Part 99 (2/2)

Not empire to the rising sun By valour, conduct, fortune won; Not highest wisdom in debates For framing laws to govern states; Not skill in sciences profound So large to grasp the circle round, Such heavenly influence require, As how to strike the Muse's lyre.

Not beggar's brat on bulk begot; Not b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a pedlar Scot; Not boy brought up to cleaning shoes, The sp.a.w.n of Bridewell or the stews; Not infants dropped, the spurious pledges Of gipsies littering under hedges, Are so disqualified by fate To rise in church, or law, or state, As he whom Phoebus in his ire Hath blasted with poetic fire.

What hope of custom in the fair, While not a soul demands your ware?

Where you have nothing to produce For private life or public use?

Court, city, country, want you not; You cannot bribe, betray, or plot.

For poets, law makes no provision; The wealthy have you in derision; Of state affairs you cannot smatter, Are awkward when you try to flatter; Your portion, taking Britain round, Was just one annual hundred pound; Now not so much as in remainder, Since Gibber brought in an attainder, For ever fixed by right divine, (A monarch's right,) on Grub Street line.

Poor starveling bard, how small thy gains!

How unproportioned to thy pains!

And here a simile comes pat in: Though chickens take a month to fatten, The guests in less than half an hour Will more than half a score devour.

So, after toiling twenty days To earn a stock of pence and praise, Thy labours, grown the critic's prey, Are swallowed o'er a dish of tea; Gone to be never heard of more, Gone where the chickens went before.

How shall a new attempter learn Of different spirits to discern, And how distinguish which is which, The poet's vein, or scribbling itch?

Then hear an old experienced sinner Instructing thus a young beginner: Consult yourself; and if you find A powerful impulse urge your mind, Impartial judge within your breast What subject you can manage best; Whether your genius most inclines To satire, praise, or humorous lines, To elegies in mournful tone, Or prologues sent from hand unknown; Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline; Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head, and bite your nails.

Your poem finished, next your care Is needful to transcribe it fair.

In modern wit, all printed trash is Set off with numerous breaks and dashes.

To statesmen would you give a wipe, You print it in italic type; When letters are in vulgar shapes, 'Tis ten to one the wit escapes; But when in capitals expressed, The dullest reader smokes the jest; Or else, perhaps, he may invent A better than the poet meant; As learned commentators view In Homer, more than Homer knew.

Your poem in its modish dress, Correctly fitted for the press, Convey by penny-post to Lintot; But let no friend alive look into 't.

If Lintot thinks 'twill quit the cost, You need not fear your labour lost: And how agreeably surprised Are you to see it advertised!

The hawker shows you one in print, As fresh as farthings from a mint: The product of your toil and sweating, A b.a.s.t.a.r.d of your own begetting.

Be sure at Will's the following day, Lie snug, and hear what critics say; And if you find the general vogue p.r.o.nounces you a stupid rogue, d.a.m.ns all your thoughts as low and little, Sit still, and swallow down your spittle; Be silent as a politician, For talking may beget suspicion; Or praise the judgment of the town, And help yourself to run it down; Give up your fond paternal pride, Nor argue on the weaker side; For poems read without a name We justly praise, or justly blame; And critics have no partial views, Except they know whom they abuse; And since you ne'er provoked their spite, Depend upon 't, their judgment's right.

But if you blab, you are undone: Consider what a risk you run: You lose your credit all at once; The town will mark you for a dunce; The vilest doggrel Grub Street sends Will pa.s.s 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 just with care employ your thoughts, Where critics marked your former faults; The trivial turns, the borrowed 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; On A's and B's your malice vent, While readers wonder what you meant: A public or a private robber, A statesman, or a South-Sea jobber; A prelate who no G.o.d believes; A parliament, or den of thieves; A pick-purse at the bar or bench; A d.u.c.h.ess, or a suburb wench: Or oft, when epithets you link In gaping lines to fill a c.h.i.n.k; 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 marish 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.

And may you ever have the luck, To rhyme almost as ill as Duck; And though you never learnt to scan verse, Come out with some lampoon on D'Anvers.

A pamphlet in Sir Bob's defence Will never fail to bring in pence: Nor be concerned about the sale-- He pays his workmen on the nail.

Display the blessings of the nation, And praise the whole administration: Extol the bench of Bishops round; Who at them rail, bid----confound: To Bishop-haters answer thus, (The only logic used by us,) 'What though they don't believe in----, Deny them Protestants,--thou liest.'

A prince, the moment he is crowned, 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: 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 G.o.d on earth turns devil in h.e.l.l; And lo! his ministers of state, Transformed 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 gather up a cl.u.s.ter Of all the virtues you can muster, Which, formed 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.

<script>