Poets like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace Others for Language all their care express, Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, 295 300 305 310 315 320 325 Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile. These sparks with awkward vanity display As apes our grandsires, in their doublets drest. Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 330 335 340 345 But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song; And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong: In the bright Muse, tho' thousand charms conspire, Her Voice is all these tuneful fools admire; Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, Not mend their minds; as some to Church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join; And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes; Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze," In the next line, it "whispers through the trees": If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep": The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep": Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, 350 355 That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. 360 Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. 365 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, 370 Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays surprize, And bid alternate passions fall and rise! While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Avoid Extremes; and shun the fault of such, 375 380 385 390 Dullness is ever apt to magnify. Some foreign writers, some our own despise; The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize. Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply'd To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside. Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, And force that sun but on a part to shine, Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, But ripens spirits in cold northern climes; Which from the first has shone on ages past, Enlights the present, and shall warm the last; Tho' each may feel increases and decays, And see now clearer and now darker days. Regard not then if Wit be old or new, But blame the false, and value still the true. Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own, But catch the spreading notion of the Town;) They reason and conclude by precedent, And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men. Of all this servile herd, the worst is he That in proud dulness joins with Quality, A constant Critic at the great man's board, To fetch and carry nonsense for my Lord. What woful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starv'd hackney sonnetteer, or me? But let a Lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault, And each exalted stanza teems with thought! The Vulgar thus through Imitation err; As oft the Learn'd by being singular; So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng 395 400 405 410 415 420 425 By chance go right, they purposely go wrong: And are but damn'd for having too much wit. Some praise at morning what they blame at night; 430 We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so. Once School-divines this zealous isle o'erspread; 440 445 What wonder modes in Wit should take their turn? Oft, leaving what is natural and fit, The current folly proves the ready wit; 450 Which lives as long as fools are pleas'd to laugh. 455 460 |