Mix both together, sweet and sour;
And bind the thorn up with the flow'r ?
Sometimes 'tis Elegy, or Ode.
Epistle now's your only mode.
Whether that style more glibly hits,
The fancies of our rambling wits,
Who wince and kick at all oppression,
But love to straggle in digression;
Or, that by writing to the GREAT
In letters, honours, or estate,
We slip more easy into fame,
By clinging to another's name,
And with their strength our weakness yoke,
As ivy climbs about an oak;
AS TUFT-HUNTERS will buzz and purr
About a FELLOW-COMMONER,
Or Crows will wing a higher flight,
When sailing round the floating kite.
Whate'er the motive, 'tis the mode,
And I will travel in the road.
The fashionable track pursue,
And write my simple thoughts to You,
Just as they rise from head or heart,
Not marshall'd by the herald Art.
By vanity or pleasure led,
From thirst of fame, or want of bread,
Shall any start up sons of rhyme
PATHETIC, EASY, or SUBLIME?
-You'd think, to hear what Critics say,
Their labour was no more than play :
And that, but such a paltry station
Reflects disgrace on education,
(As if we could at once forsake
What education helps to make)
Each reader has superior skill,
And can write better when he will.
In short, howe'er you toil and drudge, The world, the mighty world, is judge; And nice and fanciful opinion
Sways all the world with strange dominion; Opinion! which on crutches walks,
And sounds the words another talks..
Bring me eleven Critics grown,
Ten have no judgment of their own:
But, like the Cyclops watch the nod
Of some informing master god.
Or as, when near his latest breath,
The patient fain would juggle death,
When DOCTORS sit in CONSULTATION (Which means no more than conversation, A kind of comfortable chat
'Mongst social friends, on This and That,
As whether stocks get up or down,
And tittle-tattle of the town;
Books, pictures, politics, and news,
Who lies with whom, and who got whose)
Opinions never disagree,
One doctor writes, all take the fee.
But eminence offends at once
The owlish eye of critic dunce.
DULNESS alarm'd, collects her force,
And FOLLY screams till she is hoarse.
Then far abroad the LIBEL flies
From all th' artillery of lies,
MALICE, delighted, flaps her wing,
And EPIGRAM prepares her sting.
Around the frequent pellets whistle
From SATIRE, ODE, and pert EPISTLE;
While every blockhead strives to throw
His share of vengeance on his foe:
As if it were a Shrove-tide game,
And cocks and poets were the same.
Thus should a wooden collar deck Some woeful 'squire's embarrass'd neck, When high above the croud he stands With equi-distant sprawling hands, And without hat, politely bare, Pops out his head to take the air; The mob his kind acceptance begs Of dirt, and stones, and addle-eggs.
O GENIUS! tho' thy noble skill Can guide thy Pegasus at will, Fleet let him bear thee as the windDULLNESS mounts up and clings behind, In vain you spur, and whip, and smack, You cannot shake her from your back.
Ill-nature springs as merit grows, Close as the thorn is to the rose.
Could HERCULANEUM's friendly earth
Give MAVIUS' works a second birth,
MALEVOLENCE, with lifted eyes,
Would sanctify the noble prize.
While modern critics should behold
Their near relation to the old,
And wond'ring gape at one another,
To see the likeness of a brother.
But with us rhyming moderns here,
Critics are not the only fear;
The poet's bark meets sharper shocks
From other sands, and other rocks.
Not such alone who understand,
Whose book and memory are at hand,
Who scientific skill profess,
And are great adepts-more or less;
(Whether distinguish'd by degree,
They write A. M. or sign M. D.
Or make advances somewhat higher,
And take a new degree of 'SQUIRE.)
Who read your authors, Greek and Latin,
And bring you strange quotations pat in,
As if each sentence grew more terse
From odds and ends, and scraps of verse;
Who with true poetry dispense,
So social sound suits simple sense,
And load one Letter with the labours,
Which would be shar'd among it's neighbours.
Who know that thought produces pain,
And deep reflection mads the brain,
And therefore, wise and prudent grown,
Have no ideas of their own.
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