This is a joy possess'd by few indeed!
Dame Fortune has so many fools to feed,
She cannot oft afford, with all her store,
To yield her smiles where Nature smiled before.
To sinking worth a cordial hand to lend;
With better fortune to surprise a friend;
To cheer the modest stranger's lonely state;
Or snatch an orphan family from fate;
To do, possess'd with virtue's noblest fire,
Such generous deeds as we with tears admire;
Deeds that, above ambition's vulgar aim,
Secure an amiable, a solid fame:
[seize;
These are such joys as Heaven's first favourites
These please you now,
and will for ever please.
Too seldom we great moral deeds admire:
The will, the power, the' occasion must conspire.
Yet few there are so impotent and low,
But can some small good offices bestow.
Small as they are, however cheap they come,
They add still something to the general sum:
And him who gives the little in his power,
The world acquits; and Heaven demands no more.
Unhappy he! who feels each neighbour's woe,
Yet no relief, no comfort can bestow.
Unhappy too, who feels each kind essay,
And for great favours has but words to pay;
Who, scornful of the flatterer's fawning art,
Dreads e'en to pour his gratitude of heart;
And, with a distant lover's silent pain,
Must the best movements of his soul restrain.
But men, sagacious to explore mankind,
Trace e'en the coyest passions of the mind,
Not only to the good we owe good will;
In good and bad, distress demands it still:
This, with the generous, lays distinction low,
Endears a friend, and recommends a foe.
Not that resentment never ought to rise;
For e'en excess of virtue ranks with vice:
And there are villanies no bench can awe,
That sport without the limits of the law.
No laws the' ungenerous crime would reprehend,
Could I forget Eumenes was my friend:
In vain the gibbet or the pillory claim
The wretch who blasts a helpless virgin's fame.
Where laws are duped, 'tis not unjust nor mean
To seize the proper time for honest spleen.
open candid foe I could not hate,
Nor e'en insult the base in humbled state;
But thriving malice tamely to forgive-
'Tis somewhat late to be so primitive.
But I detain you with these tedious lays,
Which few perhaps would read, and fewer praise.
No matter: could I please the polish'd few
Who taste the serious or the gay, like you,
The squeamish mob may find my verses bare
Of every grace-but curse me if I care.
Besides, I little court Parnassian fame;
There's yet a better than a poet's name.
"Twould more indulge my pride to hear it said,
That I with you the paths of honour tread,
Than that, amongst the proud poetic train,
No modern boasted a more classic vein;
Or that in numbers I let loose my song,
Smooth as the Tweed, and as the Severn strong.
An Epistle to a Young Critic.
Proferre quæ sentiat cur quisquam liber dubitet?-Malim, mehercule, solus insanire, quam sobrius aut plebis aut patrum delirationibus ignaviter assentari.
RANGE from Tower Hill all London to the Fleet, Thence round the Temple, to' utmost Grosvenor
Take in your route both Gray's and Lincoln's Inn;
Miss not, be sure, my Lords and Gentlemen;
You'll hardly raise, as I with Petty guess,
Above twelve thousand men of taste: unless
In desperate times a Connoisseur may pass.
"A Connoisseur! What's that?' 'Tis hard to say:
But you must oft, amidst the fair and gay,
Have seen a would-be rake, a fluttering fool,
Who swears he loves the sex with all his soul.
Alas, vain youth! dost thou admire sweet Jones?
Thou be gallant without or blood or bones!
You'd split to hear the' insipid coxcomb cry,
Ah, charming Nanny! 'tis too much! I die!'-
• Die and be d—n'd, (says one) but let me tell ye,
I'll pay the loss if ever rapture kill ye.'
Sir William Petty, author of the 'Political Arithmetic.'
'Tis easy learn'd the art to talk by rote:
At Nando's 'twill but cost you half a groat;
The Bedford school at threepence is not dear, sir;
At White's-the stars instruct you for a tester.
But he, whom Nature never meant to share
One spark of taste, will never catch it there:-
Nor no where else; howe'er the booby beau
Grows great with Pope and Horace and Boileau.
Good native taste, though rude,is seldom wrong,
Be it in music, painting, or in song.
But this, as well as other faculties,
Improves with age and ripens by degrees.
I know, my dear, 'tis needless to deny 't,
You like Voiture; you think him wondrous bright:
But seven years hence, your relish more matured,
What now delights will hardly be endured.
The boy may live to taste Racine's fine charms,
Whom Lee's bald orb, or Rowe's dry rapture
But he, enfranchised from his tutor's care,
Who places Butler near Cervantes' chair;
Or with Erasmus can admit to vie
Brown of Squab Hall of merry memory;
Will die a Goth: and nod at Woden's3 feast,
The' eternal winter long, on Gregory's breast.
2 A coffee-bouse of note in Fleet Street.
3 Alluding to the Gothic heaven, Woden's hall; where the happy are for ever employed in drinking beer, mum, and other comfortable liquors, out of the skulls of those whom they had slain in battle.
4 Pope Gregory the VIth, distinguished by the name of St. Gregory; whose pious zeal, in the cause of barbarous ignorance and priestly tyranny, exerted itself in demolishing, to the utmost of his power, all the remains of heathen genius.
Long may he swill, this patriarch of the dull, The drowsy mum— -But touch not Maro's skull! His holy barbarous dotage sought to doom, Good Heaven! the' immortal classics to the tomb!
Those sacred lights shall bid new genius rise,
When all Rome's saints have rotted from the skies.
Be these your guides, if at the ivy crown
You aim; each country's classics and your own:
But chiefly with the ancients pass your prime,
And drink Castalia at the fountain's brim.
The man to genuine Burgundy bred up,
Soon starts the dash of Methuen in his cup.
Those sovereign masters of the Muses' skill
Are the true patterns of good writing still.
Their ore was rich and seven times purged of lead;
Their art seem'd nature, 'twas so finely hid.
Though born with all the powers of writing well,
What pains it cost they did not blush to tell.
Their ease (my lords!) ne'er lounged for want of
fire,
Nor did their rage through affectation tire.
Free from all tawdry and imposing glare,
They trusted to their native grace of air:
Rapturous and wild, the trembling soul they seize,
Or sly coy beauties steal it by degrees;
The more you view them, still the more they please.
Yet there are thousands of scholastic merit Who worm their sense out, but ne'er taste their
Witness each pedant under Bentley bred:
Each commentator that e'er commented
(You scarce can seize a spot of classic ground,
With leagues of Dutch morass so floated round).
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