If such a doctrine, in St James's air, 110 Should chance to make the well-dress'd rabble stare; If honest S----z take scandal at a spark, That less admires the palace than the park: Faith, I shall give the answer Reynard gave: 'I cannot like, dread sir, your royal cave: Because I see, by all the tracks about, Full many a beast goes in, but none comes out.'

Adieu to virtue, if you're once a slave: Send her to court, you send her to her grave.

Well, if a king's a lion, at the least 120 The people are a many-headed beast: Can they direct what measures to pursue, Who know themselves so little what to do?

Alike in nothing but one lust of gold, Just half the land would buy, and half be sold: Their country's wealth our mightier misers drain, Or cross, to plunder provinces, the main; The rest, some farm the poor-box, some the pews; Some keep assemblies, and would keep the stews; Some with fat bucks on childless dotards fawn; 130 Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn; While with the silent growth of ten per cent, In dirt and darkness, hundreds stink content.

Of all these ways, if each pursues his own, Satire, be kind, and let the wretch alone: But show me one who has it in his power To act consistent with himself an hour.

Sir Job sail'd forth, the evening bright and still, 'No place on earth' (he cried) 'like Greenwich hill!'

Up starts a palace, lo, the obedient base 140 Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace, The silver Thames reflects its marble face.

Now let some whimsy, or that devil within, Which guides all those who know not what they mean, But give the knight (or give his lady) spleen; 'Away, away! take all your scaffolds down, For, snug's the word: my dear! we'll live in town.'

At amorous Flavio is the stocking thrown?

That very night he longs to lie alone.

The fool, whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter, 150 For matrimonial solace dies a martyr.

Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch, Transform themselves so strangely as the rich?

Well, but the poor--the poor have the same itch; They change their weekly barber, weekly news, Prefer a new japanner to their shoes, Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run (They know not whither) in a chaise and one; They hire their sculler, and when once aboard, Grow sick, and damn the climate--like a lord. 160

You laugh, half-beau, half-sloven if I stand; My wig all powder, and all snuff my band; You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary, White gloves, and linen worthy Lady Mary![134]

But, when no prelate's lawn with hair-shirt lined Is half so incoherent as my mind, When (each opinion with the next at strife, One ebb and flow of follies all my life) I plant, root up; I build, and then confound; Turn round to square, and square again to round; 170 You never change one muscle of your face, You think this madness but a common case, Nor once to Chancery, nor to Hale apply; Yet hang your lip, to see a seam awry!

Careless how ill I with myself agree, Kind to my dress, my figure, not to me.

Is this my guide, philosopher, and friend?

This, he who loves me, and who ought to mend?

Who ought to make me (what he can, or none), That man divine whom Wisdom calls her own; 180 Great without title, without fortune bless'd; Rich even when plunder'd, honour'd while oppress'd; Loved without youth, and follow'd without power; At home, though exiled; free, though in the Tower; In short, that reasoning, high, immortal thing, Just less than Jove, and much above a king, Nay, half in heaven--except (what's mighty odd) A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god.

THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

TO MR MURRAY.[135]

'Not to admire, is all the art I know, To make men happy, and to keep them so.'

(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech, So take it in the very words of Creech.)[136]

This vault of air, this congregated ball, Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall, There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes Look through and trust the Ruler with his skies, To Him commit the hour, the day, the year, And view this dreadful All without a fear. 10

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold, Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold; All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?

Or popularity? or stars and strings?

The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?

Say with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze, And pay the great our homage of amaze?

If weak the pleasure that from these can spring, The fear to want them is as weak a thing: Whether we dread, or whether we desire, 20 In either case, believe me, we admire; Whether we joy or grieve, the same the curse, Surprised at better, or surprised at worse.

Thus good or bad, to one extreme betray The unbalanced mind, and snatch the man away: For virtue's self may too much zeal be had; The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

Go then, and, if you can, admire the state Of beaming diamonds, and reflected plate; Procure a taste to double the surprise, 30 And gaze on Parian charms with learned eyes: Be struck with bright brocade, or Tyrian dye, Our birthday nobles' splendid livery.

If not so pleased, at council-board rejoice, To see their judgments hang upon thy voice; From morn to night, at Senate, Rolls, and Hall, Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all.

But wherefore all this labour, all this strife?

For fame, for riches, for a noble wife?

Shall one whom nature, learning, birth, conspired 40 To form, not to admire, but be admired, Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth, Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth?

Yet time ennobles, or degrades each line; It brighten'd Craggs's,[137] and may darken thine: And what is fame? the meanest have their day, The greatest can but blaze, and pass away.

Graced as thou art, with all the power of words, So known, so honour'd, at the House of Lords: Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh 50 (More silent far) where kings and poets lie; Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) Shall be no more than Tully, or than Hyde!

Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone, Will any mortal let himself alone?

See Ward by batter'd beaux invited over, And desperate misery lays hold on Dover.

The case is easier in the mind's disease; There all men may be cured, whene'er they please.

Would ye be blest? despise low joys, low gains; 60 Disdain whatever Cornbury[138] disdains; Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.

But art thou one, whom new opinions sway, One who believes as Tindal[139] leads the way, Who virtue and a church alike disowns, Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones?

Fly then, on all the wings of wild desire, Admire whate'er the maddest can admire: Is wealth thy passion? Hence! from pole to pole, Where winds can carry, or where waves can roll, 70 For Indian spices, for Peruvian gold, Prevent the greedy, and outbid the bold: Advance thy golden mountain to the skies; On the broad base of fifty thousand rise, Add one round hundred, and (if that's not fair) Add fifty more, and bring it to a square.

For, mark the advantage; just so many score Will gain a wife with half as many more, Procure her beauty, make that beauty chaste, And then such friends--as cannot fail to last. 80 A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth, Venus shall give him form, and Anstis[140] birth.

(Believe me, many a German prince is worse, Who, proud of pedigree, is poor of purse).

His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds; Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds; Or if three ladies like a luckless play,[141]

Takes the whole house upon the poet's day.

Now, in such exigencies not to need, Upon my word, you must be rich indeed; 90 A noble superfluity it craves, Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves; Something, which for your honour they may cheat, And which it much becomes you to forget.

If wealth alone then make and keep us bless'd, Still, still be getting, never, never rest.

But if to power and place your passion lie, If in the pomp of life consist the joy; Then hire a slave, or (if you will) a lord 100 To do the honours, and to give the word; Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach, To whom to nod, whom take into your coach, Whom honour with your hand: to make remarks, Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks: 'This may be troublesome, is near the chair: That makes three members, this can choose a mayor.'

Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest, Adopt him son, or cousin at the least, Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest. 110

Or if your life be one continued treat, If to live well means nothing but to eat; Up, up! cries Gluttony, 'tis break of day, Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey; With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite-- So Russel did, but could not eat at night, Call'd, happy dog! the beggar at his door, And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.

Or shall we every decency confound, Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our round, 120 Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo K--l's lewd cargo, or Ty--y's crew; From Latian syrens, French Circaean feasts, Return well travell'd, and transform'd to beasts, Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame, Renounce our country, and degrade our name?

If, after all, we must with Wilmot own, The cordial drop of life is love alone, And Swift cry wisely, '_Vive la bagatelle!_'

The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well. 130

Adieu--if this advice appear the worst, E'en take the counsel which I gave you first: Or better precepts if you can impart, Why do, I'll follow them with all my heart.

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The reflections of Horace, and the judgments past in his Epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country. The author thought them considerable enough to address them to his prince; whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch, upon whom the Romans depended for the increase of an absolute empire. But to make the poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.

This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: One, that Augustus was a patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate: _Admonebat praetores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsolefieri_, &c. The other, that this piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron.

Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries, first against the taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly against the court and nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the theatre; and lastly against the emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government. He shows (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient poets restrained; that satire and comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagances were left on the stage, were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the state; and concludes, that it was upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity.

We may further learn from this epistle, that Horace made his court to this great prince by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character.

TO AUGUSTUS.[142]

While you, great patron of mankind! sustain The balanced world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend; How shall the Muse, from such a monarch, steal An hour, and not defraud the public weal?

Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name, After a life of generous toils endured, The Gaul subdued, or property secured, 10 Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd, Or laws establish'd, and the world reform'd; Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find The unwilling gratitude of base mankind!

All human virtue, to its latest breath, Finds envy never conquer'd, but by death.

The great Alcides, every labour past, Had still this monster to subdue at last.