You lose your credit all at once;
The town will mark you for a dunce;
The vilest doggrel, Grub-street sends,
Will pass for yours 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 disposed to rhyme,
Go try your hand a second time.
Again you fail: yet Safe's the word;
Take 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 similes that nothing fit;
The cant which every fool repeats,
Town jests and coffee-house conceits;
Descriptions tedious, flat, and dry,
And introduced the Lord knows why:
Or where we find your fury set
Against the harmless alphabet;
And A's and B's your malice vent,
While readers wonder whom you meant;
A public or a private robber,

A statesman, or a South-sea jobber;
A prelate who no God believes;
A parliament, or den of thieves;
A pick-purse at the bar or bench;
A duchess, or a suburb wench:
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 marsh
To moorland of a different parish.
So have I seen ill-coupled hounds
Drag different 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, though 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.
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.
A prince, the moment he is crown'd,
Inherits every virtue round,

As emblems of the sovereign power,
Like other baubles in The Tower:

Is generous, valiant, just, and wise,
And so continues till he dies:

[Sir Robert Walpole, who employed the scurrility, not the genius of his age, to defend his administration, and patronized, not the poets, but the rhymers, the Mitchells and Oldmixons of his times.]

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: As soon as you can hear his knell, This god on earth turns devil 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 ivory 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 gathering up a cluster Of all the virtues you can muster, 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 both 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 used, may serve a while. Proceed no further 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 (Though merely writ at first for filling, To raise the volume's price a shilling.)† A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsous; And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us.

[ This is one of Swift's many flings at Dryden, that thread and disgrace his writings.]

Then, lest with Greek he overrun ye,
Procure the book for love or money,
Translated from Boileau's translation,
And quote quotation on quotation.

At Will's you hear a poem read,
Where Battus from the table-head,
Reclining on his elbow-chair,
Gives judgment with decisive air;
To whom the tribe of circling wits
As to an oracle submits.

He gives directions to the town,
To cry it up, or run it down;
Like courtiers, when they send a note,
Instructing members how to vote.
He sets the stamp of bad and good,
Though not a word be understood.
Your lesson learn'd, you'll be secure
To get the name of connoisseur;

And, when your merits once are known,
Procure disciples of your own.
For poets (you can never want 'em)
Spread through Augusta Trinobantum,*
Computing by their pecks of coals,
Amount to just nine thousand souls:
These o'er their proper districts govern,
Of wit and humour judges sovereign.
In every street a city-bard

Rules, like an alderman, his ward;
His undisputed rights extend

Through all the lane, from end to end;

The neighbours round admire his shrewdness
For songs of loyalty and lewdness;
Outdone by none in rhyming well,
Although he never learn'd to spell.

Two bordering wits contend for glory;
And one is Whig, and one is Tory:
And this for epics claims the bays,
And that for elegiac lays:
Some famed for numbers soft and smooth,
By lovers spoke in Punch's booth;
And some as justly fame extols

For lofty lines in Smithfield drolls.
Bavius in Wapping gains renown,
And Mævius reigns o'er Kentish-town:
Tigellius, placed in Phoebus' car,
From Ludgate shines to Temple-bar :
Harmonious Cibber entertains

The court with annual birth-day strains;
Whence Gay was banish'd in disgrace;
Where Pope will never show his face;
Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.†
But these are not a thousandth part
Of jobbers in the poet's art,
Attending each his proper station,
And all in due subordination,
Through every alley to be found,
In garrets high, or under ground;

[*The ancient name of London.]

it Young disgraced his talents, and lowered his reputa Don, by the mean flattery with which he stuffed his dedications to great men; and Swift, with his usual acuteness, has touched this foible of his character:

And Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

J. W. CROKER, Suffolk Papers, vol. i. p. 285.]

And when they join their pericranies,
Out skips a book of miscellanies.
Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.
The greater for the smallest watch,
But meddle seldom with their match.
A whale of moderate size will draw
A shoal of herrings down his maw;
A fox with geese his belly crams;
A wolf destroys a thousand lambs:
But search among the rhyming race,
The brave are worried by the base.
If on Parnassus' top you sit,
You rarely bite, are always bit.
Each poet of inferior size

On you shall rail and criticise,

And strive to tear you limb from limb;
While others do as much for him.

The vermin only tease and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch.

So, naturalists observe, a flea

Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
Thus every poet in his kind

Is bit by him that comes behind:
Who though too little to be seen,

Can tease, and gall, and give the spleen;
Call dunces fools and sons of whores,
Lay Grub-street at each other's doors;
Extol the Greek and Roman masters,
And curse our modern poetasters;
Complain, as many an ancient bard did,
How genius is no more rewarded;
How wrong a taste prevails among us;
How much our ancestors outsung us;
Can personate an awkward scorn
For those who are not poets born;
And all their brother-dunces lash,
Who crowd the press with hourly trash.

O Grub-street! how do I bemoan thee, Whose graceless children scorn to own thee! Their filial piety forgot,

Deny their country, like a Scot;
Though, by their idiom and grimace,
They soon betray their native place:
Yet thou hast greater cause to be
Ashamed of them, than they of thee,
Degenerate from their ancient brood,
Since first the court allow'd them food.
Remains a difficulty still,

To purchase fame by writing ill.
From Flecknoe down to Howard's time,
How few have reach'd the low sublime!
For when our high-born Howard died,
Blackmore alone his place supplied:
And, lest a chasm should intervene,
When Death had finish'd Blackmore's reign,
The leaden crown devolved to thee,
Great poet of the Hollow Tree.‡

[Lord Grimston was the author of this celebrated per formance, of which he was afterward so much ashamed as to buy up all the copies. The malignity of the Duchess of Marlborough disconcerted his purpose, by reprinting it.SIR WALTER SCOTT.

But ah! how unsecure thy throne!
A thousand bards thy right disown:
They plot to turn, in factious zeal,
Duncenia to a common weal;
And with rebellious arms pretend
An equal privilege to descend.

In bulk there are not more degrees,
From elephants to mites in cheese,
Than what a curious eye may trace
In creatures of the rhyming race.
From bad to worse, and worse, they fall;
But who can reach the worst of all?
For though, in nature, depth and height
Are equally held infinite;

In poetry, the height we know;
'Tis only infinite below.

For instance, when you rashly think
No rhymer can like Welsted sink,
His merits balanced, you shall find
The Laureate* leaves him far behind.
Concanen, more aspiring bard,
Soars downward deeper by a yard.
Smart Jemmy Moore with vigour drops;
The rest pursue as thick as hops.
With heads to points the gulf they enter,
Link'd perpendicular to the centre;
And, as their heels elated rise,
Their heads attempt the nether skies.

Oh, what indignity and shame,
To prostitute the Muse's name!

By flattering kings, whom Heaven design'd
The plagues and scourges of mankind;
Bred up in ignorance and sloth,
And every vice that nurses both.

Fair Britain, in thy monarch blest,
Whose virtues bear the strictest test;
Whom never faction could bespatter,
Nor minister nor poet flatter;
What justice in rewarding merit!
What magnanimity of spirit!
What lineaments divine we trace
Through all his figure, mien, and face!
Though peace with olive bind his hands,
Confess'd the conquering hero stands.
Hydaspes, Indus, and the Ganges,
Dread from his hand impending changes.
From him the Tartar and Chinese,
Short by the knees, entreat for peace.
The consort of his throne and bed,
A perfect goddess born and bred,
Appointed sovereign judge to sit
On learning, eloquence, and wit.
Our eldest hope, divine Iülus,
(Late, very late, oh may he rule us!)
What early manhood has he shown,
Before his downy beard was grown!
Then think, what wonders will be done,
By going on as he begun,

[* Colley Cibber-originally "That Fielding, "&c.; meaning the novelist.]

An heir for Britain to secure
As long as sun and moon endure.
The remnant of the royal blood
Comes pouring on me like a flood:
Bright goddesses, in number five;
Duke William, sweetest prince alive.
Now sing the minister of state,
Who shines alone without a mate.
Observe with what majestic port
This Atlas stands to prop the court;
Intent the public debts to pay,
Like prudent Fabius, by delay.
Thou great vicegerent of the king,
Thy praises every Muse shall sing;
In all affairs thou sole director,

Of wit and learning chief protector;
Though small the time thou hast to spare,
The church is thy peculiar care.

Of pious prelates what a stock
You choose, to rule the sable flock!
You raise the honour of your peerage,
Proud to attend you at the steerage.
You dignify the noble race,
Content yourself with humbler place.
Now learning, valour, virtue, sense,
To titles give the sole pretence.
St. George beheld thee with delight
Vouchsafe to be an azure knight,
When on thy breasts and sides Herculean
He fix'd the star and string cerulean.
Say, poet, in what other nation
Shone ever such a constellation!
Attend, ye Popes, and Youngs, and Gays,
And tune your harps, and strow your bays:
Your panegyrics here provide;
You cannot err on flattery's side.
Above the stars exalt your style,
You still are low ten thousand mile.
On Lewis all his bards bestow'd
Of incense many a thousand load;
But Europe mortified his pride,
And swore the fawning rascals lied.
Yet what the world refused to Lewis,
Applied to George, exactly true is.
Exactly true! invidious poet!
"Tis fifty thousand times below it.

Translate me now some lines, if you can,
From Virgil, Martial, Ovid, Lucan.
They could all power in heaven divide,
And do no wrong on either side;
They teach you how to split a hair,
Give George and Jove an equal share.
Yet why should we be laced so strait?
I'll give my monarch better weight,
And reason good; for many a year
Jove never intermeddled here:
Nor, though his priests be duly paid,
Did ever we desire his aid:
We now can better do without him,
Since Woolston gave us arms to rout him.
Catera desiderantur.

I HAVE applied to many individuals for information respecting the personal history of this writer, but have not been able to obtain it, even from the quarters where it was most likely to be found. He was born, probably, about the year 1700; was of Christ Church, Oxford, where he

took his degree of A. M.; and was finally vicar of Starting, in Sussex. Besides The Man of Taste, he wrote a political satire, entitled The Art of Politics, and The Crooked Sixpence, in imitation of Philips's Splendid Shilling.

THE MAN OF TASTE.

WHOE'ER he be that to a taste aspires, Let him read this and be what he desires. In men and manners versed, from life I write, Not what was once, but what is now polite. Those who of courtly France have made the tour Can scarce our English awkwardness endure. But honest men who never were abroad, Like England only, and its taste applaud. Strife still subsists, which yields the better goût; Books or the world, the many or the few.

True taste to me is by this touchstone known,
That's always best that's nearest to my own.
To show that my pretensions are not vain,
My father was a play'r in Drury-lane.
Pears and pistachio-nuts my mother sold;
He a dramatic poet, she a scold.
Her tragic Muse could countesses affright,
His wit in boxes was my lord's delight.
No mercenary priest e'er join'd their hands,
Uncramp'd by wedlock's unpoetic bands.
Laws my Pindaric parents matter'd not,
So I was tragi-comically got.

My infant tears a sort of measure kept,
I squalled in distichs, and in triplets wept.
No youth did I in education waste,
Happy in an hereditary taste.

Writing ne'er cramped the sinews of my thumb,
Nor barbarous birch e'er brush'd my tender bum.
My guts ne'er suffer'd from a college cook,
My name ne'er enter'd in a buttery-book.
Grammar in vain the sons of Priscian teach,
Good parts are better than eight parts of speech:
Since these declined, those undeclined they call,
I thank my stars that I declined them all.
To Greek or Latin tongues without pretence,
I trust to mother wit and father sense.
Nature's my guide, all sciences I scorn,
Pains I abhor; I was a poet born.

Yet is my goût for criticism such,

I've got some French, and know a little Dutch. Huge commentators grace my learned shelves, Notes upon books out-do the books themselves. Critics indeed are valuable men,

But hyper-critics are as good again.
Though Blackmore's works my soul with rapture
fill,

With notes by Bentley they'd be better still.
The Boghouse-Miscellany's well designed
To ease the body, and improve the mind.

Swift's whims and jokes for my resentment call,
For he displeases me that pleases all.
Verse without rhyme I never could endure,
Uncouth in numbers, and in sense obscure.
To him as nature, when he ceased to see,
Milton's an universal blank to me.
Confirm'd and settled by the nation's voice,
Rhyme is the poet's pride, and people's choice.
Always upheld by national support,
Of market, university, and court;
Thomson, write blank! but know that for that rea-
These lines shall live when thine are out of sea-
Rhyme binds and beautifies the poet's lays, [son.
As London ladies owe their shape to stays.

[son

Had Cibber's self The Careless Husband wrote,
He for the laurel ne'er had had my vote;
But for his epilogues and other plays,
He thoroughly deserves the modern bays.
It pleases me, that Pope unlaurell'd goes,
While Cibber wears the bays for play-house prose;
So Britain's monarch once uncover'd sat,
While Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimm'd hat.
Long live old Curll! he ne'er to publish fears
The speeches, verses, and last wills of peers.
How oft has he a public spirit shown,
And pleased our ears regardless of his own?
But to give merit due, though Curll's the fame,
Are not his brother booksellers the same?
Can statutes keep the British press in awe,
While that sells best that's most against the law?
Lives of dead play'rs my leisure hours beguile,
And sessions-papers tragedize my style.
"Tis charming reading in Ophelia's life,*
So oft a mother, and not once a wife:
She could with just propriety behave,
Alive with peers, with monarchs in her grave:
Her lot how oft have envious harlots wept,
By prebends buried, and by generals kept.
T'improve in morals Mandevil I read,
And Tyndal's scruples are my settled creed.
I travell❜d early, and I soon saw through
Religion all, ere I was twenty-two.
Shame, pain, or poverty shall I endure,
When ropes or opium can my ease procure?
When money's gone, and I no debts can pay,
Self-murder is an honourable way.

As Pasaran directs, I'd end my life,
And kill myself, my daughter, and my wife.

[Mrs. Oldfield the actress. The sting of severity is in its truth, and here satire is in its strength.] 2M 2 437

Burn but that Bible which the parson quotes,
And men of spirit all shall cut their throats.
But not to writings I confine my pen,
I have a taste for buildings, music, men.
Young travell'd coxcombs mighty knowledge boast,
With superficial smattering at most.

Not so my mind, unsatisfied with hints, [prints.
Knows more than Budgell writes, or Roberts
I know the town, all houses I have seen,
From Hyde-Park corner down to Bednal-Green.
Sure wretched Wren was taught by bungling
To murder mortar, and disfigure stones! [Jones,
Who in Whitehall can symmetry discern?
I reckon Covent-Garden church a barn.
Nor hate I less thy vile cathedral, Paul?
The choir's too big, the cupola's too small:

Substantial walls and heavy roofs I like,
'Tis Vanbrugh's structures that my fancy strike:
Such noble ruins every pile would make,
I wish they'd tumble for the prospect's sake.
To lofty Chelsea, or to Greenwich dome,
Soldiers and sailors all are welcomed home,
Her poor to palaces Britannia brings,
St. James's hospital may serve for kings.
Buildings so happily I understand,
That for one house I'd mortgage all my land.
Doric, Ionic, shall not there be found,

But it shall cost me threescore thousand pound.
From out my honest workmen I'll select
A bricklayer, and proclaim him architect;
First bid him build me a stupendous dome,
Which having finish'd, we set out for Rome;
Take a week's view of Venice and the Brent;
Stare round, see nothing, and come home content.
I'll have my villa too, a sweet abode,
Its situation shall be London road:
Pots o'er the door I'll place like cit's balconies,
Which Bentley calls the gardens of Adonis.

I'll have my gardens in the fashion too,
For what is beautiful that is not new?
Fair four-legg'd temples, theatres that vie
With all the angles of a Christmas-pie.
Does it not merit the beholder's praise,
What's high to sink, and what is low to raise ?
Slopes shall ascend where once a green-house
stood,

And in my horse-pond I will plant a wood.
Let misers dread the hoarded gold to waste,
Expense and alteration shows a taste.

In curious paintings I'm exceeding nice,
And know their several beauties by their price.
Auctions and sales I constantly attend,
But choose my pictures by a skilful friend,
Originals and copies much the same,
The picture's value is the painter's name.

My taste in sculpture from my choice is seen, I buy no statues that are not obscene. In spite of Addison and ancient Rome, Sir Cloudesley Shovel's is my favourite tomb. How oft have I with admiration stood, To view some city-magistrate in wood! I gaze with pleasure on a lord-mayor's head, Cast with propriety in gilded lead. Oh could I view, through London as I pass, Some broad Sir Baalam in Corinthian brass:

High on a pedestal, ye freemen, place
His magisterial paunch and griping face;
Letter'd and gilt, let him adorn Cheapside,
And grant the tradesman what a king's denied.
Old coins and medals I collect, 'tis true;
Sir Andrew has 'em, and I'll have em too,
But among friends, if I the truth might speak,
I like the modern, and despise th' antique.
Though in the drawers of my japan bureau,
To lady Gripeall I the Cæsars show,
"Tis equal to her ladyship or me,
A copper Otho, or a Scotch bawbee.
Without Italian, or without an ear,
To Bononcini's music I adhere;
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
And therefore proper at a sheriff's feast.
My soul has oft a secret pleasure found
In the harmonious bagpipe's lofty sound.
Bagpipes for men, shrill German-flutes for boys,
I'm English born, and love a grumbling noise.
The stage should yield the solemn organ's note,
And Scripture tremble in the eunuch's throat.
Let Sensino sing what David writ,

And hallelujahs charm the pious pit.
Eager in throngs the town to Esther came,
And oratario was a lucky name.

Thou, Heidegger! the English taste hast found,
And rulest the mob of quality with sound.
In Lent, if masquerades displease the town,
Call 'em ridottos, and they still go down.
Go on, prince Phiz! to please the British nation.
Call thy next masquerade a convocation.

Bears, lions, wolves, and elephants I breed,
And Philosophical Transactions read.
Next lodge I'll be Free-mason, nothing less,
Unless I happen to be F. R. S.

I have a palate, and (as yet) two ears,
Fit company for porters or for peers.
Of every useful knowledge I've a share,
But my top talent is a bill of fare.
Sirloins and rumps of beef offend my eyes,
Pleased with frogs fricasseed, and coxcomb-pies;
Dishes I choose, though little, yet genteel,
Snails the first course, and peepers crown the
meal.

Pigs' heads, with hair on, much my fancy please;

I love young cauliflow'rs if stew'd in cheese,
And give ten guineas for a pint of peas.
No tattling servants to my table come,
My grace is silence, and my waiter dumb.
Queer country-puts extol queen Bess's reign,
And of lost hospitality complain.

Say, thou that dost thy father's table praise,
Was there mahogany in former days?

Oh, could a British barony be sold!

I would bright honour buy with dazzling gold.
Could I the privilege of peer procure,
The rich I'd bully, and oppress the poor.
To give is wrong, but it is wronger still
On any terms to pay a tradesman's bill.
I'd make the insolent mechanics stay,
And keep my ready money all for play.
I'd try if any pleasure could be found
In tossing up for twenty thousand pound: