Poets shall blush to see their wit outdone, Resume their reason and assert its throne, Shall fables still for virtue's sake commend; And wit the means, shall wisdom make its end.

Who hopes to please, shall strive to please by pains, Shall gaining fame, earn hard whate'er he gains And Denham's morals join to Denham's strains. Here paint the Thames[H] 'when running to the sea Like mortal life to meet eternity.' There show both kings and subjects 'one excess, Makes both, by striving, to be greater, less.' Shall climb and sweat, and falling, climb up still, Before he gains the height of Cooper's Hill.

In Windsor Forest, if some trifling grace Gives, at first blush, the whole a pleasing face, 'Tis wit, 'tis true; but then 'tis common-place. The landscape-writer branches out a wood, Then digging hard for't finds a silver flood. Here paints the woodcock quiv'ring in the air, And there, the bounding stag and quaking hare. Describes the pheasant's scarlet-circled eye, And next the slaught'ring gun that makes him die. From common epithets that fame derives, By which his most uncommon merit lives. 'Tis true! if finest notes alone could show, (Tun'd justly high or regularly low,) That we should fame to these mere vocals give, Pope more, than we can offer, should receive. For, when some gliding river is his theme, His lines run smoother than the smoothest stream; Not so when thro' the trees fierce Boreas blows, The period blust'ring with the tempest grows. But what fools periods read for periods' sake? Such chimes improve not heads, but make 'em ache; Tho' strict in cadence on the numbers rub, Their frothy substance is whip-syllabub; With most seraphic emptiness they roll, Sound without sense, and body without soul.

Not such the bards that give you just applause, Each, from intrinsic worth, thy praises draws, Morals, in ev'ry page, where'er they look, They find divinely scatter'd thro' thy book: They find thee studious with praiseworthy strife, To smooth the future roads of human life, To help the weak, and to confirm the strong, Make our griefs vanish, and our bliss prolong, With Phineus' equal find thy large desert, And in thy praise would equal Milton's art.

Some fools, we know, in spite of nature born, Would make thee theirs, as they are mankind's scorn, For still 'tis one of truth's unerring rules, No sage can rise without a host of fools. Coxcombs, by whose eternal din o'ercome, The wise in just revenge, might wish them dumb, Say on the world your dumbness you impose, And give you organs they deserve to lose. Impose, indeed, on all the world you would, If you but held your tongue, because you could; 'Tis hard to say, if keeping silence still, In one, who, could he speak, would speak with skill, Is worse, or talk in these, who talk so ill. Why on that tongue should purposed silence dwell, Whence every word would drop an oracle? More fools of thy known foresight make a jest, For all bate greatest gifts who share the least, (As Pope calls Dryden the often to the test[I]) Such from thy pen, should Irwin's sentence[J] wait, And at the gallows own the judge of fate. Or, while with feeble impotence they rail, Write wonders on, and with the wise prevail.

Sooner shall Denham cease to be renown'd, Or Pope for Denham's sense quit empty sound, To Addison's immortal heights shall rise, Or the dwarf reach him in his native skies. Sooner shall real gipsies grow most fair, Or false ones mighty truths like thine declare, Than these poor scandal-mongers hit their aim, And blemish thine or Curll's acknowledg'd fame.

Great Nostradamus thus, his age advis'd, The mob his counsels jeer'd, some bards[K] despis'd Him still, neglecting these his genius fir'd, A king encourag'd, and the world admir'd; Greater (as times great tide increas'd) he grew, When distant ages proved what truths he knew; Thy nobler book a greater king received, Whence I predict, and claim to be believ'd, That by posterity, less fame shall be To Nostradamus granted, than to thee; Thee! whom the best of Kings does so defend, And (myself barring) the best bards commend.
H. Stanhope.

Whitehall,
June 6th, 1720.

[C] (Vates) See the Progress of Learning.

[D] See the History of the Count de Gabalis, from whence he has taken the machinery of his Rape of the Lock.