But savage man alone does man betray.
Press'd by necessity, they kill for food;
Man undoes man, to do himself no good:
With teeth and claws by nature arm'd, they hunt
Nature's allowance, to supply their want;
But man, with smiles, embraces, friendships, praise,
Inhumanly his fellow's life betrays;
With voluntary pains works his distress,
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For hunger or for love, they bite or tear;
Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear:
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid;
From fear to fear successively betray'd:
Base fear, the source whence his base passions came,
His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame:
The lust of power, to which he's such a slave,
And for the which alone he dares be brave;
To which his various projects are design'd,
Which make him generous, affable, and kind;
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions in a forc'd disguise;
Leads a most tedious life, in misery,
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory, join;
The good he acts, the ill he does endure:
"Tis all from fear, to make himself secure.
Merely for safety, after fame they thirst;
For all men would be cowards if they durst:
And honesty's against all common sense;
Men must be knaves; 'tis in their own defence,
Mankind's dishonest: if you think it fair,
Amongst known cheats, to play upon the square,
You'll be undone-
Nor can weak truth your reputation save;
The knaves will all agree to call you knave.
Wrong'd shall he live insulted o'er, oppress'd,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest.
Thus here you see what human nature craves,
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves.
The difference lies, as far as I can see,
Not in the thing itself, but the degree;
And all the subject matter of debate,
Is only who's a knave of the first rate.
All this with indignation have I hurl'd At the pretending part of the proud world, Who, swoln with selfish vanity, devise False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies, Over their fellow-slaves to tyrannize.
But if in court so just a man there be (In court a just man, yet unknown to me), Who does his needful flattery direct, Not to oppress and ruin, but protect; Since flattery, which way soever laid, Is still a tax on that unhappy trade: If so upright a statesman you can find, Whose passions bend to his unbias'd mind; Who does his arts and policies apply, To raise his country, not his family.
Is there a mortal who on God relies? Whose life his faith and doctrine justifies? Not one blown up with vain, aspiring pride, Who, for reproof of sins, does man deride;
Whose envious heart, with saucy eloquence,
Dares chide at kings, and rail at men of sense;
Who in his talking vents more peevish lies,
More bitter railings, scandals, calumnies,
Than at a gossiping are thrown about,
When the good wives drink free, and then fall out.
None of the sensual tribe, whose talents lie
In avarice, pride, in sloth, and gluttony;
Who hunt preferment, but abhor good lives;
Whose lust exalted to that height arrives,
They act adultery with their own wives;
And, ere a score of years completed be,
Can from the lofty stage of honour see
Half a large parish their own progeny.
Nor doating who would be ador'd,
For domineering at the council-board;
A greater fop in business at fourscore,
Fonder of serious toys, affected more,
Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves,
With all his noise, his tawdry clothes, and loves.
But a meek, humble man, of modest sense,
Who, preaching peace, does practise continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths, which no man can conceive.
If upon earth there dwell such godlike men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them,
Adore those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
And, with the thinking world, their laws obey:
If such there are, yet grant me this at least,
Man differs more from man, than man from beast.
NOTHING! thou elder brother ev'n to shade,
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And (well fix'd) art alone of ending not afraid.
Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot,
Then all proceeded from the great united-What?
Something, the general attribute of all,
Sever'd from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguish'd fall.
Yet Something did thy mighty power command,
And from thy fruitful emptiness's hand
Snatch'd men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land.
Matter, the wicked'st offspring of thy race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace;
And rebel Light obscur'd thy reverend dusky face.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join;
Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine,
To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line.
But turn-coat Time assists the foe in vain,
And, brib'd by thee, asserts thy short-liv'd reign,
And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again.
Though mysteries are barr'd from laic eyes,
And the divine alone, with warrant, pries
Into thy bosom, where the truth in private lies;
Yet this of thee the wise may freely say,
Thou from the virtuous Nothing tak'st away,
And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray.
Great Negative! how vainly would the wise
Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise,
Didst thou not stand to point their dull philosophies!
Is, or is not, the two great ends of Fate,
And, true or false, the subject of debate,
That perfect or destroy the vast designs of Fate;
When they have rack'd the politician's breast,
Within thy bosom most securely rest,
And, when reduc'd to thee, are least unsafe and best.
But Nothing, why does Something still permit,
That sacred monarchs should at council sit
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit?
While weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes' coffers, and from statesmen's brains,
And nothing there like stately Nothing reigns.
Nothing, who dwell'st with fools in grave disguise,
For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise,
Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like
thee look wise.
French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,
Spaniards' dispatch, Danes' wit, are mainly
[thee. seen in The great man's gratitude to his best friend, [tend, Kings' promises, whores' vows, towards thee they Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.
SOME few, from wit, have this true maxim got,
"That 'tis still better to be pleas'd than not;"
And therefore never their own torment plot:
While the malicious critics still agree
To loath each play they come and pay to see.
The first know 'tis a meaner part of sense
To find a fault, than taste an excellence :
As charms are nonsense, nonsense seems a charm,
Which hearers of all judgment does disarm;
For songs and scenes a double audience bring,
And doggrel takes, which smiths in satin sing.
Now to machines and a dull mask you run;
We find that wit's the monster you would shun,
And by my troth 'tis most discreetly done.
For since with vice and folly wit is fed,
Through mercy 'tis most of you are not dead.
Players turn puppets now at your desire,
In their mouth's nonsense, in their tail's a wire;
They fly through crowds of clouts and showers of fire.
A kind of losing Loadum is their game,
Where the worst writer has the greatest fame.
To get vile plays like theirs shall be our care;
But of such awkward actors we despair.
False taught at first-
Like bowls ill biass'd, still the more they run,
They're further off than when they first begun;
In comedy their unweigh'd action mark,
There's one is such a dear familiar spark,
He yawns as if he were but half awake,
And fribbling for free speaking does mistake;
False accent, and neglectful action too:
They have both so nigh good, yet neither true,
That both together, like an ape's mock face,
By near resembling man, do man disgrace.
Thorough-pac'd ill actors may, perhaps, be cur'd;
Half players, like half wits, can't be endur'd.
Yet these are they, who durst expose the age
Of the great wonder of the English stage;
Whom Nature seem'd to form for your delight,
And bid him speak, as she bid Shakspeare write.
Those blades indeed are cripples in their art,
Mimic his foot, but not his speaking part.
Let them the Traitor or Volpone try,
Could they-
Rage like Cethegus, or like Cassius die,
They ne'er had sent to Paris for such fancies,
As monsters' heads and merry-Andrews' dances.
Wither'd, perhaps, not perish'd, we appear;
But they are blighted, and ne'er came to bear.
Th' old poets dress'd your mistress Wit before;
These draw you on with an old painted whore,
And sell, like bawds, patch'd plays for maids twice
Yet they may scorn our house and actors too, [o'er.
Therefore they praise, and strive to like; while these Since they have swell'd so high to hector you.
Are dully vain of being hard to please.
Poets and women have an equal right
To hate the dull, who, dead to all delight,
Feel pain alone, and have no joy but spight.
"Twas impotence did first this vice begin:
Fools censure wit, as old men rail at sin;
Who envy pleasure which they cannot taste,
And, good for nothing, would be wise at last.
Since therefore to the women it appears,
That all the enemies of wit are theirs,
Our poet the dull herd no longer fears:
Whate'er his fate may prove, 'twill be his pride
To stand or fall with beauty on his side.
They cry, Pox o' these Covent-garden men;
Damn them, not one of them but keeps out ten.
Were they once gone, we for those thundering blades
Should have an audience of substantial trades,
Who love our muzzled boys and tearing fellows,
My lord, great Neptune, and great nephew olus.
O how the merry citizen's in love
Psyché, the goddess of each field and grove.
He cries, I' faith, methinks 'tis well enough;
But you roar out and cry, 'Tis all damn'd stuff!
So to their house the graver fops repair;
While men of wit find one another here.
If in a picture (Piso) you should see
A handsome woman with a fish's tail,
Or a man's head upon a horse's neck,
Or limbs of beasts of the most different kinds
Cover'd with feathers of all sorts of birds,
Would you not laugh, and think the painter mad?
Trust me, that book is as ridiculous,
Whose incoherent style (like sick men's dreams)
Varies all shapes, and mixes all extremes.
Painters and poets have been still allow'd
Their pencils and their fancies unconfin'd.
This privilege we freely give and take;
But Nature, and the common laws of sense,
Forbid to reconcile antipathies,
Or make a snake engender with a dove,
And hungry tigers court the tender lambs.
Some, that at first have promis'd mighty things,
Applaud themselves, when a few florid lines
Shine through th' insipid dulness of the rest.
Here they describe a temple, or a wood,
Or streams that through delightful meadows run;
And there the rainbow, or the rapid Rhine:
But they misplace them all, and crowd them in,
And are as much to seek in other things,
As he that only can design a tree,
Would be to draw a shipwreck or a storm.
When you begin with so much pomp and show,
Why is the end so little and so low ?
Be what you will, so you be still the same.
Most poets fall into the grossest faults,
Deluded by a seeming excellence:
By striving to be short, they grow obscure;
And when they would write smoothly, they want
Their spirits sink; while others, that affect [strength,
A lofty style, swell to a tympany.
Some timorous wretches start at every blast,
And fearing tempests, dare not leave the shore;
Others, in love with wild variety,
Draw boars in waves, and dolphins in a wood:
Thus fear of erring, join'd with want of skill,
Is a most certain way of erring still.
The meanest workman in th' Emilian square,
May grave the nails, or imitate the hair,
But cannot finish what he hath begun :
What can be more ridiculous than he;
For one or two good features in a face,
Where all the rest are scandalously ill,
Make it but more remarkably deform'd.
Let poets match their subject to their strength,
And often try what weight they can support,
And what their shoulders are too weak to bear.
After a serious and judicious choice,
Method and eloquence will never fail.
As well the force as ornament of verse
Consists in choosing a fit time for things,
And knowing when a Muse may be indulg'd
In her full flight, and when she should be curb'd.
Words must be chosen, and be plac'd with skill:
You gain your point, when, by the noble art
Of good connexion, an unusual word
Is made at first familiar to our ear:
But if you write of things abstruse or new,
Some of your own inventing may be us'd,
So it be seldom and discreetly done:
But he that hopes to have new words allow'd,
Must so derive them from the Grecian spring,
As they may seem to flow without constraint.
Can an impartial reader discommend
In Varius, or in Virgil, what he likes
In Plautus or Cæcilius? Why should I
Be envy'd for the little I invent,
When Ennius and Cato's copious style
Have so enrich'd and so adorn'd our tongue?
Men ever had and ever will have leave
To coin new words well suited to the age.
Words are like leaves; some wither every year;
And every year a younger race succeeds.
Death is a tribute all things owe to fate.
The Lucrine mole (Cæsar's stupendous work)
Protects our navies from the raging north;
And (since Cethegus drain'd the Pontine lake)
We plow and reap where former ages row'd.
See how the Tiber (whose licentious waves
So often overflow'd the neighbouring fields)
Now runs a smooth and inoffensive course,
Confin'd by our great Emperor's command.
Yet this, and they, and all, will be forgot.
Why then should words challenge eternity,
When greatest men and greatest actions die?
Use may revive the obsoletest words,
And banish those that now are most in vogue:
Use is the judge, the law, and rule of speech.
Homer first taught the world in epic verse To write of great commanders and of kings. Elegies were at first design'd for grief, Though now we use them to express our joy; But to whose Muse we owe that sort of verse, Is undecided by the men of skill.
Rage with iambics arm'd Archilocus, Numbers for dialogue and action fit, And favourites of the Dramatic Muse Fierce, lofty, rapid, whose commanding sound Awes the tumultuous noises of the pit, And whose peculiar province is the stage.
Gods, heroes, conquerors, Olympic crowns, Love's pleasing cares, and the free joys of wine, Are proper subjects for the Lyric song.
Why is he honour'd with a poet's name,
Who neither knows nor would observe a rule;
And chooses to be ignorant and proud,
Rather than own his ignorance, and learn?
Let every thing have its due place and time.
A comic subject loves an humble verse:
Thyestes scorns a low and comic style:
Yet Comedy sometimes may raise her voice,
And Chremes be allow'd to foam and rail:
Tragedians too lay by their state to grieve;
Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor,
Forget their swelling and gigantic words.
He that would have spectators share his grief,
Must write not only well, but movingly,
And raise men's passions to what height he will.
We weep and laugh, as we see others do:
He only makes me sad who shows the way,
And first is sad himself; then, Telephus,
I feel the weight of your calamities,
And fancy all your miseries my own:
But if you act them ill, I sleep or laugh:
Your looks must alter, as your subject does,
From kind to fierce, from wanton to severe;
For nature forms, and softens us within,
And writes our fortune's changes in our face.
Pleasure inchants, impetuous rage transports,
And grief dejects and wrings the tortur'd soul;
And these are all interpreted by speech:
But he whose words and fortunes disagree,
Abjur'd, unpity'd, grows a public jest.
Observe the characters of those that speak,
Whether an honest servant, or a cheat,
Or one whose blood boils in his youthful veins,
Or a grave matron, or a busy nurse,
Extorting merchants, careful husbandmen,
Argives or Thebans, Asians or Greeks.
Follow report, or feign coherent things;
Describe Achilles as Achilles was,
Impatient, rash, inexorable, proud,
Scorning all judges, and all law but arms;
Medea must be all revenge and blood,
Ino all tears, Ixion all deceit,
Io must wander, and Orestes mourn.
your bold Muse dare tread unbeaten paths,
And bring new characters upon the stage,
Be sure you keep them up to their first height.
New subjects are not easily explain'd,
And you had better choose a well-known theme
Than trust to an invention of your own:
For what originally others writ,
May be so well disguis'd, and so improv'd,
That with some justice it may pass for yours;
But then you must not copy trivial things,
Nor word for word too faithfully translate,
Nor (as some servile imitators do)
Prescribe at first such strict uneasy rules,
As you must ever slavishly observe,
Or all the laws of decency renounce.
Begin not as th' old poetaster did,
"Troy's famous war, and Priam's fate, I sing."
In what will all this ostentation end?
The labouring mountain scarce brings forth a mouse.
How far is this from the Mæonian stile?
And (without raising expectation high)
Surprises us with daring miracles,
The bloody Lestrygons, Charybdis' gulf,
And frighted Greeks, who near the Etna shore
Hear Scylla bark, and Polyphemus roar.
He doth not trouble us with Leda's eggs,
When he begins to write the Trojan war;
Nor, writing the return of Diomed,
Go back as far as Meleager's death:
Nothing is idle, each judicious line
Insensibly acquaints us with the plot ;
He chooses only what he can improve,
And truth and fiction are so aptly mix'd,
That all seems uniform, and of a piece.
Now hear what every auditor expects,
If you intend that he should stay to hear
The epilogue, and see the curtain fall.
Mind how our tempers alter in our years,
And by that rule form all your characters.
One that hath newly learn'd to speak and go,
Loves childish plays, is soon provok'd and pleas'd,
And changes every hour his wavering mind.
A youth that first casts off his tutor's yoke,
Loves horses, hounds, and sports, and exercise,
Prone to all vice, impatient of reproof,
Proud, careless, fond, inconstant, and profuse.
Gain and ambition rule our riper years,
And make us slaves to interest and power.
Old men are only walking hospitals,
Where all defects and all diseases crowd,
With restless pain, and more tormenting fear;
Lazy, morose, full of delays and hopes,
Oppress'd with riches which they dare not use;
Illnatur'd censors of the present age,
And fond of all the follies of the past.
Thus all the treasure of our flowing years,
Our ebb of life for ever takes away.
Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men,
Nor men the weak anxieties of age.
Some things are acted, others only told;
But what we hear moves less than what we see;
Spectators only have their eyes to trust,
But auditors must trust their ears and you;
Yet there are things improper for a scene,
Which men of judgment only will relate.
Medea must not draw her murdering knife,
And spill her children's blood upon the stage,
Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare.
Cadmus and Progné's metamorphosis,
(She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake)
And whatsoever contradicts my sense,
I hate to see, and never can believe.
Five acts are the just measure of a play.
Never presume to make a God appear,
But for a business worthy of a God;
And in one scene no more than three should speak.
A chorus should supply what action wants,
And hath a generous and manly part;
Bridles wild rage, loves rigid honesty,
And strict observance of impartial laws,
Sobriety, security, and peace,
And begs the Gods who guide blind fortune's wheel,
"Muse, speak the man, who, since the siege of Troy,To raise the wretched and pull down the proud.
So many towns, such change of manners saw."
One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke,
The other out of smoke brings glorious light:
But nothing must be sung between the acts,
But what some way conduces to the plot.
First the shrill sound of a small rural pipe
(Not loud like trumpets, nor adorn'd as now)
Was entertainment for the infant stage,
And pleas'd the thin and bashful audience
Of our well meaning, frugal ancestors.
But when our walls and limits were enlarg'd,
And men (grown wanton by prosperity)
Study'd new arts of luxury and case,
The verse, the music, and the scenes improv'd;
For how should ignorance be judge of wit,
Or men of sense applaud the jest of fools?
Then came rich clothes and graceful action in,
Then instruments were taught more moving notes,
And eloquence with all her pomp and charms
Foretold us useful and sententious truths,
As those deliver'd by the Delphic God.
The first tragedians found that serious style
Too grave for their uncultivated age,
And so brought wild and naked satyrs in,
Whose motion, words, and shape, were all a farce,
(As oft as decency would give them leave)
Because the mad ungovernable rout,
Full of confusion, and the fumes of wine,
Lov'd such variety and antic tricks.
But then they did not wrong themselves so much
To make a god, a hero, or a king,
(Stript of his golden crown and purple robe)
Descend to a mechanic dialect,
Nor (to avoid such meanness) soaring high
With empty sound and airy notions fly:
For tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As a grave matron would to dance with girls.
You must not think that a satiric style
Allows of scandalous and brutish words,
Or the confounding of your characters.
Begin with Truth, then give Invention scope,
And if your style be natural and smooth,
All men will try, and hope to write as well;
And (not without much pains) be undeceiv'd:
So much good method and connexion may
Improve the common and the plainest things.
A satyr that comes staring from the woods,
Must not at first speak like an orator:
But, though his language should not be refin'd,
It must not be obscene and impudent.
The better sort abhors scurrility,
And often censures what the rabble likes.
Unpolish'd verses pass with many men,
And Rome is too indulgent in that point;
But then to write at a loose rambling rate,
In hope the world will wink at all our faults,
Is such a rash ill-grounded confidence,
As men may pardon but will never praise.
Be perfect in the Greek originals,
Read them by day, and think of them by night.
But Plautus was admir'd in former time
With too much patience (not to call it worse):
His harsh, unequal verse was music then,
And rudeness had the privilege of wit.
When Thespis first expos'd the Tragic Muse,
Rude were the actors, and a cart the scene,
Where ghastly faces stain'd with lees of wine
Frighted the children, and amus'd the crowd;
This Eschylus (with indignation) saw,
And built a stage, found out a decent dress,
Brought vizards in (a civiler disguise),
And taught men how to speak, and how to act.
Next Comedy appear'd with great applause,
Till her licentious and abusive tongue
Waken'd the magistrates' coercive power,
And forc'd it to suppress her insolence.
Our writers have attempted every way;
And they deserve our praise, whose daring Muse
Disdain'd to be beholden to the Greeks,
And found fit subjects for her verse at home.
Nor should we be less famous for our wit,
Than for the force of our victorious arms;
But that the time and care that are requir'd
To overlook, and file, and polish well,
Fright poets from that necessary toil.
Democritus was so in love with wit,
And some men's natural impulse to write,
That he despis'd the help of art and rules,
And thought none poets till their brains were crackt;
And this hath so intoxicated some,
That (to appear incorrigibly mad)
They cleanliness and company renounce.
For lunacy beyond the cure of art,
With a long beard, and ten long dirty nails,
Pass current for Apollo's livery.
O my unhappy stars! if in the Spring
Some physic had not cur'd me of the spleen,
None would have writ with more success than I;
But I must rest contented as I am,
And only serve to whet that wit in you,
To which I willingly resign my claim.
Yet without writing I may teach to write,
Tell what the duty of a poet is,
Wherein his wealth and ornaments consist,
And how he may be form'd, and how improv'd,
What fit, what not, what excellent or ill.
Sound judgment is the ground of writing well;
And when Philosophy directs your choice
To proper subjects rightly understood,
Words from your pen will naturally flow;
He only gives the proper characters,
Who knows the duty of all ranks of men,
And what we owe our country, parents, friends,
How judges and how senators should act,
And what becomes a general to do.
Those are the likest copies which are drawn
By the original of human life.
Sometimes in rough and undigested plays
We meet with such a lucky character,
As, being humour'd right, and well pursued,
Succeeds much better than the shallow verse
And chiming trifles of more studious pens.
Greece had a genius, Greece had eloquence,
For her ambition and her end was fame.
Our Roman youth is diligently taught
The deep mysterious art of growing rich,
And the first words that children learn to speak
Are of the value of the names of coin.
Can a penurious wretch, that with his milk
Hath suck'd the basest dregs of usury,
Pretend to generous and heroic thoughts?
Can rust and avarice write lasting lines?
But you, brave youth, wise Numa's worthy heir,
Remember of what weight your judgment is,
And never venture to commend a book,
That has not pass'd all judges and all tests.
A poet should instruct, or please, or both.
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