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Like the bold bird upon the banks of Nile
That picks the teeth of the dire crocodile,
Will I enjoy (dread feast!) the critic's rage,
And with the fell destroyer feed my page.
For what ambitious fools are more to blame,
Than those who thunder in the critic's name?
Good authors damn'd, have their revenge in this,
To see what wretches gain the praise they miss.

Balbutius, muffled in his sable cloak,
Like an old Druid from his hollow oak,
As ravens solemn, and as boding, cries,
"Ten thousand worlds for the three unities!"
Ye doctors sage, who through Parnassus teach,
Or quit the tub, or practise what you preach.

One judges as the weather dictates; right
The poem is at noon, and wrong at night:
Another judges by a surer gage,
An author's principles, or parentage;
Since his great ancestors in Flanders fell,
The poem doubtless must be written well.
Another judges by the writer's look;
Another judges, for he bought the book:
Some judge, their knack of judging wrong to keep;
Some judge, because it is too soon to sleep.
Thus all will judge, and with one single aim,
To gain themselves, not give the writer, fame.
The very best ambitiously advise,
Half to serve you, and half to pass for wise.

Critics on verse, as squibs on triumphs wait,
Proclaim the glory, and augment the state;
Hot, envious, noisy, proud, the scribbling fry
Burn, hiss, and bounce, waste paper, stink, and die.
Rail on, my friends! what more my verse can crown
Than Compton's smile, and your obliging frown?

Not all on books their criticism waste:
The genius of a dish some justly taste,
And eat their way to fame; with anxious thought
The salmon is refus'd, the turbot bought.
Impatient art rebukes the sun's delay
And bids December yield the fruits of May;
Their various cares in one great point combine
The business of their lives, that is--to dine.
Half of their precious day they give the feast;
And to a kind digestion spare the rest.
Apicius, here, the taster of the town,
Feeds twice a week, to settle their renown.

These worthies of the palate guard with care
The sacred annals of their bills of fare;
In those choice books their panegyrics read,
And scorn the creatures that for hunger feed.
If man by feeding well commences great,
Much more the worm to whom that man is meat.

To glory some advance a lying claim,
Thieves of renown, and pilferers of fame:
Their front supplies what their ambition lacks;
They know a thousand lords, behind their backs.
Cottil is apt to wink upon a peer,
When turn'd away, with a familiar leer;
And Harvey's eyes, unmercifully keen,
Have murdered fops, by whom she ne'er was seen.
Niger adopts stray libels; wisely prone,
To cover shame still greater than his own.
Bathyllus, in the winter of threescore,
Belies his innocence, and keeps a ----.
Absence of mind Brabantio turns to fame,
Learns to mistake, nor knows his brother's name;
Has words and thoughts in nice disorder set,
And takes a memorandum to forget.
Thus vain, not knowing what adorns or blots
Men forge the patents that create them sots.

As love of pleasure into pain betrays,
So most grow infamous through love of praise.
But whence for praise can such an ardour rise,
When those, who bring that incense, we despise?
For such the vanity of great and small,
Contempt goes round, and all men laugh at all.
Nor can even satire blame them; for 'tis true,
They have most ample cause for what they do
O fruitful Britain! doubtless thou wast meant
A nurse of fools, to stock the continent.
Though Phoebus and the Nine for ever mow,
Rank folly underneath the scythe will grow
The plenteous harvest calls me forward still,
Till I surpass in length my lawyer's bill;
A Welsh descent, which well-paid heralds damn;
Or, longer still, a Dutchman's epigram.
When, cloy'd, in fury I throw down my pen,
In comes a coxcomb, and I write again.

See Tityrus, with merriment possest,
Is burst with laughter, ere he hears the jest:
What need he stay? for when the jest is o'er,
His teeth will be no whiter than before.
Is there of thee, ye fair! so great a dearth,
That you need purchase monkeys for your mirth!

Some, vain of paintings, bid the world admire;
Of houses some; nay, houses that they hire:
Some (perfect wisdom!) of a beauteous wife;
And boast, like Cordeliers, a scourge for life.

Sometimes, through pride, the sexes change their airs;
My lord has vapours, and my lady swears;
Then, stranger still! on turning of the wind,
My lord wears breeches, and my lady's kind.

To show the strength, and infamy of pride,
By all 'tis follow'd, and by all denied.
What numbers are there, which at once pursue,
Praise, and the glory to contemn it, too?
Vincenna knows self-praise betrays to shame,
And therefore lays a stratagem for fame;
Makes his approach in modesty's disguise,
To win applause; and takes it by surprise.
"To err," says he, "in small things, is my fate."
You know your answer, "he's exact in great".
"My style", says he, "is rude and full of faults."
"But oh! what sense! what energy of thoughts!"
That he wants algebra, he must confess;
"But not a soul to give our arms success".
"Ah! that's an hit indeed," Vincenna cries;
"But who in heat of blood was ever wise?
I own 'twas wrong, when thousands called me back
To make that hopeless, ill-advised attack;
All say, 'twas madness; nor dare I deny;
Sure never fool so well deserved to die."
Could this deceive in others to be free,
It ne'er, Vincenna, could deceive in thee!
Whose conduct is a comment to thy tongue,
So clear, the dullest cannot take thee wrong.
Thou on one sleeve wilt thy revenues wear;
And haunt the court, without a prospect there.
Are these expedients for renown? Confess
Thy little self, that I may scorn thee less.

Be wise, Vincenna, and the court forsake;
Our fortunes there, nor thou, nor I, shall make.
Even men of merit, ere their point they gain,
In hardy service make a long campaign;
Most manfully besiege the patron's gate,
And oft repulsed, as oft attack the great
With painful art, and application warm.
And take, at last, some little place by storm;
Enough to keep two shoes on Sunday clean,
And starve upon discreetly, in Sheer-Lane.
Already this thy fortune can afford;
Then starve without the favour of my lord.
'Tis true, great fortunes some great men confer,
But often, even in doing right, they err:
From caprice, not from choice, their favours come:
They give, but think it toil to know to whom:
The man that's nearest, yawning, they advance:
'Tis inhumanity to bless by chance.
If merit sues, and greatness is so loth
To break its downy trance, I pity both.

Behold the masquerade's fantastic scene!
The Legislature join'd with Drury-Lane!
When Britain calls, th' embroider'd patriots run,
And serve their country--if the dance is done.
"Are we not then allow'd to be polite?"
Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right.
Worth, of politeness is the needful ground;
Where that is wanting, this can ne'er be found.
Triflers not even in trifles can excel;
'Tis solid bodies only polish well.

Great, chosen prophet! for these latter days,
To turn a willing world from righteous ways!
Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve;
Well has he seen his servant should not starve,
Thou to his name hast splendid temples raised
In various forms of worship seen him prais'd,
Gaudy devotion, like a Roman, shown,
And sung sweet anthems in a tongue unknown.
Inferior offerings to thy god of vice
Are duly paid, in fiddles, cards, and dice;
Thy sacrifice supreme, an hundred maids!
That solemn rite of midnight masquerades!

Though bold these truths, thou, Muse, with truths like these,
Wilt none offend, whom 'tis a praise to please;
Let others flatter to be flatter'd, thou
Like just tribunals, bend an awful brow.
How terrible it were to common-sense,
To write a satire, which gave none offence!
And, since from life I take the draughts you see.
If men dislike them, do they censure me?
The fool, and knave, 'tis glorious to offend,
And Godlike an attempt the world to mend,
The world, where lucky throws to blockheads fall,
Knaves know the game, and honest men pay all.
How hard for real worth to gain its price!
A man shall make his fortune in a trice,
If blest with pliant, though but slender, sense,
Feign'd modesty, and real impudence:
A supple knee, smooth tongue, an easy grace.
A curse within, a smile upon his face;
A beauteous sister, or convenient wife,
Are prizes in the lottery of life;
Genius and Virtue they will soon defeat,
And lodge you in the bosom of the great.
To merit, is but to provide a pain
For men's refusing what you ought to gain.

May, Dodington, this maxim fail in you,
Whom my presaging thoughts already view
By Walpole's conduct fired, and friendship grac'd,
Still higher in your Prince's favour plac'd:
And lending, here, those awful councils aid,
Which you, abroad, with such success obey'd!
Bear this from one, who holds your friendship dear;
What most we wish, with ease we fancy near.




JOHN GAY.

(1685-1732.)


XXXIV. THE QUIDNUNCKIS.

The following piece was originally claimed for Swift in the edition
of his works published in 1749. But it was undoubtedly written by
Gay, being only sent to Swift for perusal. This explains the fact
of its being found amongst the papers of the latter. The poem is
suggested by the death of the Duke Regent of France.


How vain are mortal man's endeavours?
(Said, at dame Elleot's,[182] master Travers)
Good Orleans dead! in truth 'tis hard:
Oh! may all statesmen die prepar'd!
I do foresee (and for foreseeing
He equals any man in being)
The army ne'er can be disbanded.
--I with the king was safely landed.
Ah friends! great changes threat the land!
All France and England at a stand!
There's Meroweis--mark! strange work!
And there's the Czar, and there's the Turk--
The Pope--An India-merchant by
Cut short the speech with this reply:
All at a stand? you see great changes?
Ah, sir! you never saw the Ganges:
There dwells the nation of Quidnunckis
(So Monomotapa calls monkeys:)
On either bank from bough to bough,
They meet and chat (as we may now):
Whispers go round, they grin, they shrug,
They bow, they snarl, they scratch, they hug;
And, just as chance or whim provoke them,
They either bite their friends, or stroke them.
There have I seen some active prig,
To show his parts, bestride a twig:
Lord! how the chatt'ring tribe admire!
Not that he's wiser, but he's higher:
All long to try the vent'rous thing,
(For power is but to have one's swing).
From side to side he springs, he spurns,
And bangs his foes and friends by turns.
Thus as in giddy freaks he bounces,
Crack goes the twig, and in he flounces!
Down the swift stream the wretch is borne;
Never, ah never, to return!
Zounds! what a fall had our dear brother!
Morbleu! cries one; and damme, t'other.
The nation gives a general screech;
None cocks his tail, none claws his breech;
Each trembles for the public weal,
And for a while forgets to steal.
Awhile all eyes intent and steady
Pursue him whirling down the eddy:
But, out of mind when out of view,
Some other mounts the twig anew;
And business on each monkey shore
Runs the same track it ran before.

[Footnote 182: Coffee-house near St. James's.]




ALEXANDER POPE.

(1688-1744.)


XXXV. THE DUNCIAD--THE DESCRIPTION OF DULNESS.

One of the most scathing satires in the history of literature. Pope
in the latest editions of it rather spoilt its point by
substituting Colley Gibber for Theobald as the "hero" of it. Our
text is from the edition of 1743. The satire first appeared in
1728, and other editions, greatly altered, were issued in 1729,
1742, 1743.


The mighty mother, and her son, who brings
The Smithfield muses[183] to the ear of kings,
I sing. Say you, her instruments the great!
Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and fate:
You by whose care, in vain decried and curst,
Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first;
Say, how the goddess bade Britannia sleep,
And poured her spirit o'er the land and deep.
In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read,
Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head,
Dulness o'er all possessed her ancient right,
Daughter of chaos and eternal night:
Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave,
Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave
Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,
She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.
Still her old empire to restore she tries,
For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies.
O thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair,
Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,[184]
Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind;
From thy Boeotia though her power retires,
Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our realm acquires,
Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread
To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead.
Close to those walls where folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,
Where o'er the gates, by his famed father's hand,[185]
Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand;
One cell there is, concealed from vulgar eye,
The cave of poverty and poetry,
Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess,
Emblem of music caused by emptiness.
Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down,
Escape in monsters, and amaze the town.
Hence miscellanies spring, the weekly boast
Of Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:[186]
Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,[187]
Hence journals, medleys, mercuries, magazines;
Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace,
And new-year odes,[188] and all the Grub Street race.
In clouded majesty here Dulness shone;
Four guardian virtues, round, support her throne:
Fierce champion fortitude, that knows no fears
Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:
Calm temperance, whose blessings those partake
Who hunger, and who thirst for scribbling sake:
Prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail:
Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,
Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,
Till genial Jacob,[189] or a warm third day,
Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry,
Maggots half-formed in rhyme exactly meet,
And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.
Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,
And ductile dulness new meanders takes
There motley images her fancy strike,
Figures ill paired, and similes unlike.
She sees a mob of metaphors advance,
Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance;
How tragedy and comedy embrace;
How farce and epic get a jumbled race;
How Time himself[190] stands still at her command,
Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land.
Here gay description Egypt glads with showers,
Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;
Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen,
There painted valleys of eternal green;
In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.
All these and more the cloud-compelling queen
Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene.
She, tinselled o'er in robes of varying hues,
With self-applause her wild creation views;
Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,
And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.
'Twas on the day when Thorold rich and grave,[191]
Like Cimon, triumphed both on land and wave:
(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,
Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces)
Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er,
But lived in Settle's numbers one day more.[192]
Now mayors and shrieves all hushed and satiate lay,
Yet ate, in dreams, the custard of the day;
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.
Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls
What city swans once sung within the walls;
Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,
And sure succession down from Heywood's[193] days.
She saw, with joy, the line immortal run,
Each sire impressed, and glaring in his son:
So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,
Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.
She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel[194] shine,
And Eusden eke out[195] Blackmore's endless line;
She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page,
And all the mighty mad[196] in Dennis rage.
In each she marks her image full exprest,
But chief in Bays's monster-breeding breast,
Bays, formed by nature stage and town to bless,
And act, and be, a coxcomb with success.
Dulness, with transport eyes the lively dunce,
Remembering she herself was pertness once.
Now (shame to fortune!) an ill run at play
Blanked his bold visage, and a thin third day:
Swearing and supperless the hero sate,
Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damned his fate;
Then gnawed his pen, then dashed it on the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there;
Yet wrote and floundered on in mere despair.
Round him much embryo, much abortion lay,
Much future ode, and abdicated play;
Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,
That slipped through cracks and zigzags of the head;
All that on folly frenzy could beget,
Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit,
Next, o'er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole,
How here he sipped, how there he plundered snug,
And sucked all o'er, like an industrious bug.
Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes, and here
The frippery of crucified Moliere;
There hapless Shakespeare, yet of Tibbald sore,
Wished he had blotted for himself before.
The rest on outside merit but presume,
Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room;
Such with their shelves as due proportion hold,
Or their fond parents dressed in red and gold;
Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own.
Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great;
There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines complete:
Here all his suffering brotherhood retire,
And 'scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire:
A Gothic library! of Greece and Rome
Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.

[Footnote 183: Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept,
whose shows and dramatical entertainments were, by the hero of this
poem and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent
Garden, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning
pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of King
George I. and II.]

[Footnote 184: _Ironice_, alluding to Gulliver's representations of
both.--The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the
currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great
discontent of the people, his majesty was graciously pleased to
recall.]

[Footnote 185: Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet laureate.
The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam Hospital were
done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments
of his fame as an artist.]

[Footnote 186: Two booksellers. The former was fined by the Court of
King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned
his shop with titles in red letters.]

[Footnote 187: It was an ancient English custom for the malefactors to
sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to
print elegies on their deaths, at the same time or before.]

[Footnote 188: Made by the poet laureate for the time being, to be sung
at court on every New Year's Day.]

[Footnote 189: Jacob Tonson the bookseller.]

[Footnote 190: Alluding to the transgressions of the unities in the
plays of such poets.]

[Footnote 191: Sir George Thorold, Lord Mayor of London in the year
1720. The procession of a Lord Mayor was made partly by land, and
partly by water.--Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a
victory by sea, and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians
and barbarians.]

[Footnote 192: Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to
compose yearly panegyrics upon the Lord Mayors, and verses to be spoken
in the pageants: but that part of the shows being at length abolished,
the employment of the city poet ceased; so that upon Settle's death
there was no successor appointed to that place.]

[Footnote 193: John Heywood, whose "Interludes" were printed in the
time of Henry VIII.]

[Footnote 194: The first edition had it,--

"She saw in Norton all his father shine":

Daniel Defoe was a genius, but Norton Defoe was a wretched writer, and
never attempted poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself made
successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as politics.
And both these authors had a semblance in their fates as well as
writings, having been alike sentenced to the pillory.]

[Footnote 195: Laurence Eusden, poet laureate before Gibber. We have
the names of only a few of his works, which were very numerous.

Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a poor writer, of no invention; but who
sometimes translated tolerably when assisted by Dryden. In the second
part of Absalom and Achitophel there are about two hundred lines in all
by Dryden which contrast strongly with the insipidity of the rest.]

[Footnote 196: John Dennis was the son of a saddler in London, born in
1657. He paid court to Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence
with Wycherley and Congreve he immediately made public their letters.]



XXXVI. SANDYS' GHOST; OR, A PROPER NEW BALLAD OF THE NEW OVID'S
METAMORPHOSES, AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY PERSONS OF QUALITY.

This satire owed its origin to the fact that Sir Samuel Garth was
about to publish a new translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_.
George Sandys--the old translator--died in 1643.


Ye Lords and Commons, men of wit,
And pleasure about town;
Read this ere you translate one bit
Of books of high renown.

Beware of Latin authors all!
Nor think your verses sterling,
Though with a golden pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a Berlin:

For not the desk with silver nails,
Nor bureau of expense,
Nor standish well japanned avails
To writing of good sense.

Hear how a ghost in dead of night,
With saucer eyes of fire,
In woeful wise did sore affright
A wit and courtly squire.

Rare Imp of Phoebus, hopeful youth,
Like puppy tame that uses
To fetch and carry, in his mouth,
The works of all the Muses.

Ah! why did he write poetry
That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity,
To rhyming and the devil?

A desk he had of curious work,
With glittering studs about;
Within the same did Sandys lurk,
Though Ovid lay without.

Now as he scratched to fetch up thought,
Forth popped the sprite so thin;
And from the key-hole bolted out,
All upright as a pin.

With whiskers, band, and pantaloon,
And ruff composed most duly;
The squire he dropped his pen full soon,
While as the light burnt bluely.

"Ho! Master Sam," quoth Sandys' sprite,
"Write on, nor let me scare ye;
Forsooth, if rhymes fall in not right,
To Budgell seek, or Carey.

"I hear the beat of Jacob's drums,
Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P---- comes[197]
In haste, without his garter.

"Then lords and lordlings, squires and knights,
Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers!
Garth at St. James's, and at White's,
Beats up for volunteers.

"What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnett or Tom D'Urfey may,
John Dunton, Steele, or anyone.

"If Justice Philips' costive head
Some frigid rhymes disburses;
They shall like Persian tales be read,
And glad both babes and nurses.

"Let Warwick's muse with Ashurst join,
And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's:
Tickell and Addison combine,
And Pope translate with Jervas.

"Lansdowne himself, that lively lord,
Who bows to every lady,
Shall join with Frowde in one accord,
And be like Tate and Brady.

"Ye ladies too draw forth your pen,
I pray where can the hurt lie?
Since you have brains as well as men,
As witness Lady Wortley.

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