GOLDSMITH TO THE AUTHOR.

Aldborough, 1778.

Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.

You're in love with the Muses? Well, grant it be true,

When, good Sir, were the Muses enamour'd of you?

Read first—if my lectures your fancy delight—

Your taste is diseased, can your cure be to write?

You suppose you're a genius, that ought to engage

The attention of wits and the smiles of the age:

Would the wits of the age their opinion make known,

Why—every man thinks just the same of his own.

You imagine that Pope—but yourself you beguile—

Would have wrote the same things, had he chose the same style.

Delude not yourself with so fruitless a hope—

Had he chose the same style, he had never been Pope.

You think of my muse with a friendly regard,

And rejoice in her author's esteem and reward:

But let not his glory your spirits elate,

When pleased with his honours, remember his fate.