords
The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs
She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears.
If satire or heroic strains she writes,
Her hero pleases, and her satire bites.
From her no harsh unartful numbers fall,
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.
How might we fear our English poetry,
That long has flourish'd, should decay with thee;
Did not the muses' other hope appear,
Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear:
Congreve ! whose fancy's unexhausted store
Has given already much, and promised more.
Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive,
And Dryden's muse shall in his friend survive.
WHEN bright Eliza ruled Britannia's state,
Widely distributing her high commands,
And boldly wise, and fortunately great,
Freed the glad nations from tyrannic bands;
An equal genius was in Spenser found;
To the high theme he match'd his noble lays ;
He travell❜d England o'er on fairy ground,
In mystic notes to sing his monarch's praise:
Reciting wondrous truths in pleasing dreams,
He deck'd Eliza's head with Gloriana's beams.
BUT shall we take the Muse abroad
To drop her idly on the road?
And leave our subject in the middle;
As Butler did his bear and fiddle?
Yet he, consummate master, knew
When to recede, and where pursue;
His noble negligences teach
What others' toils despair to reach.
He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,
And balances your fear and hope:
If, after some distinguish'd leap,
He drops his pole, and seems to slip,
Straight gathering all his active strength,
He rises higher half his length.
With wonder you approve his sleight;
And owe your pleasure to your fright.
But like poor Andrew I advance,
False mimic of my master's dance;
Around the cord awhile I sprawl,
And thence, though low, in earnest fall.
O ABELARD, ill-fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth:
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler poet's song.
Dan Pope, for thy misfortune grieved,
With kind concern and skill has weaved
A silken web; and ne'er shall fade
Its colours; gently has he laid
The mantle o'er thy sad distress:
And Venus shall the texture bless.
He o'er the weeping nun has drawn
Such artful folds of sacred lawn ;
That love, with equal grief and pride,
Shall see the crime he strives to hide;
And, softly drawing back the veil,
The god shall to his votaries tell
Each conscious tear, each blushing grace,
That deck'd dear Eloisa's face.
From An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne. [1712
OUR foes confess, nor we the praise refuse,
The drama glories in the British muse.
The French are delicate, and nicely lead
Of close intrigue the labyrinthine thread;
Our genius more affects the grand, than fine,
Our strength can make the great plain action
They raise a great curiosity indeed,
From his dark maze to see the hero freed;
We rouse the affections, and that hero show
Gasping beneath some formidable blow:
They sigh; we weep: the Gallic doubt and care
We heighten into terror and despair ;
Strike home, the strongest passions boldly touch,
Nor fear our audience should be pleased too much.
What's great in nature we can greatly draw,
Nor thank for beauties the dramatic law.
The fate of Cæsar is a tale too plain
The fickle Gallic taste to entertain;
Their art would have perplext, and interwove
The golden arras with gay flowers of love;
We know heaven made him a far greater man
Than any Cæsar in a human plan,
And such we draw him, nor are too refined
To stand affected with what heaven design'd
To claim attention, and the heart invade ;
Shakespeare but wrote the play the Almighty made.
Our neighbour's stage art too bare-faced betrays,
'Tis great Corneille at every scene we praise;
On nature's surer aid Britannia calls,
None think of Shakespeare till the curtain falls;
Then with a sigh returns our audience home,
From Venice, Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome.
France yields not to the glory of our lines,
But manly conduct of our strong designs;
That oft they think more justly we must own,
Not ancient Greece a truer sense has shown:
Greece thought but justly, they think justly too;
We sometimes err by striving more to do.
So well are Racine's meanest people taught,
But change a sentiment, you make a fault ;
Nor dare we charge them with the want of flame :
When we boast more, we own ourselves to blame.
And yet in Shakespeare something still I find,
That makes me less esteem all human kind;
He made one nature, and another found,
Both in his page with master strokes abound:
His witches, fairies, and enchanted isle,
Bid us no longer at our nurses smile;
Of lost historians we almost complain,
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