Fr. Pack'd and precise, no Doubt. Yet surely those
Are but the Qualities we ask of Prose,
Was he a Poet?
P. Yes: if that be what
Byron was certainly and Bowles was not;
Or say you grant him, to come nearer Date,
What Dryden had, that was denied to Tate—
Fr. Which means, you claim for him the Spark divine,
Yet scarce would place him on the highest Line—
P. True, there are Classes. Pope was most of all
Akin to Horace, Persius, Juvenal;
Pope was, like them, the Censor of his Age,
An Age more suited to Repose than Rage;
When Rhyming turn'd from Freedom to the Schools,
And shock'd with Licence, shudder'd into Rules;
When Phœbus touch'd the Poet's trembling Ear
With one supreme Commandment Be thou Clear;
When Thought meant less to reason than compile,
And the Muse labour'd ... chiefly with the File.
Beneath full Wigs no Lyric drew its Breath
As in the Days of great Elizabeth;
And to the Bards of Anna was denied
The Note that Wordsworth heard on Duddon-side.
But Pope took up his Parable, and knit
The Woof of Wisdom with the Warp of Wit;
He trimm'd the Measure on its equal Feet,
And smooth'd and fitted till the Line was neat;
He taught the Pause with due Effect to fall;
He taught the Epigram to come at Call;
He wrote——
Fr. His Iliad!
P. Well, suppose you own
You like your Iliad in the Prose of Bohn,—
Tho' if you'd learn in Prose how Homer sang,
'Twere best to learn of Butcher and of Lang,—
Suppose you say your Worst of Pope, declare
His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre,
His Art but Artifice—I ask once more
Where have you seen such Artifice before?
Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd,
Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste?
Where can you show, among your Names of Note,
So much to copy and so much to quote?
And where, in Fine, in all our English Verse,
A Style more trenchant and a Sense more terse?
So I, that love the old Augustan Days
Of formal Courtesies and formal Phrase;
That like along the finish'd Line to feel
The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel;
That like my Couplet as compact as clear;
That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe,
Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by Trope,
I fling my Cap for Polish—and for Pope!
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE
To * * Esq. of * * with a Life of the late Ingenious Mr. Wm. Hogarth.
Dear Cosmopolitan,—I know
I should address you a Rondeau,
Or else announce what I've to say
At least en Ballade fratrisée;
But No: for once I leave Gymnasticks,
And take to simple Hudibrasticks;
Why should I choose another Way,
When this was good enough for Gay?