Part 100 (1/2)

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 on 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 s.h.i.+lling.)

A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations _Peri Hupsous_.

And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outs.h.i.+ne us.

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 tribes 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 he understood.

Your lesson learned, 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 Trin.o.bantum, 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 learned 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 Mavius reigns o'er Kentish-town; Tigellius, placed in Phoebus' car, From Ludgate s.h.i.+nes to Temple-bar: Harmonious Cibber entertains The court with annual birth-day strains; Whence Gay was banished 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; 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 Parna.s.sus' 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 wh.o.r.es, 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 out-sung 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 allowed them food.

Remains a difficulty still, To purchase fame by writing ill.

From Flecknoe down to Howard's time, How few have reached the low sublime!

For when our high-born Howard died, Blackmore alone his place supplied; And lest a chasm should intervene, When death had finished Blackmore's reign, The leaden crown devolved to thee, Great poet of the Hollow Tree.

But ah! how unsecure thy throne!

A thousand bards thy right disown; They plot to turn, in factious zeal, Duncenia to a commonweal; And with rebellious arms pretend An equal privilege to defend.

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; Concannen, more aspiring bard, Soars downwards deeper by a yard; Smart Jemmy Moor with vigour drops; The rest pursue as thick as hops.

With heads to point, the gulf they enter, Linked perpendicular to the centre; And, as their heels elated rise, Their heads attempt the nether skies.

Oh, what indignity and shame, To prost.i.tute the Muse's name, By flattering kings, whom Heaven designed 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, Confessed the conquering hero stands.