JOHN SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.[2]
ON MR. POPE AND HIS POEMS.
With age decayed, with courts and bus'ness tired,
Caring for nothing but what ease required;
Too dully serious for the muses' sport,
And from the critics safe arrived in port;
I little thought of launching forth again,5
Amidst advent'rous rovers of the pen:
And after so much undeserved success,
Thus hazarding at last to make it less.
Encomiums suit not this censorious time,
Itself a subject for satiric rhyme;10
Ignorance honoured, wit and worth defamed,
Folly triumphant, and ev'n Homer blamed!
But to this genius, joined with so much art,
Such various learning mixed in ev'ry part,
Poets are bound a loud applause to pay;15
Apollo bids it, and they must obey.
And yet so wonderful, sublime a thing
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing,
Except I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend,20
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed
Can all desert in sciences exceed.
'Tis great delight to laugh at some men's ways,
But a much greater to give merit praise.
ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA.[3]
TO MR. POPE.
The muse, of ev'ry heav'nly gift allowed
To be the chief, is public, though not proud.
Widely extensive is the poet's aim,
And in each verse he draws a bill on fame.
For none have writ (whatever they pretend)5
Singly to raise a patron, or a friend;
But whatsoe'er the theme or object be,
Some commendations to themselves foresee.
Then let us find, in your foregoing page,
The celebrating poems of the age;10
Nor by injurious scruples think it fit
To hide their judgments who applaud your wit.
But let their pens to yours the heralds prove,
Who strive for you as Greece for Homer strove;
Whilst he who best your poetry asserts,15
Asserts his own, by sympathy of parts.
Me panegyric verse does not inspire,
Who never well can praise what I admire;
Nor in those lofty trials dare appear,
But gently drop this counsel in your ear.20
Go on, to gain applauses by desert,
Inform the head, whilst you dissolve the heart;
Inflame the soldier with harmonious rage,
Elate the young, and gravely warm the sage;
Allure with tender verse the female race,25
And give their darling passion courtly grace;
Describe the Forest still in rural strains,
With vernal sweets fresh breathing from the plains.
Your tales be easy, natural, and gay,
Nor all the poet in that part display;30
Nor let the critic there his skill unfold,
For Boccace thus, and Chaucer tales have told.
Soothe, as you only can, each diff'ring taste,
And for the future charm as in the past.
Then should the verse of ev'ry artful hand35
Before your numbers eminently stand;
In you no vanity could thence be shown,
Unless, since short in beauty of your own,
Some envious scribbler might in spite declare,
That for comparison you placed them there.40
But envy could not against you succeed, }
'Tis not from friends that write, or foes that read; }
Censure or praise must from ourselves proceed. }
MR. WYCHERLEY.
TO MR. POPE, ON HIS PASTORALS.[4]
In these more dull, as more censorious days,
When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A muse sincere, that never flatt'ry knew,
Pays what to friendship and desert is due.
Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found5
Art strength'ning nature, sense improved by sound.
Unlike those wits whose numbers glide along
So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song:[5]
Laboriously enervate they appear,
And write not to the head, but to the ear:10
Our minds unmoved and unconcerned they lull,
And are at best most musically dull:
So purling streams with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into sleep.
As smoothest speech is most deceitful found, }15
The smoothest numbers oft are empty sound, }
And leave our lab'ring fancy quite aground.[6] }
But wit and judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as youth, as age consummate too:
Your strains are regularly bold, and please }20
With unforced care, and unaffected ease, }
With proper thoughts, and lively images: }
Such as by nature to the ancients shown,
Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own:
For great men's fashions to be followed are,25
Although disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear.
Some in a polished style write pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall;
Like some fair shepherdess, the sylvan muse,[7]
Decked in those flow'rs her native fields produce,30
With modest charms would in plain neatness please, }
But seems a dowdy in the courtly dress, }
Whose awkward finery allures us less.[8] }
But the true measure of the shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the country fit:35
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common swain's be wrought.
So, with becoming art, the players dress
In silks the shepherd and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchanged the form and mode remain,40
Shaped like the homely russet of the swain.
Your rural muse appears to justify
The long lost graces of simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With virgin charms, and native excellence.45
Yet long her modesty those charms concealed,
'Till by men's envy to the world revealed;
For wits industrious to their trouble seem,
And needs will envy what they must esteem.
Live and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate,50
Which would, if Virgil lived, on Virgil wait;
Whose muse did once, like thine, in plains delight;
Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight;
So larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.55