That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;

The distant threats of vengeance on his head,

The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed; 349
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash and dulness not his own;
The morals blackeu'd when the writings
'scape,

The libell'd person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that, to greatness still too

near,

Perhaps yet vibrates on his SOV'REIGN'S

ear

Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:

For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last!

A. But why insult the poor? affront the

great?

360 P. A knave's a kuave to me in ev'ry state; Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail; A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer, Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire; If on a Pillory, or near a Throne, He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own. Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,

Sappho can tell you how this man was bit: This dreaded Satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his dis

No courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie. Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,

No language but the language of the heart. By Nature honest, by Experience wise, 400 Healthy by Temp'rance and by Exercise; His life, tho' long, to sickness pass'd unknown,

His death was instant and without a groan. O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprang from kings shall know less joy than I.

O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!

for the increase of an absolute Empire; but to make the poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a Free People, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.

This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a Patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate; Admonebat prætores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsole fieri, &c.; the other, that this piece was only a general Discourse of Poetry; whereas it was an Apology for the Poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron. Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries; first, against the Taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly, against the Court and Nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the Theatre; and, lastly, against the Emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the Government. He shows (by a view of the progress of Learning, and the change of Taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the Polite Arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their Morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagancies were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the State; and concludes, that it was upon them the Emperor himself must depend for his Fame with posterity.

We may further learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his court to this great Prince, by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character.

50

If time improve our Wit as well as Wine, Say at what age a poet grows divine? Shall we, or shall we not, account him so Who died, perhaps, a hundred years ago? End all dispute: and fix the year precise When British bards begin t'immortalize?

'Who lasts a 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 ancient, right, and sound,

you, to measure merits, look in Stowe,

And estimating authors by the year, Bestow a garland only on a bier. Shakespeare (whom you and every playhouse bill

Style the divine! the matchless! what you will)

For Gain, not Glory, wing'd his roving flight,

And grew immortal in his own despite.
Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed
The life to come in every poet's creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His Moral pleases, not his pointed Wit:
Forgot his Epic, nay, Pindarie art,
But still I love the language of his heart.
'Yet surely, surely these were famous
men!

What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben?
In all debates where Critics bear a part, si
Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's

Art,

How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow; But for the passions, Southern sure, and Rowe!

These, only these, support the crowded stage,

From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age.'

All this may be; the People's voice is odd;
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
To 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 obsolete,
And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman
feet;

Sometimes the folly benefits mankind,
And rarely av'rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a Pen,
He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men:
Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never
mind,

And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.

To cheat a friend or ward, he leaves to Peter;

The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,

Enjoys his Garden and his Book in quiet; And then - a perfect hermit in his diet. 200 Of little use the man you may suppose Who says in verse what others say in prose;

eight,

?

Yet let me show a Poet's of some
And (tho' no soldier) useful to the State.
What will a child learn sooner than a song
What better teach a foreigner the tongue -
What's long or short, each accent where
to place,

And speak in public with some sort of grace?

I scarce can think him such a worthless

And pours each human virtue in the heart. Let Ireland tell how wit upheld her cause, Her trade supported, and supplied her laws; And leave on Swift this grateful verse egraved,

The rights a Court attack'd, a Poet saved.' Behold the hand that wrought a Nation's cure,

Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor; Proud vice to brand, or injured worth adoru, And stretch the ray to ages yet unborn. Not but there are, who merit other palms; Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms;

230

The boys and girls whom charity main

The Laugh, the Jest, attendants on the

bowl,

Smooth'd ev'ry brow, and open'd ev'ry

soul: