The greatest Art is fure your Art alone,
Of pleasing all Men in your sparing none:
Charm'd with your Wit, tho' it their Scandal grows,
Their Follies please them, which you thus expose.
Your graceful Muse fo well becomes her Rage,
That ev'n her Scorn must every
Heart engage;
As angry Beauties but more charming prove,
1 And force their Foes to Wonder and to Love.
Your Subjects, tho' they are but Fictions all,
Seem, for your Art, more true and natural:
No strange, abfurd, new Miracles you feign,
More to perplex the Mind, than entertain;
Nor Truths incredible relate, or fhew,
To make us wonder lefs at them, than you.
What Satisfaction can our Senfe receive
From Tales, or Accidents, it can't believe?
'Tis the too bold Improbability,
That makes ridiculous the labour'd Lye,
And Lyar too; no Shame is undergone
More for a Lye, than Truth that looks like One.
No matter what Poetic Stories are,
Or false, or true, so true they but appear;
None juft, or fit, can their Invention call,
If 'tis not eafie, free, and natural.
Your Plot, tho' seeming intricate, is plain,
And gives us Pleasure, keeping us in Pain;
Begets our Wonder first, then clears our Doubt;
Hard to conceive, as easie when found out:
Wit, Fancy, Judgment, and Invention too,
(Which feldom meet in Others) join in You;
In you each regularly plays its Part
Your Art seems Nature, and your Nature Art.
1 And, when they wou'd provoke, engage our Love.
2 In Mr. Theobald's Edition:
Wit, Fancy, Judgment, and Invention too,
Which seldom meet in others, join in you;
Nay oft in others one another thwart,
Whilst each so regularly plays its Part
In you, your Art seems Nature and your Nature Art.
You reprefent no Characters fo low,
As make our Loathing our Diversion grow;
When Nature, in Simplicity's Excess,
1 Becomes itself too natural to please.
No witty Lovers in your Scenes we fee,
Who figh by Rule, and take less Care to be
True to their Mistress, than their Simile.
No formal Fools endeavour to make known
Their Senfe, when Paffion only should be shown;
2 Paffion is want of Senfe, and what will prove
Oft more perfwafive far than Wit in Love;
3 For Love, and Wit, as feldom at one Time
Together meet, as good Sense with good Rhime;4
You thwart not Nature with Poetic Arts,
Nor think your Lovers with their Head's good Parts,
More than their Bodies, can take Female Hearts.
You Rhime for Reason on them ne'er obtrude,
For Argument a false Similitude;
Nor make them e'er to wound their Ladies aim
With sharp Conceit, or pointed Epigram,
Or fire them only with the Poet's Flame.
5 Yet all your Thoughts are chaft as is your Stile,
You, without Guilt, can make the Modest smile;
Virgins your Love without a Blush may hear,
Which strikes their Heart, yet never wounds the Ear.
Your Wit is juft, as ftill in Season shown, Since Oftentation makes fome pass for none; And as good Breeding, fo the best good Sense, In the wrong Place, becomes Impertinence.
1 Walks in a Garb too course and mean to please.
2 This sense confounds; for, against Nature, Sense
Turns Folly, and gives those twou'd please Offence,
While 'tis extravagant Impertinence :
But Passion (since it want of Sense does seem)
We Love's best Proof in Lovers should esteem:
For true Love sure but a short Madness is,
Since none, at once, can Lovers be and Wise.
Except in your smooth Numbers, Thoughts sublime.
5 Yet you with Love can coldest Hearts inspire,
Give them, without Concupiscence Desire;
With warm Thoughts, yet, as chast as is your Stile,
You, without Guilt, can make the Modest smile;
You ne'er difgrac'd your true and Sterling Wit,
By putting off the viler Drofs with it;
Which, like true Coin, must for suspected pass,
When mix'd with what is Counterfeit, or Base:
False Wit is of the Want of true the Sign,
As the false Money of the Dearth of Coin.
Our Fools of Fancy scarce a Thought refuse,
Only because they know not which to chufe.
Your Sense distinguishes 2 the just and fit,
And scorns the forc'd Impertinence of Wit;3
But ftill fhun an Artifice fo mean,
you
As with forc'd Pleafantry to load your Scene;
Make the low Farce to sprightly Wit give way,
And scorn to keep the dull Buffoon in Play.
No strange, or far-fetch'd Episode obtrude,
Nor leave your Tale for a dull Interlude.
No pompous Fuftian in your Plays we find,
More to confound, than to furprize the Mind;
To make us lefs conceive, the more we hear,
Or ftun each Head by puzz'ling eve'ry Ear.
Your Senfe, clear is, as are your Numbers fweet,
Takes Refuge in no myftical Deceit;
No Double-meanings on your Pit you pass,
Which stain our Honour, and our Wit debase:
Sense, seeming double, oft proves none at all,
And is, like Love, more falfe, as general; 4
Strong is your Judgment, as your Reason found,
Your Wit as piercing, as your Sense profound;
Your Fancy copious, fluent, clear and high,
Yet without barren Superfluity;
Nor from the Fulness of your fruitful Head,
Are crude, and undigested Humours bred.
1 Know not how to chuse.
* Twixt just and fit.
By which, as by forc'd Mirth, a Man is made
With That, which should divert him, but more sad;
4 Or Truth, for being too equivocal.
Your Judgment has no Fault, but too much Wit; And you to heighten, and illuftrate it,
1 To mix inferior Thoughts should condefcend,
As meaner Foils the Diamond's Luftre mend.
2 Pure Sense, like Gold, will best our Art obey,
When mix'd, and strengthen'd, with its juft Allay:
So skilful Artists first cement their Gold
With the grofs Mixture of a meaner Mold;
Then, with rich Workmanship, the Loss restore,
And raise the Worth, while they debase the Ore.
Some value Wit, like Coin, because 'tis old,
And judge the lightest is the pureft Gold;
As much by others 'tis defpis'd of late,
And worn by Time, seems crack'd, and out of date;
Or from its Age fufpected in its Weight.
But like the new-mill'd Coin appears your Wit,
Which none can leffen, or can counterfeit;
Which, like true Gold, can ev'ry Test endure,
At once is weighty, folid, bright and pure;
Tho' late-coin'd, current; tho' untry'd, is fine,
Out-weighs their Old, and does our New out-fhine.
Such is your Sense, which you so well express,
The brightest Beauty has the richest Dress.
Nor in your Verfe does Sense submit to Sound,
As oft, in Songs, 'tis for the Mufick drown'd:3
Rhimes, with most others, Reason's Fetters are,
To ftop their Pegafus in full Career;
Their Fancy's Tramels, which retard the Race,
And check his Swiftness, while they smooth his Pace:
With you they guide him, and improve his Course,
In Smoothness, Measure, Majefty and Force;
A safe, tho' high; a swift, yet eafie Flight;
Discreet, tho' daring; lofty, yet in Sight.
1 You shou'd (as Artists with their Diamonds do)
By adding Foils, a purer Brightness shew;
Pure Sense, as pure Gold, best will Art obey.
• Your Reason too agreeing with your Rhime,
Is still in Tune, as is your Sense in Time :
Thus, in all Kinds, your matchless Art is shown,
And thus, the whole Poetic World's your own;
Fame is engrofs'd by you, and what remain'd
For All t' attempt, by One has been obtain❜d.
Who writes with you, in hopes his Fame to raise,
Afpires (at beft) to eminent Disgrace.1
Your Reafon's Light wou'd my dark Sense out-shine,
And your Poetick Flame extinguish mine.
So when bright Phebus's purer Rays confpire,
To mix with Smoak, and dull Material Fire;
The Fire, that shone with mod'rate Light before,
O'ercome by too much Luftre, shines no more.
VERSES omitted from the Panegyrick on DULNESS.
HUS Dulness, the safe Opiate of the Mind,
The last kind Refuge weary Wit can find,
Fit for all Stations, and in all content,
Is fatisfy'd, fecure, and innocent:
No Pains it takes, and no Offence it gives,
Un-fear'd, un-hated, un-disturb'd it lives.
-And if each writing Author's best pretence,
Be but to teach the Ignorant more Sense;
Then Dulness was the Cause they wrote before,
As 'tis at last the Cause they write no more;
So Wit, which most to scorn it does pretend,
With Dulness first began, in Dulness last must end.
CONCLUSION added in the Year 1709, to the Poem called THE BILL OF FARE.
T length the Board, in loose disjointed Chat,
Defcanted, fome on this Thing, some on that;
Some, over each Orac❜lous Glass, fore-doom
The Fate of Realms, and Conquests yet to come;
1 Then, since no Writer now can find Success,
In writing after you (All must confess)
I shew my Sense more, by writing less.
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