What we conceive with ease we can exprefs:
Words to the notions flow with readiness.
Obferve the language well in all you write,
And fwerve not from it in your loftieft flight.
The fmoothest verse and the exacteft fense
Displease us, if ill English give offence:
A barbarous phrafe no reader can approve;
Nor bombaft, noise, or affectation love.
In short, without pure language, what you write
Can never yield us profit or delight.
Take time for thinking; never work in haste;
And value not yourself for writing fast.
A rapid poem with such fury writ,
Shews want of judgment, not abounding wit.
More pleas'd we are to fee a river lead
His gentle streams along a flowery mead,
Than from high banks to hear loud torrents roar,
With foamy waters on a muddy fhore.
Gently make hafte, of labour not afraid;
A hundred times confider what you've said:
Polish, repolish, every colour lay,
And fometimes add, but oftener take away.
'Tis not enough when swarming faults are writ, 175
That here and there are scatter'd sparks of wit:
Each object must be fix'd in the due place,
And differing parts have corresponding grace:
Till by a curious art difpos'd, we find
One perfect whole, of all the pieces join'd.
Keep to your fubject clofe in all you fay;
Nor for a founding sentence ever stray.
The public cenfure for your writings fear,
And to yourself be critic most severe.
Fantastic wits their darling follies love :
But find you faithful friends that will reprove,
That on your works may look with careful eyes,
And of your faults be zealous enemies :
Lay by an author's pride and vanity,
And from a friend a flatterer defcry,
Who seems to like, but means not what he says:
Embrace true counsel, but fufpect falfe praise.
A fycophant will every thing admire :
Each verfe, each sentence fets his foul on fire:
All is divine! there's not a word amifs!
He shakes with joy, and weeps with tenderness,
He overpowers you with his mighty praise.
Truth never moves in thofe impetuous ways:
A faithful friend is careful of your fame,
And freely will your heedlefs errors blame;
He cannot pardon a neglected line,
But verfe to rule and order will confine.
Reprove of words the too affected found;
Here the sense flags, and your expreffion's round,
Your fancy tires, and your discourse grows vain, 205
Your terms improper, make them just and plain.
Thus 'tis a faithful friend will freedom ufe;
But authors, partial to their darling mufe,
Think to protect it they have just pretence,
And at your friendly counsel take offence.
Said you of this, that the expreffion's flat?
Your fervant, Sir, you must excuse me that,
He answers you. This word has here no grace,
Pray leave it out: That, Sir, 's the propereft place.
This turn I like not: 'Tis approv'd by all.
Thus, refolute not from one fault to fall,
If there's a fyllable of which you doubt,
'Tis a fure reason not to blot it out.
Yet still he fays you may his faults confute,
And over him your power is abfolute :
But of his feign'd humility take heed;
'Tis a bait laid to make you hear him read.
And when he leaves you happy in his muse,
Restless he runs fome other to abuse,
And often finds; for in our fcribbling times
No fool can want a fot to praise his rhymes;
The flatteft work has ever in the court,
Met with fome zealous afs for its fupport:
And in all times a forward fcribbling fop
Has found fome greater fool to cry him up.
As a fair nymph, when rifing from her bed,
With sparkling diamonds dreffes not her head,
But without gold, or pearl, or coftly scents,
Gathers from neighb'ring fields her ornaments;
Such, lovely in its dress, but plain withal,
Ought to appear a perfect Paftoral:
Its humble method nothing has of fierce,
But hates the rattling of a lofty verse:
There native beauty pleases, and excites,
And never with harsh founds the ear affrights.
But in this style a poet often spent,
In rage throws by his rural inftrument,
And vainly, when disorder'd thoughts abound,
Amidft the Eclogue makes the trumpet found:
Pan flies alarm'd into the neighbouring woods,
And frighted nymphs dive down into the floods.
Oppos'd to this another, low in style,
Makes fhepherds speak a language base and vile:
His writings, flat and heavy, without found,
Kiffing the earth, and creeping on the ground;
You'd fwear that Randal in his ruftic strains,
Again was quavering to the country swains,
And changing without care of found or dress,
Strephon and Phyllis, into Tom and Befs.
'Twixt thefe extremes 'tis hard to keep the right; 255
For guides take Virgil, and read Theocrite:
Be their juft writings, by the gods inspir'd,
Your conftant pattern practis'd and admir'd.
By them alone you'll eafily comprehend
How poets, without shame, may condescend
To fing of gardens, fields, of flowers, and fruit,
To ftir up fhepherds, and to tune the flute;
Of love's rewards to tell the happy hour,
Daphne a tree, Narciffus made a flower,
And by what means the Eclogue yet has power
To make the woods worthy a conqueror:
This of their writings is the grace and flight;
Their rifings lofty, yet not out of fight.
The Elegy that loves a mournful style,
With unbound hair weeps at a funeral pile,
It paints the lovers torments and delights,
A mistress flatters, threatens, and invites:
But well these raptures if you'll make us fee,
You must know love as well as poetry.
I hate thofe lukewarm authors, whofe forc'd fire 275 In a cold ftyle describe a hot defire,
That figh by rule, and raging in cold blood
Their fluggish muse whip to an amorous mood:
Their feign'd transports appear but flat and vain ;
They always figh, and always hug their chain,
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