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,