Chapter 24

Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. You doubt--see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's Dean. [7] Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. Though mad Almanzor [8] rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song Hero rants in modern plays; 120 Whilst modest Comedy her verse foregoes For jest and 'pun' [9] in very middling prose. Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse, Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse. But so Thalia pleases to appear, [xxiv] Poor Virgin! damned some twenty times a year!

Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight:-- Adapt your language to your Hero's state. At times Melpomene forgets to groan, And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone; 130 Nor unregarded will the act pass by Where angry Townly [10] "lifts his voice on high." Again, our Shakespeare limits verse to Kings, When common prose will serve for common things; And lively Hal resigns heroic ire, [xxv]-- To "hollaing Hotspur" [11] and his sceptred sire. [xxvi]

'Tis not enough, ye Bards, with all your art, To polish poems; they must touch the heart: Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the song, Still let it bear the hearer's soul along; 140 Command your audience or to smile or weep, Whiche'er may please you--anything but sleep. The Poet claims our tears; but, by his leave, Before I shed them, let me see 'him' grieve.

If banished Romeo feigned nor sigh nor tear, Lulled by his languor, I could sleep or sneer. [xxvii] Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face, And men look angry in the proper place. At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly, And Sentiment prescribes a pensive eye; 150 For Nature formed at first the inward man, And actors copy Nature--when they can. She bids the beating heart with rapture bound, Raised to the Stars, or levelled with the ground; And for Expression's aid, 'tis said, or sung, [xxviii] She gave our mind's interpreter--the tongue, Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense (At least in theatres) with common sense; O'erwhelm with sound the Boxes, Gallery, Pit, And raise a laugh with anything--but Wit. 160

To skilful writers it will much import, Whence spring their scenes, from common life or Court; Whether they seek applause by smile or tear, To draw a Lying Valet, [12] or a Lear, [13] A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school, A wandering Peregrine, or plain John Bull; All persons please when Nature's voice prevails, Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales.

Or follow common fame, or forge a plot; [xxix] Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not! 170 One precept serves to regulate the scene: Make it appear as if it _might_ have _been_.

If some Drawcansir [14] you aspire to draw, Present him raving, and above all law: If female furies in your scheme are planned, Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your hand; For tears and treachery, for good and evil, Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil! But if a new design you dare essay, And freely wander from the beaten way, 180 True to your characters, till all be past, Preserve consistency from first to last.

Tis hard [15] to venture where our betters fail, [xxx] Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale; And yet, perchance,'tis wiser to prefer A hackneyed plot, than choose a new, and err; Yet copy not too closely, but record, More justly, thought for thought than word for word; Nor trace your Prototype through narrow ways, But only follow where he merits praise. 190

For you, young Bard! whom luckless fate may lead [16] To tremble on the nod of all who read, Ere your first score of cantos Time unrolls, [xxxi] Beware--for God's sake, don't begin like Bowles! "Awake a louder and a loftier strain," [17]-- And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?-- He sinks to Southey's level in a trice, Whose Epic Mountains never fail in mice! Not so of yore awoke your mighty Sire The tempered warblings of his master-lyre; 200 Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute, "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit" He speaks, but, as his subject swells along, Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with the song."[xxxii] Still to the "midst of things" he hastens on, As if we witnessed all already done; [xxxiii] Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean To raise the subject, or adorn the scene; Gives, as each page improves upon the sight, Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness--light; 210 And truth and fiction with such art compounds, We know not where to fix their several bounds.

If you would please the Public, deign to hear What soothes the many-headed monster's ear: [xxxiv] If your heart triumph when the hands of all Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall, Deserve those plaudits--study Nature's page, And sketch the striking traits of every age; While varying Man and varying years unfold Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told; 220 Observe his simple childhood's dawning days, His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays: Till time at length the mannish tyro weans, And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens! [xxxv]

Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan [xxxvi] O'er Virgil's [18] devilish verses and his own; Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too abstruse, He flies from Tavell's frown to "Fordham's Mews;" (Unlucky Tavell! [19] doomed to daily cares [xxxvii] By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,) 230 Fines, Tutors, tasks, Conventions threat in vain, Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket Plain. Rough with his elders, with his equals rash, Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash; Constant to nought--save hazard and a whore, [xxxviii] Yet cursing both--for both have made him sore: Unread (unless since books beguile disease, The P----x becomes his passage to Degrees); Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his terms away, [xxxix] And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.; 240 Master of Arts! as _hells_ and _clubs_ [20] proclaim, [xl] Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!

Launched into life, extinct his early fire, He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire; Marries for money, chooses friends for rank, Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank; Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir; Sends him to Harrow--for himself was there. Mute, though he votes, unless when called to cheer, His son's so sharp--he'll see the dog a Peer! 250

Manhood declines--Age palsies every limb; He quits the scene--or else the scene quits him; Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, [xli] And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves; Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets, O'er hoards diminished by young Hopeful's debts; Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life's lessons--but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time, save times like these; 260 Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires unwept--is buried--Let him rot!

But from the Drama let me not digress, Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less. [xlii] Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred, [xliii] When what is done is rather seen than heard, Yet many deeds preserved in History's page Are better told than acted on the stage; The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye, And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy, 270 True Briton all beside, I here am French-- Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench: The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show; We hate the carnage while we see the trick, And find small sympathy in being sick. Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth Appals an audience with a Monarch's death; [xliv] To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear Young Arthur's eyes, can _ours_ or _Nature_ bear? 280 A haltered heroine [21] Johnson sought to slay-- We saved Irene, but half damned the play, And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes; And Lewis' [22] self, with all his sprites, would quake To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake! Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief, We loathe the action which exceeds belief: And yet, God knows! what may not authors do, Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue"? [23] 290

Above all things, _Dan_ Poet, if you can, Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man, Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape [xlv] Must open ten trap-doors for your escape. Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid, I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did; [24] Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, Rage, love, and aught but moralise--in song. Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends, [xlvi] Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends! 300 Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay On whores--spies--singers--wisely shipped away. Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread [xlvii] Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread, In all iniquity is grown so nice, It scorns amusements which are not of price. Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear, [xlviii] Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubling by his own "encore;" [xlix] 310 Squeezed in "Fop's Alley," [25] jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes; Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease, Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release: Why this, and more, he suffers--can ye guess?-- Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress! [26]

So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools! Ere scenes were played by many a reverend clerk, [l] [27] (What harm, if David danced before the ark?) [li] 320 In Christmas revels, simple country folks Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry and coarse jokes. Improving years, with things no longer known, Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, [lii] 'Tis strange Benvolio [28] suffers such a show; Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, [liii] Oaths, boxing, begging--all, save rout and race.

Farce followed Comedy, and reached her prime, In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time: [29] 330 Mad wag! who pardoned none, nor spared the best, And turned some very serious things to jest. Nor Church nor State escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the Gown--Priests--Lawyers--Volunteers: "Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and Queens, When "Crononhotonthologos must die," [30] And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. 340

Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit, [liv] And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, Friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, And bear Swift's motto, "Vive la bagatelle!" Which charmed our days in each Ægean clime, As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy Life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last; But find in thine--like pagan Plato's bed, [lv] [31] Some merry Manuscript of Mimes, when dead. 350

Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes, Where fettered by whig Walpole low she lies; [32] Corruption foiled her, for she feared her glance; Decorum left her for an Opera dance! Yet Chesterfield, [33] whose polished pen inveighs 'Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our Plays; Unchecked by Megrims of patrician brains, And damning Dulness of Lord Chamberlains. Repeal that act! again let Humour roam Wild o'er the stage--we've time for tears at home; 360 Let Archer [34] plant the horns on Sullen's brows, And Estifania gull her "Copper" [35] spouse; The moral's scant--but that may be excused, Men go not to be lectured, but amused. He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill Must wear a head in want of Willis' skill; [36] Aye, but Macheath's example--psha!--no more! It formed no thieves--the thief was formed before; [37] And spite of puritans and Collier's curse, [lvi] Plays make mankind no better, and no worse. [38] 370 Then spare our stage, ye methodistic men! Nor burn damned Drury if it rise again. [39] But why to brain-scorched bigots thus appeal? Can heavenly Mercy dwell with earthly Zeal? For times of fire and faggot let them hope! Times dear alike to puritan or Pope. As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, So would new sects on newer victims gaze. E'en now the songs of Solyma begin; Faith cants, perplexed apologist of Sin! 380 While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves, And Simeon kicks, [40] where Baxter only "shoves."[41]

Whom Nature guides, so writes, that every dunce [lvii], Enraptured, thinks to do the same at once; But after inky thumbs and bitten nails [lviii], And twenty scattered quires, the coxcomb fails.

Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can hope To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope? Yet his and Philips' [42] faults, of different kind, For Art too rude, for Nature too refined, [lix] 390 Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to hit 'Twixt too much polish and too coarse a wit.

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced In this nice age, when all aspire to taste; The dirty language, and the noisome jest, Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now detest; Proscribed not only in the world polite [lx], But even too nasty for a City Knight!

Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath made them pass, Unmatched by all, save matchless Hudibras! 400 Whose author is perhaps the first we meet, Who from our couplet lopped two final feet; Nor less in merit than the longer line, This measure moves a favourite of the Nine. Though at first view eight feet may seem in vain Formed, save in Ode, to bear a serious strain [lxi], Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle of late This measure shrinks not from a theme of weight, And, varied skilfully, surpasses far Heroic rhyme, but most in Love and War, 410 Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime, Are curbed too much by long-recurring rhyme.

But many a skilful judge abhors to see, What few admire--irregularity. This some vouchsafe to pardon; but 'tis hard When such a word contents a British Bard.

And must the Bard his glowing thoughts confine, [lxii] Lest Censure hover o'er some faulty line? Remove whate'er a critic may suspect, To gain the paltry suffrage of "Correct"? 420 Or prune the spirit of each daring phrase, To fly from Error, not to merit Praise?

Ye, who seek finished models, never cease [lxiii], By day and night, to read the works of Greece. But our good Fathers never bent their brains To heathen Greek, content with native strains. The few who read a page, or used a pen, Were satisfied with Chaucer and old Ben; The jokes and numbers suited to their taste Were quaint and careless, anything but chaste; 430 Yet, whether right or wrong the ancient rules, It will not do to call our Fathers fools! Though you and I, who eruditely know To separate the elegant and low, Can also, when a hobbling line appears, Detect with fingers--in default of ears.

In sooth I do not know, or greatly care To learn, who our first English strollers were; Or if, till roofs received the vagrant art, Our Muse, like that of Thespis, kept a cart; 440 But this is certain, since our Shakespeare's days, There's pomp enough--if little else--in plays; Nor will Melpomene ascend her Throne [lxiv] Without high heels, white plume, and Bristol stone.

Old Comedies still meet with much applause, Though too licentious for dramatic laws; At least, we moderns, wisely, 'tis confest, Curtail, or silence, the lascivious jest [lxv].

Whate'er their follies, and their faults beside, Our enterprising Bards pass nought untried; 450 Nor do they merit slight applause who choose An English subject for an English Muse, And leave to minds which never dare invent French flippancy and German sentiment. Where is that living language which could claim Poetic more, as philosophic, fame, If all our Bards, more patient of delay, Would stop, like Pope, to polish by the way? [43]

Lords of the quill, whose critical assaults O'erthrow whole quartos with their quires of faults [lxvi], 460 Who soon detect, and mark where'er we fail, And prove our marble with too nice a nail! Democritus himself was not so bad; He only 'thought'--but 'you' would make us--mad!

But truth to say, most rhymers rarely guard Against that ridicule they deem so hard; In person negligent, they wear, from sloth, Beards of a week, and nails of annual growth; Reside in garrets, fly from those they meet, And walk in alleys rather than the street. 470

With little rhyme, less reason, if you please, The name of Poet may be got with ease, So that not tuns of helleboric juice [lxvii] Shall ever turn your head to any use; Write but like Wordsworth--live beside a lake, And keep your bushy locks a year from Blake; [44] Then print your book, once more return to town, And boys shall hunt your Bardship up and down. [45] Am I not wise, if such some poets' plight, To purge in spring--like Bayes [46]--before I write? 480 If this precaution softened not my bile, I know no scribbler with a madder style; But since (perhaps my feelings are too nice) I cannot purchase Fame at such a price, I'll labour gratis as a grinders' wheel, [lxviii] And, blunt myself, give edge to other's steel, Nor write at all, unless to teach the art To those rehearsing for the Poet's part; From Horace show the pleasing paths of song, [lxix], And from my own example--what is wrong. 490

Though modern practice sometimes differs quite, 'Tis just as well to think before you write; Let every book that suits your theme be read, So shall you trace it to the fountain-head.

He who has learned the duty which he owes To friends and country, and to pardon foes; Who models his deportment as may best Accord with Brother, Sire, or Stranger-guest; Who takes our Laws and Worship as they are, Nor roars reform for Senate, Church, and Bar; 500 In practice, rather than loud precept, wise, Bids not his tongue, but heart, philosophize: Such is the man the Poet should rehearse, As joint exemplar of his life and verse.

Sometimes a sprightly wit, and tale well told, Without much grace, or weight, or art, will hold A longer empire o'er the public mind Than sounding trifles, empty, though refined.

Unhappy Greece! thy sons of ancient days The Muse may celebrate with perfect praise, 510 Whose generous children narrowed not their hearts With Commerce, given alone to Arms and Arts. [lxx] Our boys (save those whom public schools compel To "Long and Short" before they're taught to spell) From frugal fathers soon imbibe by rote, "A penny saved, my lad, 's a penny got." Babe of a city birth! from sixpence take [lxxi] The third, how much will the remainder make?-- "A groat."--"Ah, bravo! Dick hath done the sum! [lxxii] He'll swell my fifty thousand to a Plum." [47] 520

They whose young souls receive this rust betimes, 'Tis clear, are fit for anything but rhymes; And Locke will tell you, that the father's right Who hides all verses from his children's sight; For Poets (says this Sage [48], and many more,) Make sad mechanics with their lyric lore: [lxxiii] And Delphi now, however rich of old, Discovers little silver, and less gold, Because Parnassus, though a Mount divine, Is poor as Irus, [49] or an Irish mine. [lxxiv] [50] 530

Two objects always should the Poet move, Or one or both,--to please or to improve. Whate'er you teach, be brief, if you design For our remembrance your didactic line; Redundance places Memory on the rack, For brains may be o'erloaded, like the back. [lxxv]

Fiction does best when taught to look like Truth, And fairy fables bubble none but youth: Expect no credit for too wondrous tales, Since Jonas only springs alive from Whales! 540

Young men with aught but Elegance dispense; Maturer years require a little Sense. To end at once:--that Bard for all is fit [lxxvi] Who mingles well instruction with his wit; For him Reviews shall smile; for him o'erflow The patronage of Paternoster-row; His book, with Longman's liberal aid, shall pass (Who ne'er despises books that bring him brass); Through three long weeks the taste of London lead, And cross St. George's Channel and the Tweed. 550

But every thing has faults, nor is't unknown That harps and fiddles often lose their tone, And wayward voices, at their owner's call, With all his best endeavours, only squall; Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark, And double-barrels (damn them!) miss their mark. [lxxvii] [51]

Where frequent beauties strike the reader's view, We must not quarrel for a blot or two; But pardon equally to books or men, The slips of Human Nature, and the Pen. 560 Yet if an author, spite of foe or friend, Despises all advice too much to mend, But ever twangs the same discordant string, Give him no quarter, howsoe'er he sing. Let Havard's [52] fate o'ertake him, who, for once, Produced a play too dashing for a dunce: At first none deemed it his; but when his name Announced the fact--what then?--it lost its fame. Though all deplore when Milton deigns to doze, [lxxviii] In a long work 'tis fair to steal repose. 570

As Pictures, so shall Poems be; some stand The critic eye, and please when near at hand; [lxxix] But others at a distance strike the sight; This seeks the shade, but that demands the light, Nor dreads the connoisseur's fastidious view, But, ten times scrutinised, is ten times new.