All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain Friend to my life! (which, did you not prolong, If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead. With honest anguish and an aching head; This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years.' "The piece, you think, is incorrect? why take it; I'm all submission; what you'd have it, make it." Three things another's modest wishes bound, My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound. Pitholeon sends to me: "You know his grace; I want a patron; ask him for a place." Bless me! a packet-" "Tis a stranger sues, There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends, The players and I are, luckily, no friends. Fired that the house reject him, "'Sdeath! I'll print it, And shame the fools: your interest, sir, with Lintot.” Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much : "Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch." All my demurs but double his attacks: At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks." His very minister, who spied them first (Some say his queen), was forced to speak or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my face? The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?), The queen of Midas slept, and so may I. You think this cruel? Take it for a rule, No creature smarts so little as a fool. Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: The creature's at his dirty work again; And has not Colly still his lord and bore? Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit? Still Sappho-A. Hold; for God's sake-you'll offend No names-be calm-learn prudence of a friend; I too could write, and I am twice as tall; But foes like these-P. One flatterer's worse than Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right, A fool quite angry is quite innocent: Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent. There are, who to my person pay their court: I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came. No duty broke, no father disobey'd: [all. The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife; To help me through this long disease, my life; To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care, And teach the being you preserved, to bear. 1 But why then publish? Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise, And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays; The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head, And St. John's self (great Dryden's friends before) With open arms received one poet more. Happy my studies when by these approved! Happier their author when by these beloved! From these the world will judge of men and books, Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks. Soft were my numbers: who could take offence If want provoked, or madness made them print, Did some more sober critic come abroad; Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! Were others angry? I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess? The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year; He who, still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left: And he who, now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning; And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest satire bade translate, And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe! And swear, not Addison himself was safe. Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles and fair fame inspires; Bless'd with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; |