In ev'ry public virtue we excel;
We build, we paint, 1 we sing, we dance, as well;
And 2 learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling thro' a hoop. If 3 time improve our wits as well as wine, Say at what age a poet grows divine? Shall we, or shall we not, account him so, Who dy'd, perhaps, an hundred years ago? End all dispute; and fix the year precise When British Bards began t' immortalize? "Who lasts a 4 century can have no flaw; "I hold that wit a classic, good in law."
Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? And shall we deem him 5 ancient, right, and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once
At ninety-nine a modern and a dunce?
"We shall not quarrel for a year or two; "By 6 courtesy of England he may do."
1 Psallimus, et 2 luctamur Achivis doctius unctis. Si 3 meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit;
Scire velim, chartis pretium quotus arroget annus. Scriptor ab hinc annos centum qui decidit, inter Viles atque novos? excludat jurgia finis. Est vetus atque probus 4 centum qui perficit annos. Quid? qui deperiit minor uno mense, vel anno; Inter quos referendus erit? 5 veteresne poetas, An quos et præsens et postera respuet ætas ? Iste quidem veteres inter ponetur honeste,
Then by the rule that made the horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,
And melt down Ancients like a heap of snow,
While you, to measure merits, look in 3 Stowe, And estimating authors by the year,
Bestow a garland only on a 4 bier.
5 Shakespeare (whom you and ev'ry play-house bill Style the Divine, the Matchless, what you will) For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despight. Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed 6 The life to come, in ev'ry poet's creed. Who now reads 7 Cowley? if he pleases yet, His moral pleases, not his pointed wit; Forgot his Epic, nay Pindaric art;
But still 8 I love the language of his heart.
"Yet surely, 9 surely, these were famous men!
"What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben?
Qui vel mense brevi, vel toto est junior anno. Utor permisso, caudæque pilos ut 1 equinæ Paulatim vello; et demo unum, demo item unum: Dum cadat elusus ratione 2 ruentis acervi, Qui redit in 3 fastos, et virtutem æstimat annis, Miraturque nihil, nisi quod 4 Libitina sacravit.
5 Ennius et sapiens, et fortis, et alter Homerus, Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur Quo promissa cadant, et somnia Pythagorea. 7 Nævius in manibus non est, et 8 mentibus hæret Pene recens: 9 adeo sanctum est vetus omne poema.
"In all, debates where critics bear a part,
"Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art, "Of Shakespear's nature, and of Cowley's wit; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher "How Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow; [writ; "But, for the passions, Southern sure and Rowe! 86 "These, 2 only these, support the crowded stage "From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age." All this may be ; 3 the people's voice is odd; It is, and it is not, the voice of God. To 4 Gammer Gurton, if it give the bays, And yet deny the Careless Husband praise, Or say our fathers never broke a rule, Why then, I say, the public is a fool.
But let them own that greater faults than we They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree. Spenser himself affects the 5 obsolete, And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet;
Ambigitur quoties, uter utro sit prior; aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis, Accius alti: Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro; Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi; Vincere Cæcilius gravitate, Terentius arte; Hos ediscit, et hos arcto stipata theatro
Spectat Roma potens; 2 habet hos numeratque poetas Ad nostrum tempus, Livi scriptoris ab ævo.
3 Interdum vulgus rectum videt: est ubi peccat. Si 4 veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, Ut nihil anteferat, nihil ills comparet; errat: Si quædam nimis, antique, si pleraque dure Volume III.
Milton's strong pinion now not heav'n can bound, Now, serpent-like, in 1 prose he sweeps the ground; In quibbles angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school-divine.
2 Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book, Like 3 slashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook; Or damn all Shakespeare, like the affected fool At court, who hates whate'er he 4 read at school. But for the wits of either Charles's days, The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease; Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more, (Like twinkling stars the miscellanies o'er) One simile, that 5 solitary shines
In the dry desert of a thousand lines,
Or 6 lengthen'd thought, that gleams through many a Has sanctify'd whole poems for an age.
7 I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur'd, not as bad, but new;
Dicere credit eos, 1 ignave multa fatetur; Et sapit, et mecum facit, et Jove judicat æquo. 2 Non equidem insector, delendaque carmina Livi Esse reor, memini quæ 3 plagosum 4 mihi parvo Orbilium dictare;
Pulchraque, exactis minimum distantia, miror: Inter quæ 5 verbum emicuit si forte decorum, Si 6 versus paulo concinnior unus et alter, Injuste totum ducit venditque poema.
7 Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
While if our elders break all Reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon, but applause.
1 On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow, If I but ask if any weed can grow?
One tragic sentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignify'd, Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims, (Tho' but perhaps a muster-roll of names) How will our fathers rise up in a rage, And swear all shame is lost in George's age! You'd think 3 no fools disgrac'd the former reign, Did not some grave examples yet remain, Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill, And, having once been wrong, will be so still. He, who to seem more deep than you or I, Extols old bards, 4 or Merlin's Prophecy, Mistake him not; he envies, not admires, And to debase the sons exalts the sires.
Compositum, illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper; Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci. 1 Recte necne crocum floresque perambulet Attæ Fabula, si dubitem; clament perisse pudorem Cuncti pene patres, ea cum reprehendere coner, Quæ z gravis Æsopus, quæ doctus Roscius egit: Vel quia nil 3 rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducunt; Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus, et quæ Imberbes didicere, senes perdenda fateri.
Jam 4 saliare Numæ carmen qui laudat, et illud, Quod mecum ignorat, solus vult scire videri;
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