And, damning the dull fiend a thousand times, By whom I was possess'd, forswear all rhymes; But, having curs'd the Muses, they appear, To be reveng'd for 't, ere I am aware. Spite of myself, I straight take fire again, Fall to my task with paper, ink, and pen, And, breaking all the oaths I made, in vain From verse to verse expect their aid again. But, if my Muse or I were so discreet T' endure, for rhyme's sake, one dull epithet, I might, like others, easily command Words without study, ready and at hand. In praising Chloris, moons, and stars, and skies, Are quickly made to match her face and eyes- And gold and rubies, with as little care, To fit the colour of her lips and hair;
And, mixing suns, and flowers, and pearl, and stones, Make them serve all complexions at once. With these fine fancies, at hap-hazard writ, I could make verses without art or wit, And, shifting forty times the verb and noun, With stol'n impertinence patch up mine own; But in the choice of words my scrupulous wit Is fearful to pass one that is unfit; Nor can endure to fill up a void place, At a line's end, with one insipid phrase; And, therefore, when I scribble twenty times, When I have written four, I blot two rhymes. May he be damn'd who first found out that curse, T'imprison and confine his thoughts in verse To haug so dull a clog upon his wit, And make his reason to his rhyme submit! Without this plague, I freely might My happy days with leisure and content; Had nothing in the world to do or think, Like a fat priest, but whore, and eat, and drink; Had past my time as pleasantly away, Slept all the night, and loiter'd all the day.
My soul, that 's free from care, and fear, and hope, Knows how to make her own ambition stoop, Tavoid uneasy greatness and resort, Or for preferment following the court. How happy had I been if, for a curse,
The Fates had never sentenc'd me to verse! But, ever since this peremptory vein, With restless frenzy, first possess'd my brain, And that the Devil tempted me, in spite write,
Of my own happiness waste my
Shut up against my will,
In mending this, and blotting out that page, And grow so weary of the slavish trade, I envy their condition that write bad. O happy Scudery! whose easy quill Can, once a month, a mighty volume fill; For, though thy works are written in despite Of all good sense, impertinent and slight, They never have been known to stand in need Of stationer to sell, or sot to read; For, so the rhyme be at the verse's end, No matter whither all the rest does tend. Unhappy is that man who, spite of 's heart Is fore'd to be ty'd up to rules of art. A fop that scribbles does it with delight, Takes no pains to consider what to write, But, fond of all the nonsense he brings forth, Is ravish'd with his own great wit and worth; While brave and noble writers vainly strive To such a height of glory to arrive; But, still with all they do unsatisfy'd,
And those whom all mankind admire for wit, Wish, for their own sakes, they had never writ. Thou, then, that seest how ill I spend my time, Teach me, for pity, how to make a rhyme; And, if th' instructions chance to prove in vain, Teach how ne'er to write again.
RIDICULOUS IMITATION OF THE FRENCH.
WHO would not rather get him gone Beyond th' intollerablest zone, Or steer his passage through those seas That burn in flames, or those that freeze, Than see one nation go to school, And learn of another, like a fool? To study all its tricks and fashions With epidemic affectations, And dare to wear no mode or dress, But what they in their wisdom please; As monkies are, by being taught To put on gloves and stockings, caught; Submit to all that they devise, As if it wore their liveries;
Make ready and dress th' imagination, Not with the clothes, but with the fashion; And change it, to fulfil the curse
Of Adam's fall, for new, though worse; To make their breeches fall and rise, From middle legs to middle thighs, The tropics, between which the hose Move always as the fashion goes: Sometimes wear hats like pyramids, And sometimes flat, like pipkins' lids; With broad brims, sometimes, like umbrellas, And sometimes narrow, as Punchinello's: In coldest weather go unbrac'd, And close in hot, as if th' were lac'd; Sometimes with sleeves and bodies wide, And sometimes straiter than a hide: Wear peruques, and with false grey hairs Disguise the true ones, and their years, That when they 're modish, with the young The old may seem so in the throng: And, as some pupils have been known In time to put their tutors down, So ours are often found to 'ave got More tricks than ever they were taught: With sly intrigues and artifices Usurp their poxes and their vices; With garnitures upon their shoes, Make good their claim to gouty toes;
By sudden starts, and shrugs, and groans, Pretend to aches in their bones,
To scabs and botches, and lay trains To prove their running of the reins; And, lest they should seem destitute Of any mange that 's in repute, And be behind hand with the mode, Will swear to crystallin and node; And, that they may not lose their right, Make it appear how they came by 't: Disdain the country where they were born, As bastards their own mothers scorn, And that which brought them forth contemn,
Ne'er please themselves, though all the world beside: As it deserves, for bearing them;
Admire whate'er they find abroad, But nothing here, though e'er so good: Be natives wheresoe'er they come, And only foreigners at home;
To which they appear so far estrang'd, As if they 'ad been i' th' cradle chang'd, Or from beyond the seas convey'd By witches-not born here, but laid; Or by outlandish fathers were Begotten on their mothers here, And therefore justly slight that nation, Where they 've so mongrel a relation; And seek out other climates, where They may degenerate less than here;
As woodcocks, when their plumes are grown, Borne on the wind's wings and their own, Forsake the countries where they 're hatch'd, And seek out others to be catch'd: So they more naturally may please And humour their own geniuses, Apply to all things which they see With their own fancies best agree; No matter how ridiculous, 'Tis all one, if it be in use; For nothing can be bad or good, But as 'tis in or out of mode; And, as the nations are that use it, All ought to practise or refuse it;
T' observe their postures, move, and stand, As they give out the word o' command; To learn the dullest of their whims, And how to wear their very limbs; To turn and manage every part, Like puppets, by their rules of art; To shrug discreetly, act, and tread, And politicly shake the head, Until the ignorant, (that guess At all things by th' appearances) To see how Art and Nature strive, Believe them really alive,
And that they're very men, not things That move by puppet-work and springs; When truly all their feats have been As well perform'd by motion-men, And the worst drolls of Punchinellos Were much th' ingeniouser fellows; For, when they're perfect in their lesson, Th' hypothesis grows out of season, And, all their labour lost, they 're fain To learn new, and begin again; To talk eternally and loud, And altogether in a crowd, No matter what; for in the noise No man minds what another says: T' assume a confidence beyond Mankind, for solid and profound, And still, the less and less they know, The greater dose of that allow: Decry all things; for to be wise Is not to know, but to despise; And deep judicious confidence Has still the odds of wit and sense, And can pretend a title to
Far greater things than they can do: Tadorn their English with French scraps, And give their very language claps; To jernie rightly, and renounce
th' pure and most approv'd-of tones, And, while they idly think t' enrich, Adulterate their native speech:
For, though to smatter ends of Greek Or Latin be the rhetorique
Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious, To smatter French is meritorious; And to forget their mother-tongue, Or purposely to speak it wrong, A hopeful sign of parts and wit, And that they improve and benefit; As those that have been taught amiss, In liberal arts and sciences,
Must all they 'ad learnt before in vain Forget quite, and begin again.
'Tis pity Wine, which Nature meant To man in kindness to present, And gave him kindly, to caress And cherish his frail happiness; Of equal virtue to renew
His wearied mind and body too; Should (like the cyder-tree in Eden, Which only grew to be forbidden) No sooner come to be enjoy'd, But th' owner 's fatally destroy'd ; And that which she for good design'd, Becomes the ruin of mankind, That for a little vain excess Runs out of all its happiness,
And makes the friend of Truth and Love Their greatest adversary prove; T'abuse a blessing she bestow'd So truly essential to his good, To countervail his pensive cares, And slavish drudgery of affairs; To teach him judgment, wit, and sense, And, more than all these, confidence; To pass his times of recreation In choice and noble conversation, Catch truth and reason unawares, As men do health in wholesome airs; (While fools their conversants possess As unawares with sottishness) To gain access a private way To man's best sense, by its own key, Which painful judges strive in vain By any other course t' obtain; To pull off all disguise, and view Things as they 're natural and true; Discover fools and knaves, allow'd For wise and honest in the crowd; With innocent and virtuous sport Make short days long, and long nights short, And mirth, the only antidote
Against diseases ere they 're got;
To save health harmless from th' access Both of the med'cine and disease;
Or make it help itself, secure Against the desperat'st fit, the cure. All these sublime prerogatives Of happiness to humau lives, He vainly throws away and slights, For madness, noise, and bloody fights; When nothing can decide, but swords And pots, the right or wrong of words, Like princes' titles; and he's outed The justice of his cause that's routed.
No sooner has a charge been sounded With-Son of a whore, and Damn'd confounded, And the bold signal given, the lie, But instantly the bottles fly,
Where cups and glasses are small shot,
And cannon-ball a pewter-pot:
That blood, that 's hardly in the vein,
Is now remanded back again;
Though sprung from wine of the same piece, And near a-kin, within degrees, Strives to commit assassinations On its own natural relations; And those twin-spirits, so kind-hearted, That from their friends so lately parted, No sooner several ways are gone, But by themselves are set upon, Surpris'd like brother against brother, And put to th' sword by one another; So much more fierce are civil wars, Than those between mere foreigners! And man himself, with wine possest, More savage than the wildest beast! For serpents, when they meet to water, Lay by their poison and their nature: And fiercest creatures, that repair, In thirsty deserts, to their rare And distant river's banks to drink, In love and close alliance link,
And from their mixture of strange seeds Produce new, never-heard-of breeds, To whom the fiercer unicorn Begins a large health with his horn; As cuckolds put their antidotes, When they drink coffee, into th' pots; While man, with raging drink inflam'd, Is far more savage and untam'd; Supplies his loss of wit and sense With barbarousness and insolence; Believes himself, the less he 's able, The more heroic and formidable; Lays by his reason in his bowls, As Turks are said to do their souls, Until it has so often been Shut out of its lodging, and let in, At length it never can attain To find the right way back again; Drinks all his time away, and prunes The end of 's life, as vignerons Cut short the branches of a vine, To make it bear more plenty o' wine; And that which Nature did intend T'enlarge his life, perverts t' its end.
So Noah, when he anchor'd safe on The mountain's top, his lofty haven, And all the passengers he bore Were on the new world set ashore, He made it next his chief design To plant and propagate a vine;
Which since has overwhelm'd and drown'd Far greater numbers, on dry ground, Of wretched mankind, one by one, Than all the flood before had done.
SATIRE UPON MARRIAGE. SURE marriages were never so well fitted, As when to matrimony men were committed, Like thieves by justices, and to a wife Bound, like to good behaviour, during life:
For then 'twas but a civil contract made' Between two partners that set up a trade; And if both fail'd, there was no conscience Nor faith invaded in the strictest sense;
No canon of the church, nor vow, was broke, When men did free their gall'd necks from the yoke; But when they tir'd, like other horned beasts, Might have it taken off, and take their rests, Without being bound in duty to show cause, Or reckon with divine or human laws.
For since, what use of matrimony has been But to make gallantry a greater sin? As if there were no appetite nor gust, Below adultery, in modish lust; Or no debauchery were exquisite, Until it has attain'd its perfect height. For men do now take wives to nobler ends, Not to bear children, but to bear them friends; Whom nothing can oblige at such a rate As these endearing offices of late.
For men are now grown wise, and understand How to improve their crimes as well as land; And, if they 've issue, make the infants pay
Down for their own begetting on the day,
The charges of the gossiping disburse,
And pay beforehand (ere they 're born) the nurse;
As he that got a monster on a cow, Out of design of setting up a show.
For why should not the brats for all account,
As well as for the christening at the fount, When those that stand for them lay down the rate O' th' banquet and the priest in spoons and plate? The ancient Romans made the state allow For getting all men's children above two: Then married men, to propagate the breed, Had great rewards for what they never did, Were privileg'd, and highly honour'd too, For owning what their friends were fain to do; For so they 'ad children, they regarded not By whom, (good men) or how, they were begot. To borrow wives (like money) or to lend, Was then the civil office of a friend, And he that made a scruple in the case Was held a miserable wretch and base; For when they 'ad children by 'em, th' honest mea Return'd them to their husbands back again. Then, for th' encouragement and propagation Of such a great concernment to the nation, All people were so full of complacence, And civil duty to the public sense, They had no name t' express a cuckold then, But that which signified all married men; Nor was the thing accounted a disgrace, Unless among the dirty populace, And no man understands on what account Less civil nations after hit upon 't: For to be known a cuckold can be no Dishonour but to him that thinks it so; For if he feel no chagrin or remorse,
His forehead's shot-free, and he's ne'er the worse For horns (like horny callouses) are found To grow on sculls that have receiv'd a wound, Are crackt, and broken; not at all on those, That are invulnerate and free from blows. What a brave time had cuckold-makers then, When they were held the worthiest of men, The real fathers of the commonwealth, That planted colonies in Rome itself! When he that help'd his neighbours, and begot Most Romans, was the noblest patriot!
For if a brave man, that preserv'd from death One citizen, was honour'd with a wreath, He, that more gallantly got three or four, In reason must deserve a great deal more. Then, if those glorious worthies of old Rome, That civiliz'd the world they 'ad overcome, And taught it laws and learning, found this way The best to save their empire from decay,
Why should not these, that borrow all the worth They have from them, not take this lesson forth- Get children, friends, and honour too, and money, By prudent managing of matrimony?
For, if 'tis honourable by all confest, Adultery must be worshipful at least,
And these times great, when private men are come Up to the height and politie of Rome. All by-blows were not only free-born then, But, like John Lilburn, free-begotten men; Had equal right and privilege with these, That claim by title right of the four seas: For, being in marriage born, it matters not After what liturgy they were begot; And if there be a difference, they have
Th' advantage of the chance in proving brave, By being engender'd with more life and force, Than those begotten the dull way of course. The Chinese place all piety and zeal In serving with their wives the commonweal; Fix all their hopes of merit and salvation Upon their women's supererogation:
With solemn vows their wives and daughters bind,
Like Eve in Paradise, to all mankind;
And those that can produce the most gallants,
Are held the preciousest of all their saints; Wear rosaries about their necks, to con
Their exercises of devotion on;
That serve them for certificates, to show With what vast numbers they have had to do: Before they 're marry'd make a conscience Tomit no duty of incontinence;
And she, that has been oftenest prostituted, Is worthy of the greatest match reputed. But, when the conquering Tartar went about To root this orthodox religion out,
They stood for conscience, and resolv'd to die, Rather than change the ancient purity Of that religion, which their ancestors And they had prosper'd in so many years; Vow'd to their gods to sacrifice their lives,
And die their daughters' mártyrs, and their wives', Before they would commit so great a sin Against the faith they had been bred up in.
SATIRE UPON PLAGIARIES.
WHY should the world be so averse
To plagiary privateers,
That all men's sense and fancy seize, And make free prize of what they please? As if, because they huff and swell, Like pilferers, full of what they steal, Others might equal power assume, To pay them with as hard a doom; To shut them up, like beasts in pounds, For breaking into others' grounds! Mark them with characters and brands, Like other forgers of men's hands; And in effigie hang and draw The poor delinquents by club-law, VOL VIIL
When no indictment justly lies, But where the theft will bear a price.
For though wit never can be learn'd, It may b' assum'd, and own'd, and earn'd, And, like our noblest fruits, improv'd, By being transplanted and remov'd; And, as it bears no certain rate, Nor pays one penny to the state, With which it turns no more t' account Than virtue, faith, and merit 's wont; Is neither moveable nor rent, Nor chattle, goods, nor tenement, Nor was it ever pass'd b' entail, Nor settled upon heirs-male; Or if it were, like ill-got land, Did never fall t' a second hand; So 'tis no more to be engross'd Than sunshine, or the air enclos'd, Or to propriety confin'd,
Than th' uncontrol'd and scatter'd wind. For why should that which Nature meant To owe its being to its vent, That has no value of its own, But as it is divulg'd and known, Is perishable and destroy'd, As long as it lies unenjoy'd, Be scanted of that liberal use, Which all mankind is free to choose, And idly hoarded where 'twas bred, Instead of being dispers'd and spread? And, the more lavish and profuse, 'Tis of the nobler general use; As riots, though supply'd by stealth, Are wholesome to the commonwealth, And men spend freelier what they win, Than what they 'ave freely coming in.
The world's as full of curious wit, Which those that father never writ, As 'tis of bastards, which the sot And cuckold owns, that ne'er begot; Yet pass as well as if the one And th' other by-blow were their own. For why should he that 's impotent To judge, and fancy, and invent, For that impediment be stopt To own, and challenge, and adopt, At least th' expos'd and fatherless Poor orphans of the pen and press, Whose parents are obscure, or dead, Or in far countries born and bred ?
As none but kings have power to raise A levy, which the subject pays, And though they call that tax a loan, Yet when 'tis gather'd 'tis their own; So he that 's able to impose
A wit-excise on verse or prose, And still, the abler authors are
Can make them pay the greater share,
Is prince of poets of his time,
And they his vassals that supply him; Can judge more justly o' what he takes Than any of the best he makes, And more impartially conceive What's fit to choose, and what to leave. For men reflect more strictly 'pon The sense of others than their own; And wit, that 's made of wit and sleight, Is richer than the plain downright: As salt, that 's made of salt, 's more fine, Than when it first came from the brine;
And spirits of a nobler nature Drawn from the dull ingredient matter. Hence mighty Virgil 's said of old, From dung to have extracted gold; (As many a lout and silly clown By his instructions since have done) And grew more lofty by that means, Than by his livery-oats and beans, When from his carts and country farms He rose a mighty man at arms; To whom th' Heroics ever since Have sworn allegiance, as their prince, And faithfully have all in times Observ'd his customs in their rhymes. 'Twas counted learning once, and wit, To void but what some author writ, And what men understood by rote, By as implicit sense to quote: Then many a magisterial clerk
Was taught, like singing-birds, i' th' dark, And understood as much of things, As th' ablest blackbird what it sings; And yet was honour'd and renown'd For grave, and solid, and profound. Then why should those, who pick and choose The best of all the best compose, And join it by Mosaic art, In graceful order, part to part, To make the whole in beauty suit, Not merit as complete repute
As those who, with less art and pains, Can do it with their native brains, And make the homespun business fit As freely with their mother wit; Since, what by Nature was deny'd, By Art and Industry 's supply'd,
Both which are more our own, and brave, Than all the alms that Nature gave? For that w' acquire by pains and art Is only due t' our own desert; While all th' endowments she confers Are not so much our own as her's, That, like good fortune, unawares Fall not t' our virtue, but our shares, And all we can pretend to merit We do not purchase, but inherit.
Thus all the great'st inventions, when They first were found out, were so mean, That th' authors of them are unknown, As little things they scorn'd to own; Until by men of nobler thought Th' were to their full perfection brought. This proves that Wit does but rough-hew, Leaves Art to polish and review; And that a wit at second-hand Has greatest interest and command; For to improve, dispose, and judge, Is nobler than t' invent and drudge. Invention's humorous and nice, And never at command applies; Disdains t' obey the proudest wit, Unless it chance t' be in the fit; (Like prophecy, that can presage Successes of the latest age, Yet is not able to tell when
It next shall prophesy again)
Makes all her suitors course and wait, Like a proud minister of state,
And, when she 's serious, in some freak, Extravagant, and vain, and weak,
Attend her silly lazy pleasure, Until she chance to be at leisure; When 'tis more easy to steal wit: To clip, and forge, and counterfeit, Is both the business and delight, Like hunting sports, of those that write; For thievery is but one sort, The learned say, of hunting sport.
Hence 'tis that some, who set up first, As raw, and wretched, and unverst, And open'd with a stock as poor As a healthy beggar with one sore; That never writ in prose or verse, But pick'd, or cut it, like a purse, And at the best could but commit The petty-larceny of wit;
To whom to write was to pnrloin, And printing but to stamp false coin; Yet, after long and sturdy endeavours Of being painful wit-receivers, With gathering rags and scraps of wit, As paper 's made on which 'tis writ, Have gone forth authors, and acquir'd The right or wrong-to be admir'd; And, arm'd with confidence, incurr'd The fool's good luck, to be preferr❜d. For, as a banker can dispose Of greater sums he only owes, Than he who honestly is known To deal in nothing but his own, So, whosoe'er can take up most, May greatest fame and credit boast.
UPON THE IMPERFECTION AND ABUSE OF
HUMAN LEARNING.
Ir is the noblest act of human reason, To free itself from slavish prepossession, Assume the legal right to disengage From all it had contracted under age, And not its ingenuity and wit,
To all it was imbued with first, submit; Take true or false for better or for worse, To have or to hold indifferently of course.
For Custom, though but usher of the school, Where Nature breeds the body and the soul, Usurps a greater power and interest
O'er man, the heir of Reason, than brute beast, That by two different instincts is led, Born to the one, and to the other bred, And trains him up with rudiments more false Than Nature does her stupid animals;
And that's one reason why more care 's bestow'd Upon the body, than the soul 's allow'd, That is not found to understand and know So subtly, as the body 's found to grow. Though children, without study, pains, or thought, Are languages and vulgar notions taught, Improve their natural talents without care, And apprehend before they are aware, Yet as all strangers never leave the tones They have been us'd of children to pronounce,
So most men's reason never can outgrow The discipline it first receiv'd to know,
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