yet is in possession of it; would he bring it of his own accord, to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talent, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented, because the poets will not admit them of their number. Thus the case is hard with writers: If they succeed not, they must starve; and if they do, some malicious satire is prepared to level them, for daring to please without their leave. But while they are so eager to destroy the fame of others, their ambition is manifest in their concernment; some poem of their own is to be produced, and the slaves are to be laid flat with their faces on the ground, that the monarch may appear in the greater majesty.* Dionysius and Nero had the same longing, but with all their power they could never bring their business well about. 'Tis true, they proclaimed themselves poets by sound of trumpet; and poets they were, upon * This passage, though doubtless applicable to many of the men of rank at the court of Charles II., was particularly levelled at Lord Rochester, with whom our author was now on bad terms. It is hardly fair to inquire how far this description of the discourse and talents of a person of wit and honour agrees with that given in the dedication to Marriage a-la-Mode, when, in compliment to the same nobleman, we are told, that, "Wit seems to have lodged itself more nobly in this age, than in any of the former; and that his lordship had but another step to make, from the patron of wit, to become its tyrant." This last observation seems to have been made in the spirit of prophecy. pain of death to any man who durst call them otherwise. The audience had a fine time on't, you may imagine; they sat in a bodily fear, and looked as demurely as they could: for it was a hanging matter to laugh unseasonably; and the tyrants were suspicious, as they had reason, that their subjects had them in the wind; so, every man, in his own defence, set as good a face upon the business as he could. It was known before-hand that the monarchs were to be crowned laureats; but when the show was over, and an honest man was suffered to depart quietly, he took out his laughter which he had stifled; with a firm resolution never more to see an emperor's play, though he had been ten years a making it. In the mean time the true poets were they who made the best markets, for they had wit enough to yield the prize with a good grace, and not contend with him who had thirty legions.* They were sure to be rewarded, if they confessed themselves bad writers, and that was somewhat better than to be martyrs for their reputation. Lucan's example was enough to teach them manners; and after he was put to death, for overcoming Nero, the emperor carried it without dispute for the best poet in his dominions. No man was ambitious of that grinning honour; for if he heard the malicious trumpeter proclaiming his name before his betters, he knew there was but one way with him. Mecænas took another course, and we know he was more than a great man, for he was witty too: But finding himself far gone poetry, which Seneca assures us was not his talent, in * Such is said to have been the answer of a philosopher to a friend, who upbraided him with giving up a dispute to the Emperor Adrian. he thought it his best way to be well with Virgil and with Horace; that at least he might be a poet at the second hand and we see how happily it has succeeded with him; for his own bad poetry is forgotten, and their panegyrics of him still remain. But they who should be our patrons, are for no such expensive ways to fame; they have much of the poetry of Mecænas, but little of his liberality. They are for persecuting Horace and Virgil, in the persons of their successors; for such is every man, who has any part of their soul and fire, though in a less degree. Some of their little zanies yet go farther; for they are persecutors even of Horace himself, as far as they are able, by their ignorant and vile imitations of him; by making an unjust use of his authority, and turning his artillery against his friends. But how would he disdain to be copied by such hands! I dare answer for him, he would be more uneasy in their company, than he was with Crispinus, their forefather, in the Holy Way; and would no more have allowed them a place amongst the critics, than he would Demetrius the mimic, and Tigellius the buffoon; -Demetri, teque, Tigelli, Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. With what scorn would he look down upon such miserable translators, who make doggrel of his Latin, mistake his meaning, mis-apply his censures, and often contradict their own? He is fixed as a land-mark to set out the bounds of poetry: -Saxum antiquum, ingens, Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. But other arms than theirs, and other sinews are required, to raise the weight of such an au thor; and when they would toss him against their enemies, Genua labant, gelidus concrevit frigore sanguis. For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself, or the rest of the poets, from this rhyming judge of the twelve-penny gallery, this legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe. his name to his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning) set his mark: For, should he own himself publicly, and come from behind the lion's skin, they, whom he condemns, would be thankful to him, they, whom he praises, would chuse to be condemned; and the magistrates, whom he has elected, would modestly withdraw from their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination. The sharpness of *This passage alludes to an imitation of Horace, quaintly entitled an "Allusion to the Tenth Satire of his First Book," which was the production of Rochester. As however it appeared without a name, it may have been for a time imputed to some of the inferior wits, whom his Lordship patronized. It contains a warm attack on Dryden, part of which has been already quoted. Dryden probably knew the real author of this satire, although he chose to impute it to one of the "Zanies" of the great. At least it seems unlikely that he should take Crown for the author, as has been supposed by Mr Malone; for in the imitation we have these lines: For by that rule I might as well admit Crown could hardly be charged as author of a poem, in which this sarcasm occurred. † Alluding probably to the concluding lines of the Satire. I loath the rabble; 'tis enough for me his satire, next to himself, falls most heavily on his friends, and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend, whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some neighbour virtue; Vellem in amicitiâ sic erraremus; et isti Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum. But he would never have allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow drudge,* as Juvenal explains it : Canibus pigris, scabieque vetustâ Lævibus, et sicca lambentibus ora lucerna, Nomen erit, Pardus, Tygris, Leo; si quid adhuc est * said, Dryden alludes to the censure past on himself, where it is Five hundred verses in a morning writ, + This refers to the characters of Shadwell and Wycherley, which, according to Dryden, the satirist seems to have misunderstood. Of all our modern wits, none seems to me |