Preface.
These satires have been favourably received at home and abroad. I am not conscious of the least malevolence to any particular person through all the characters; though some persons may be so selfish, as to engross a general application to themselves. A writer in polite letters should be content with reputation; the private amusement he finds in his compositions; the good influence they have on his severer studies; that admission they give him to his superiors; and the possible good effect they may have on the public; or else he should join to his politeness some more lucrative qualification.
But it is possible, that satire may not do much good: men may rise in their affections to their follies, as they do to their friends, when they are abused by others: it is much to be feared, that [pg 059] misconduct will never be chased out of the world by satire; all therefore that is to be said for it is, that misconduct will certainly be never chased out of the world by satire, if no satires are written: nor is that term unapplicable to graver compositions. Ethics, heathen and Christian, and the Scriptures themselves, are, in a great measure, a satire on the weakness and iniquity of men; and some part of that satire is in verse too: nay, in the first ages, philosophy and poetry were the same thing; wisdom wore no other dress: so that, I hope, these satires will be the more easily pardoned that misfortune by the severe. Nay, historians themselves may be considered as satirists, and satirists most severe; since such are most human actions, that to relate, is to expose them.
No man can converse much in the world, but, at what he meets with, he must either be insensible, or grieve, or be angry, or smile. Some passion (if we are not impassive) must be moved; for the general conduct of mankind is by no means a thing indifferent to a reasonable and virtuous man. Now to smile at it, and turn it into ridicule, I think most eligible; as it hurts ourselves least, and gives vice and folly the greatest offence: and that for this reason; because what men aim at by them, is, generally, public opinion and esteem; which truth is the subject of the following satire; and joins them together, as several [pg 060] brandies from the same root: a unity of design, which has not, I think, in a set of satires, been attempted before.
Laughing at the misconduct of the world, will, in a great measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. One passion is more effectually driven out by another, than by reason; whatever some may teach: for to reason we owe our passions: had we not reason, we should not be offended at what we find amiss: and the cause seems not to be the natural cure of any effect.
Moreover, laughing satire bids the fairest for success: the world is too proud to be fond of a serious tutor; and when an author is in a passion, the laugh, generally, as in conversation, turns against him. This kind of satire only has any delicacy in it. Of this delicacy Horace is the best master: he appears in good humour while he censures; and therefore his censure has the more weight, as supposed to proceed from judgment, not from passion. Juvenal is ever in a passion; he has little valuable but his eloquence and morality: the last of which I have had in my eye: but rather for emulation, than imitation, through my whole work.
But though I comparatively condemn Juvenal, in part of the sixth satire (where the occasion most required it), I endeavoured to touch on his manner; but was forced to quit it soon, as disagreeable to the writer, and reader too. Boileau [pg 061] has joined both the Roman satirists with great success; but has too much of Juvenal in his very serious satire on woman, which should have been the gayest of all. An excellent critic of our own commends Boileau's closeness, or, as he calls it, pressness, particularly; whereas, it appears to me, that repetition is his fault, if any fault should be imputed to him.
There are some prose satirists of the greatest delicacy and wit; the last of which can never, or should never, succeed without the former. An author without it, betrays too great a contempt for mankind, and opinion of himself, which are bad advocates for reputation and success. What a difference is there between the merit, if not the wit, of Cervantes and Rabelais? The last has a particular art of throwing a great deal of genius and learning into frolic and jest; but the genius and the scholar is all you can admire; you want the gentleman to converse with in him: he is like a criminal who receives his life for some services; you commend, but you pardon too. Indecency offends our pride, as men; and our unaffected taste, as judges of composition: nature has wisely formed us with an aversion to it; and he that succeeds in spite of it, is,[5] aliena venia, quam sua providentia tutior.
Such wits, like false oracles of old (which were wits and cheats), should set up for reputation [pg 062] among the weak, in some Bœotia, which was the land of oracles; for the wise will hold them in contempt. Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities; but not with equal success: for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an impostor, they are the last of a wit.
Some satirical wits and humourists, like their father Lucian, laugh at every thing indiscriminately; which betrays such a poverty of wit, as cannot afford to part with any thing; and such a want of virtue, as to postpone it to a jest. Such writers encourage vice and folly, which they pretend to combat, by setting them on an equal foot with better things: and while they labour to bring every thing into contempt, how can they expect their own parts should escape? Some French writers, particularly, are guilty of this in matters of the last consequence; and some of our own. They that are for lessening the true dignity of mankind, are not sure of being successful, but with regard to one individual in it. It is this conduct that justly makes a wit a term of reproach.
Which puts me in mind of Plato's fable of the birth of love; one of the prettiest fables of all antiquity; which will hold likewise with regard to modern poetry. Love, says he, is the son of the goddess poverty, and the god of riches: he has from his father his daring genius; his elevation of thought; his building castles in the air; his [pg 063] prodigality; his neglect of things serious and useful; his vain opinion of his own merit; and his affectation of preference and distinction: from his mother he inherits his indigence, which makes him a constant beggar of favours; that importunity with which he begs; his flattery; his servility; his fear of being despised, which is inseparable from him. This addition may be made; viz. that poetry, like love, is a little subject to blindness, which makes her mistake her way to preferments and honours; that she has her satirical quiver; and, lastly, that she retains a dutiful admiration of her father's family; but divides her favours, and generally lives with her mother's relations.
However, this is not necessity, but choice: were wisdom her governess, she might have much more of the father than the mother; especially in such an age as this, which shows a due passion for her charms.
Satire I.
TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF DORSET.
——Tanto major famæ sitis est, quam
Virtutis.
Juv. Sat. X.
My verse is satire; Dorset, lend your ear,
And patronize a muse you cannot fear.
To poets sacred is a Dorset's name:
Their wonted passport through the gates of fame:
It bribes the partial reader into praise,
And throws a glory round the shelter'd lays:
The dazzled judgment fewer faults can see,
And gives applause to Blackmore, or to me.
But you decline the mistress we pursue;
Others are fond of fame, but fame of you.
Instructive satire, true to virtue's cause!
Thou shining supplement of public laws!
When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age
Reproach our silence, and demand our rage;
When purchas'd follies, from each distant land,
Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand;
When the law shows her teeth, but dares not bite,
And south sea treasures are not brought to light;
When churchmen scripture for the classics quit,
Polite apostates from God's grace to wit;
When men grow great from their revenue spent,
And fly from bailiffs into parliament;
When dying sinners, to blot out their score,
Bequeath the church the leavings of a whore;
To chafe our spleen, when themes like these increase,
Shall panegyric reign, and censure cease?
Shall poesy, like law, turn wrong to right,
And dedications wash an Æthiop white,
Set up each senseless wretch for nature's boast,
On whom praise shines, as trophies on a post?
Shall fun'ral eloquence her colours spread,
And scatter roses on the wealthy dead?
Shall authors smile on such illustrious days,
And satirize with nothing—but their praise?
Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train,
Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain?
Donne, Dorset, Dryden, Rochester, are dead,
And guilt's chief foe, in Addison, is fled;
Congreve, who, crown'd with laurels, fairly won,
Sits smiling at the goal, while others run,
He will not write; and (more provoking still!)
Ye gods! he will not write, and Mævius will.
Doubly distrest, what author shall we find
Discreetly daring, and severely kind,
The courtly[6] Roman's shining path to tread,
And sharply smile prevailing folly dead?
Will no superior genius snatch the quill,
And save me, on the brink, from writing ill?
Tho' vain the strife, I'll strive my voice to raise,
What will not men attempt for sacred praise?
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
O'er globes, and sceptres, now on thrones it swells;
Now, trims the midnight lamp in college cells:
'Tis tory, whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,
Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades.
Here, to Steele's humour makes a bold pretence
There, bolder, aims at Pulteney's eloquence.
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead;
Nor ends with life; but nods in sable plumes,
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs.
What is not proud? The pimp is proud to see
So many like himself in high degree:
The whore is proud her beauties are the dread
Of peevish virtue, and the marriage-bed;
And the brib'd cuckold, like crown'd victims born
To slaughter, glories in his gilded horn.
Some go to church, proud humbly to repent,
And come back much more guilty than they went:
One way they look, another way they steer,
Pray to the gods, but would have mortals hear;
And when their sins they set sincerely down,
They'll find that their religion has been one.
Others with wishful eyes on glory look,
When they have got their picture tow'rds a book;
Or pompous title, like a gaudy sign,
Meant to betray dull sots to wretched wine.
If at his title T—— had dropt his quill,
T—— might have pass'd for a great genius still.
But T——, alas! (excuse him, if you can)
Is now a scribbler, who was once a man.
Imperious some a classic fame demand,
For heaping up, with a laborious hand,
A waggon-load of meanings for one word,
While A's deposed, and B with pomp restor'd.
Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
To patch-work learn'd quotations are allied;
Both strive to make our poverty our pride.
On glass how witty is a noble peer!
Did ever diamond cost a man so dear?
Polite diseases make some idiots vain,
Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.
Of folly, vice, disease, men proud we see;
And (stranger still!) of blockheads' flattery;
Whose praise defames; as if a fool should mean,
By spitting on your face, to make it clean.
Nor is't enough all hearts are swoln with pride,
Her power is mighty, as her realm is wide.
What can she not perform? The love of fame
Made bold Alphonsus his Creator blame:
Empedocles hurl'd down the burning steep:
And (stronger still!) made Alexander weep.
Nay, it holds Delia from a second bed,
Tho' her lov'd lord has four half months been dead.
This passion with a pimple have I seen
Retard a cause, and give a judge the spleen.
By this inspir'd (O ne'er to be forgot!)
Some lords have learn'd to spell, and some to knot.
It makes Globose a speaker in the house;
He hems, and is deliver'd of his mouse.
It makes dear self on well-bred tongues prevail,
And I the little hero of each tale.
Sick with the love of fame, what throngs pour in,
Unpeople court, and leave the senate thin!
My glowing subject seems but just begun,
And, chariot-like, I kindle as I run.
Aid me, great Homer! with thy epic rules,
To take a catalogue of British fools.
Satire! had I thy Dorset's force divine,
A knave or fool should perish in each line;
Tho' for the first all Westminster should plead,
And for the last, all Gresham intercede.
Begin. Who first the catalogue shall grace?
To quality belongs the highest place.
My lord comes forward; forward let him come!
Ye vulgar! at your peril, give him room:
He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
By heraldry prov'd valiant or discreet.
With what a decent pride he throws his eyes
Above the man by three descents less wise!
If virtues at his noble hands you crave,
You bid him raise his fathers from the grave.
Men should press forward in fame's glorious chase;
Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.
Let high birth triumph! What can be more great?
Nothing—but merit in a low estate.
To virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, though descended from the conqueror.
Shall men, like figures, pass for high, or base,
Slight, or important, only by their place?
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise;
The fool, or knave, that wears a title, lies.
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.
Dorset, let those who proudly boast their line,
Like thee, in worth hereditary, shine.
Vain as false greatness is, the muse must own
We want not fools to buy that Bristol stone;
Mean sons of earth, who, on a south-sea tide
Of full success, swarm into wealth and pride;
Knock with a purse of gold at Anstis' gate,
And beg to be descended from the great.
When men of infamy to grandeur soar,
They light a torch to show their shame the more.
Those governments which curb not evils, cause!
And a rich knave's a libel on our laws.
Belus with solid glory will be crown'd;
He buys no phantom, no vain empty sound;
But builds himself a name; and, to be great,
Sinks in a quarry an immense estate!
In cost and grandeur, Chandos he'll outdo;
And Burlington, thy taste is not so true.
The pile is finish'd! ev'ry toil is past;
And full perfection is arriv'd at last;
When, lo! my lord to some small corner runs,
And leaves state-rooms to strangers and to duns.
The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay,
Provides a home from which to run away.
In Britain, what is many a lordly seat,
But a discharge in full for an estate?
In smaller compass lies Pygmalion's fame;
Not domes, but antique statues, are his flame:
Not Fountaine's self more Parian charms has known,
Nor is good Pembroke more in love with stone.
The bailiffs come (rude men profanely bold!)
And bid him turn his Venus into gold.
"No, sirs," he cries; "I'll sooner rot in jail;
Shall Grecian arts be truck'd for English bail?"
Such heads might make their very busto's laugh:
His daughter starves; but[7] Cleopatra's safe.
Men, overloaded with a large estate,
May spill their treasure in a nice conceit:
The rich may be polite; but, oh! 'tis sad
To say you're curious, when we swear you're mad.
By your revenue measure your expense;
And to your funds and acres join your sense.
No man is bless'd by accident or guess;
True wisdom is the price of happiness:
Yet few without long discipline are sage;
And our youth only lays up sighs for age.
But how, my muse, canst thou resist so long
The bright temptation of the courtly throng,
Thy most inviting theme? The court affords
Much food for satire;—it abounds in lords.
"What lords are those saluting with a grin?"
One is just out, and one as lately in.
"How comes it then to pass we see preside
On both their brows an equal share of pride?"
Pride, that impartial passion, reigns through all,
Attends our glory, nor deserts our fall.
As in its home it triumphs in high place,
And frowns a haughty exile in disgrace.
Some lords it bids admire their wands so white,
Which bloom, like Aaron's, to their ravish'd sight:
Some lords it bids resign; and turn their wands,
Like Moses', into serpents in their hands.
These sink, as divers, for renown; and boast,
With pride inverted, of their honours lost.
But against reason sure 'tis equal sin,
To boast of merely being out, or in.
What numbers here, through odd ambition, strive
To seem the most transported things alive!
As if by joy, desert was understood;
And all the fortunate were wise and good.
Hence aching bosoms wear a visage gay,
And stifled groans frequent the ball and play.
Completely drest by[8] Monteuil, and grimace,
They take their birth-day suit, and public face:
Their smiles are only part of what they wear,
Put off at night, with Lady B——'s hair.
What bodily fatigue is half so bad?
With anxious care they labour to be glad.
What numbers, here, would into fame advance,
Conscious of merit, in the coxcomb's dance;
The tavern! park! assembly! mask! and play!
Those dear destroyers of the tedious day!
That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town!
Call it diversion, and the pill goes down.
Fools grin on fools, and, stoic-like, support,
Without one sigh, the pleasures of a court.
Courts can give nothing, to the wise and good,
But scorn of pomp, and love of solitude.
High stations tumult, but not bliss, create:
None think the great unhappy, but the great:
Fools gaze, and envy; envy darts a sting,
Which makes a swain as wretched as a king.
I envy none their pageantry and show;
I envy none the gilding of their woe.
Give me, indulgent gods! with mind serene,
And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene;
No splendid poverty, no smiling care,
No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there:
There pleasing objects useful thought suggest;
The sense is ravish'd, and the soul is blest;
On every thorn delightful wisdom grows;
In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
But some, untaught, o'erhear the whisp'ring rill,
In spite of sacred leisure, blockheads still;
Nor shoots up folly to a nobler bloom
In her own native soil, the drawing-room.
The squire is proud to see his coursers strain,
Or well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain.
Say, dear Hippolitus, (whose drink is ale,
Whose erudition is a Christmas tale,
Whose mistress is saluted with a smack,
And friend receiv'd with thumps upon the back,)
When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound,
And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground,
Is that thy praise? Let Ringwood's fame alone;
Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own;
Nor envies, when a gipsy you commit,
And shake the clumsy bench with country wit;
When you the dullest of dull things have said,
And then ask pardon for the jest you made.
Here breathe, my muse! and then thy task renew:
Ten thousand fools unsung are still in view.
Fewer lay-atheists made by church debates;
Fewer great beggars fam'd for large estates;
Ladies, whose love is constant as the wind;
Cits, who prefer a guinea to mankind;
Fewer grave lords to Scrope discreetly bend;
And fewer shocks a statesman gives his friend.
Is there a man of an eternal vein,
Who lulls the town in winter with his strain,
At Bath, in summer, chants the reigning lass,
And sweetly whistles, as the waters pass?
Is there a tongue, like Delia's o'er her cup,
That runs for ages without winding up?
Is there, whom his tenth epic mounts to fame?
Such, and such only, might exhaust my theme:
Nor would these heroes of the task be glad;
For who can write so fast as men run mad?