While all the endowments she confers
Are not so much our own as hers,
That, like good fortune, unawares
Fall not to our virtue, but our shares,
And all we can pretend to merit
We do not purchase, but inherit.
Thus all the great'st inventions, when
They first were found out, were so mean
That the authors of them are unknown,
As little things they scorned to own;
Until by men of nobler thought
Th' were to their full perfection brought.
This proves that wit does but rough-hew,
Leaves art to polish and review,
And that a wit at second hand
Has greatest interest and command;
For to improve, dispose, and judge,
Is nobler than to invent and drudge.
Invention's humorous and nice,
And never at command applies;
Disdains to obey the proudest wit,
Unless it chance to be in the fit,-
Like prophecy, that can presage
Successes of the latest age,
Yet is not able to tell when
It next shall prophesy again;
Makes all her suitors course and wait
Like a proud minister of state,
And, when she's serious in some freak,
Extravagant and vain and weak,
Attend her silly lazy pleasure,
Until she chance to be at leisure;
When 'tis more easy to steal wit.
To clip, and forge, and counterfeit,
Is both the business and delight,
Like hunting-sports, of those that write;
For thievery is but one sort,
The learned say, of hunting-sport.
Hence 'tis that some who set up first
As raw and wretched and unversed,
And opened with a stock as poor
As a healthy beggar with one sore;
That never writ in prose or verse,
But picked or cut it, like a purse,
And at the best could but commit
The petty-larceny of wit;
To whom to write was to purloin,
And printing but to stamp false coin;
Yet, after long and sturdy endeavours
Of being painful wit-receivers,
With gathering rags and scraps of wit
(As paper's made, on which 'tis writ),
Have gone forth authors, and acquired
The right or wrong-to be admired;
And, armed with confidence, incurred
The fool's good luck, to be preferred.
For, as a banker can dispose
Of greater sums he only owes
Than he who honestly is known
To deal in nothing but his own,
So whosoe'er can take up most
May greatest fame and credit boast.
'TIS well that equal Heaven has placed
Those joys above that to reward
The just and virtuous are prepared,
Beyond their reach until their pains are past;
Else men would rather venture to possess
By force, than earn, their happiness;
And only take the devil's advice,
As Adam did, how soonest to be wise,
Though at the expense of Paradise.
For, as some say to fight is but a base
Mechanic handiwork, and far below
A generous spirit to undergo,
So 'tis to take the pains to know,—
Which some, with only confidence and face,
More easily and ably do;
For daring nonsense seldom fails to hit,
Like scattered shot, and pass with some for wit.
Who would not rather make himself a judge,
And boldly usurp the chair,
Than with dull industry and care
Endure to study, think, and drudge,
For that which he much sooner may advance
With obstinate and pertinacious ignorance?
For all men challenge, though in spite
Of Nature and their stars, a right
To censure, judge, and know;
Though she can only order who
Shall be, and who shall ne'er be, wise.
Then why should those whom she denies
Her favour and good graces to
Not strive to take opinion by surprise,
And ravish what it were in vain to woo?
For he that desperately assumes
The censure of all wits and arts,
Though without judgment, skill, and parts,
Only to startle and amuse,
And mask his ignorance, as Indians use
With gaudy-coloured plumes
Their homely nether parts to adorn,
Can never fail to captive some,
That will submit to his oraculous doom,
And reverence what they ought to scorn;
Admire his sturdy confidence
For solid judgment and deep sense ;-
And credit purchased without pains or wit,
Like stolen pleasures, ought to be most sweet.
Two self-admirers, that combine
Against the world, may pass a fine1
Upon all judgment, sense, and wit,
And settle it, as they think fit,
On one another, like the choice
Of Persian princes by one horse's voice."
For those fine pageants, which some raise,
Of false and disproportioned praise,
To enable whom they please to appear
And pass for what they never were,
In private only being but named,
Their modesty must be ashamed,3
And not endure to hear;
And yet may be divulged and famed,
And owned in public everywhere.
So vain some authors are to boast
Their want of ingenuity, and club
Their affidavit wits, to dub
Each other but a Knight o' the Post,
As false as suborned perjurers,
That vouch away all right they have to their own ears.
But, when all other courses fail,
There is one easy artifice
That seldom has been known to miss,
To cry all mankind down, and rail:
For he whom all men do contemn
May be allowed to rail again at them,
And in his own defence
To outface reason, wit, and sense,
1 A mode of changing or alienating real property. The phrase is most usually adopted when a person has a limited interest in an estate, and, wishing to divest himself of a reversionary interest in it, settles the whole on himself absolutely. And this is the sense in which Butler here uses it.
2 The well-known story of the election of Darius.
3 Alluding to the custom of ushering books of poetry to the public with commendatory verses.
And all that makes against himself condemn;
To snarl at all things right or wrong,
Like a mad dog that has a worm in his tongue;
Reduce all knowledge back of good and evil
To its first original, the devil;
And, like a fierce inquisitor of wit,
То spare no flesh that ever spoke or writ;
Though, to perform his task, as dull
As if he had a toadstone in his skull,
And could produce a greater stock
Of maggots than a pastoral poet's flock.
The feeblest vermin can desiroy,
As sure as stoutest beasts of prey;
And only with their eyes and breath
Infect and poison men to death.
But that more impotent buffoon
That makes it both his business and his sport
To rail at all is but a drone,
That spends his sting on what he cannot hurt ;
Enjoys a kind of lechery in spite,
Like o'ergrown sinners that in whipping take delight ;
Invades the reputation of all those
That have, or have it not, to lose :
And, if he chance to make a difference,
'Tis always in the wrongest sense:
As rooking gamesters never lay
Upon those hands that use fair play,
But venture all their bets
Upon the slurs and cunning tricks of ablest cheats.
Nor does he vex himself much less
Than all the world beside,
Falls sick of other men's excess,
Is humbled only at their pride,
And wretched at their happiness;
Revenges on himself the wrong
Which his vain malice and loose tongue
To those that feel it not have done ;
And whips and spurs himself, because he is outgone;
Makes idle characters and tales,
As counterfeit, unlike, and false,
As witches' pictures are, of wax and clay,
To those whom they would in effigy slay.
And as the devil, that has no shape of his own,
Affects to put the ugliest on,
And leaves a stink behind him when he's gone:
So he that's worse than nothing strives to appear
I' the likeness of a wolf or bear,
To fright the weak; but, when men dare Encounter with him, stinks, and vanishes to air.
A PALINODE TO THE HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ESQ.
UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE POEM OF "THE BRITISH PRINCES."
It is your pardon, sir, for which my Muse
Thrice humbly thus, in form of paper, sues;
For, having felt the dead weight of your wit,
She comes to ask forgiveness, and submit ;
Is sorry for her faults, and, while I write,
Mourns in the black, does penance in the white :
But such is her belief in your just candour,
She hopes you will not so misunderstand her
To wrest her harmless meaning to the sense
Of silly emulation or offence.
No your sufficient wit does still declare
Itself too amply; they are mad that dare
So vain and senseless a presumption own
To yoke your vast parts in comparison.
And yet you might have thought upon a way
To instruct us how you'd have us to obey;
And not command our praises, and then blame
All that's too great or little for your fame ;1
For who could choose but err, without some trick
To take your elevation to a nick?
As he that was desired, upon occasion,
To make the Mayor of London an oration,
Desired his lordship's favour that he might
Take measure of his mouth, to fit it right;
So, had you sent a scantling of your wit,
You might have blamed us if it did not fit ;
But 'tis not just to impose, and then cry down
All that's unequal to your huge renown;
For he that writes below your vast desert
Betrays his own, and not your, want of art.
Praise, like a robe of state, should not sit close
To the person 'tis made for, but, wide and loose,
Derives its comeliness from being unfit;
And such have been our praises of your wit,
Which is so extraordinary no height
Of fancy, but your own, can do it right;
Witness those glorious poems you have writ
With equal judgment, learning, art, and wit,
And those stupendious discoveries
You've lately made of wonders in the skies.
For who, but from yourself, did ever hear
The "sphere of atoms was the "atmosphere ?"2
1 Mr. Howard was very angry with his critics, and particularly with those who ridiculed him under the disguise of burlesque panegyric.
2 A space transparent entertains the eye;
The sphere of atoms called.
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