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Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art;
Which, without passing through the judgment, gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.

In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise;
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.
But though the ancients thus their rules invade,
(As kings dispense with laws themselves have made),
Moderns, beware! or if you must offend

Against the precept, ne'er transgress its`end.

V.

Still green with bays each ancient altar stands,
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;
Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage,
Destructive war, and all-involving age.

See, from each clime the learn'd their incense bring;
Hear, in all tongues consenting pæans ring!
In praise so just let ev'ry voice be joined,
And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind!
Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days;
Immortal heirs of universal praise!

Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;
Oh! may some spark of your celestial fire,
The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,
(That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights;
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes,)
To teach vain wits a science little known,
T'admire superior sense, and doubt their own!

VI.

Some to Conceit alone their taste confine,
And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Poets like painters, thus, unskilled to trace
The naked nature, and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed;

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;

Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

For works may have more wit than does 'em good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood.

VII.

Others for Language all their care express,
And value books, as women men, for dress:
Their praise is still, » >> the style is excellent<<;

The sense, they humbly take upon content.
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The face of nature we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay;
But true expression, like th' unchanging sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon;
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable.
A vile conceit, in pompous words expressed,
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed;
For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,
As sev'ral garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;
Such laboured nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

2. SENTENCES FROM ESSAY ON MAN.

I.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good.

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, » Whatever is, is right«<.

II.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

III.

For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best:

For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right:
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:

All must be false that thwart this one great end;
And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.
Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives;

The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run,

Yet make at once their circle round the sun;

So two consistent motions act the soul;
And one regards itself, and one the whole.

IV.

Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.

V.

What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath,
A thing beyond us, even before our death.

Just what you hear, you have, and what's unknown
The same (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends
In the small circle of our foes or friends;
To all beside as much an empty shade
An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead;

Alike or when, or where they shone, or shine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.

A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.

3. AN EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT Prologue to Satires and Epistles.

(1735.)

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?

They pierce my thickets, thro' my grot they glide,

By land, by water, they renew the charge,

They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Even Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at dinner-time.

Is there a parson, much be-mus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped.

If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.

Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I,
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

This saving counsel, »Keep your piece nine years«.
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown

Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own?

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
I left no calling for this idle trade,

No duty broke, no father disobeyed.

The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,
To help me thro' this long disease, my life,
To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach, the being you preserved, to bear.

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence
While pure Description held the place of sense?
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;
I wished the man a dinner, and sate still.
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret;
I never answered, I was not in debt.

If want provoked, or madness made them print,
I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest 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 tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even 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;
While wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise

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