Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks: From Latian syrens, French Circæan feasts, 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 passed in his epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present time, 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 prætores, 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 extravagancies 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. EPISTLE I. TO AUGUSTUS.* 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, Finds Envy never conquer'd, but by Death. To thee, the world its present homage pays, R Foes to all living worth except your own, Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires, We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well, If time improve our wit as well as wine, Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? And shall we deem him ancient, right, and sound, Or Fix to all eternity at once, At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce? "We shall not quarrel for a year or two; By courtesy of England, he may do." Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, A poem by James I., King of Scotland. †The Devil Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his Poetical Club. Shakspeare, (whom you and every playhouse bill But still I love the language of his heart. "Yet surely, surely, these were famous men! What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? In all debates where critics bear a part, Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art, Of Shakspeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit; How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ. How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow; But, for the passions, Southern, sure, and Rowe. These, only these, support the crowded stage, From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age." All this may be ; the people's voice is odd, It is, and it is not, the voice of God. To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays, And yet deny the Careless Husband praise, Or say our fathers never broke a rule; Why then, I say, the public is a fool. But let them own, that greater faults than we They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree. Spencer himself affects the obsolete, And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet; Milton's strong pinion now not heaven can bound, Now serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground, In quibbles, angel and archangel join, And God the Father turns a school-divine. Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book, Like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook, CONDEMN all Shakspeare, like the affected fool At court, who hates whate'er he read at school. |