TO MR. POPE, BY MISS JUD. COWPEN, AFTERWARDS MES. MADÁN. O POPE by what commanding wondrous art Loft in delights, my dazzled eyes I turn, Where Thames leans hoary o'er his ample urn; Where his rich waves fair Windfor's towers fur round, And bounteous rufh amid poetic ground. In mighty Pope's immortalizing strains, Now war and arms thy mighty aid demand, Now light as air th' enlivening numbers move, But, when Achilles, panting for the war, So the bright magic of the painter's hand Can cities, ftreams, tall towers, and far-ftretch'd plains, command; Here fpreading woods embrown the beauteous fcene, Therethe wide landscape smiles with livelier green; When ev'n the paflions of the mind are seen, And the foul fpeaks in the exalted mien ; We own the mighty Master's fkill, as boundless as complete. LORD MIDDLESEX TO MR. POPE, On reading Mr. Addifon's Account of the Englifo Poets. Ir all who e'er invok'd the tuneful Nine, How am I fill'd with rapture and delight, But when fome fair one guides your fofter verfe, Her charms, her godlike features, to rehearse; See how her eyes with quicker lightnings arm, And Waller's thoughts in smoother numbers charm! When fools provoke, and dunces urge thy rage, Flecknoe improv'd bites keener in each page. Give o'er, great bard, your fruitless toil give o'er, For ftill king Tibbald fcribbles as before; Poor Shakspeare suffers by his pen each day, But hold, my mufe! whofe awkward verfe betrays TO MR. POPE, ON THE PUBLISHING HIS WORKS. He comes, he comes! bid every bard prepare But hark! what fhouts, what gathering crowds Unftain'd their praife by any venial voice, But what are they that turn the facred page? What laurel'd arch for thy triumphant mufe? Though cach great ancient court thee to his fhrine, (From the proud epic, down to those that shade The gentler brow of the foft Lefbian maid) Go to the good and just, an awful train, Thy foul's delight, and glory of the fane : While through the earth thy dear remembrance flies, "Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies.” SIMON HARCOURT. TO MR. POPE, BY MR. HARTE. To move the fprings of nature as we please; 'Tis yours, like thefe, with curious toil to trace T' infpire mankind, itfelf deriv'd from heaven. I cannot rival-and yet dare to praife. So feems fome picture, where exact design, And curiouspains, and ftrength, and sweetness join; Where the free thought its pleafing grace bestows, And each warm ftroke with living colour glows; Soft without weakness, without labour fair, Wrought up at once with happiness and care! How bleft the man that from the world removes, To joys that Merdaunt, or his Pope, approves ; Whole tafte exact each author can explore, And live the prefent and paft ages o'er; Who, free from pride, from penitence, or ftrife, Moves calmly forward to the verge of life : Such be my days, and such my fortunes be, Nor deem this verse, though humble, a disgrace: Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend; Perhaps too fond to make those virtues known, And fix her fame immortal on thy own. THE TRIUMVIRATE OF POETS, BY MRS. TOLLET. BRITAIN with Greece and Rome contended long Till this Auguftan age with Three was bleft, PREFACE. I AM inclined to think, that both the writers of I think a good deal may be faid to extenuate books and the readers of them, are generally not a the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, little unreasonable in their expectations. The firft is hard to be distinguished, by a man himself, from feem to fancy that the world muft approve of a ftrong inclination: and if his genius be ever fo whatever they produce, and the latter to imagine great, he cannot at first discover it any other way, that authors are obliged to please them at any rate. than by giving way to that prevalent propensity Methinks, as, on the one hand, n fingle man is which renders him the more liable to be mistaken. born with a right of controuling the opinions of The only method he has, is to make the experiment all the reft; fo, on the other, the world has no by writing, and appealing to the judgment of title to demand, that the whole care and time of others: now, if he happens to write ill (which is any particular person should be facrificed to its certainly no fin in itself, he is immediately made entertainnient. Therefore, I cannot but believe an object of ridicule I wish we had the humathat writers and readers are under equal obliga-nity to reflect, that even the worst authors might, tions, for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the other. Every one acknowledges, it would be a wild notion to expect perfection in any work of man and yet one would think the contrary was taken for granted, by the judgment commonly paffed upon poems. A critic fuppofes he has done his part, if he proves a writer to have failed in an expreffion, or erred in any particular point and can it then be wondered at, if the Poets, in general, feem refolved not to own themselves in any error? For, as long as one fide will make no allowances, the other will be brought to no acknowledgments*. in their endeavour to please us, deserve something at our hands. We have no caufe to quarrel with them but for their obftinacy in perfifting to write; and this too may admit of alleviating circumftances. Their particular friends may be either ignorant or infincere; and the reft of the world in general is too well-bred to fhock them with a truth, which generally their bookfellers are the first that inform them of. This happens not till they have spent too much of their time, to apply to any profeffion which might better fit their ta lents; and till fuch talents as they have are fo far difcredited as to be but of small fervice to them. For (what is the hardest cafe imaginable) the reI am afraid this extreme zeal on both fides is ill-putation of a man generally depends upon the first placed; Poetry and Criticism being by no means the univerfal concern of the world, but only the affair of idle men who write in their clofets, and of idle men who read there. fteps he makes in the world; and people will establish their opinion of us, from what we do at that feason, when we have least judgment to direct us On the other hand, a good poet no fooner communicates his works with the fame defire of information, but it is imagined he is a vain young creature given up to the ambition of fame; when perhaps the poor man is all the while trembling with the fear of being ridiculous. If he is made to hope he may please the world, he falls under very unlucky circumstances: for, from the moment he prints, he muft expect to hear no more truth, than if he were a prince, or a beauty. If he has not very good fenfe (and indeed there are twenty men of wit for one man of fenfe), his living thus in a course of flattery may put him in has, he will confequently have fo much diffidence as not to reap any great fatisfaction from his praife; fince, if it be given to his face, it can fcarce be diftinguished from flattery, and if in his abfence, it is hard to be certain of it. Were he fure to be commended by the best and most know ing, he is as fure of being envied by the worft and moft ignorant, which are the majority; for it is with a fine genius, as with a fine fashion, all those are displeased at it who are not able to follow it: and it is to be feared that efteem will feldom do any man fo much good, as ill-will does him harm. Then there is a third clafs of people who make the largest part of mankind, thofe of ordinary or indifferent capacities; and thefe (to a man) will hate or fufpect him : a hundred honeft gentlemen will dread him as a wit, and a hundred innocent women as a fatirift. In a word, whatever be his fate in poetry, it is ten to one but he muft give up all the reasonable aims of life for it. There are indeed fome advantages accruing from a genius to poetry, and they are all I can think of: the agreeable power of self-amusement when a man is idle or alone; the privilege of being admitted into the best company; and the freedom of faying as many careless things as other people, without being fo feverely remarked upon. I believe, if any one, early in his life, should contemplate the dangerous fate of authors, he would fcarce be of their number on any confideration. The life of a wit is a warfare upon earth; and the present fpirit of the learned world is fuch, that to attempt to ferve it (any way) one muft have the conftancy of a martyr, and a resolution to fuffer for its fake. I could with people would be. lieve, what I am pretty certain they will not, that I have been much lefs concerned about fame than I durft declare till this occafion, when methinks I fhould find more credit than I could heretofore, fince my writings have had their fate already, and it is too late to think of prepoffeffing the reader in their favour. I would plead it as fome merit in me, that the world has never been prepared for thefe trifles by prefaces, biaffed by recommendations, dazzled with the names of great patrons, wheedled with fine reafons and pretences, or troubled with excufes. I confefs it was want of confideration that made me an author: I writ because it amused me; I corrected because it was as pleasant to me to correct as to write; and I published because I was told I might please such as it was a credit to please. To what degree I have done this, I am really ignorant; I had too much fondness for my productions to judge of them at first, and too much judgment to be pleafed with them at last But I have reafon to think they can have no reputation which will continue long, or which deferves to do fo; for they have always fallen fhort not only of what I read of others, but even of my own ideas of poetry. If any one fhould imagine I am not in earnest, I defire him to reflect, that the Ancients (to say the leaf of them) had as much genius as we; and that to take more pains, and employ more time, cannot fail to produce more complete pieces. They con ftantly applied themselves not only to that art, daë to that fingle branch of an art, to which their ta lent was most powerfully bent; and it was the bufinefs of their lives to correct and finish their works for posterity. If we can pretend to have used the fame industry, let us expect the fame im mortality: Though, if we took the fame care, we should still lie under a further misfortune they writ in languages that became universal and everlasting, while ours are extremely limited both in extent and in duration: A mighty foundation for our pride when the utmoft we can hope is but to be read in one ifland, and to be thrown afide at the end of one age. All that is left us is to recommend our produc tions by the imitation of the Ancients; and it will be found true, that, in every age, the highest character for fenfe and learning has been obtained by those who have been most indebted to them. For, to fay truth, whatever is very good fenfe, muit have been common fenfe in all times; and what we call Learning, is but the knowledge of the fenfe of our predeceffors Therefore they who fay our thoughts are not our own, because they refemble the Ancients, may as well fay our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people fhould expect us to be scholars, and yet be angry to find us fo. I fairly confefs that I have ferved myfelf all I could by reading; that I made use of the judgment of authors dead and living; that I omitted no means in my power to be informed of my errors, both by my friends and enemies: But the true reason these pieces are not more correct, is owing to the confideration how fhort a time they and I have to live: One may be afhamed to confume half one's days in bringing fenfe and rhyme together; and what critic can be fo unreasonable, as not to leave a man time enough for any more ferious employment, or more agreeable amufement? The only plea I fhall ufe for the favour of the public, is, that I have as great a refpe&t for it, as most authors have for themselves; and that I have facrificed much of my own felf-love for its fake, in preventing not only many mean things from feeing the light, but many which I thought tolerable. I would not be like thofe authors, who forgive themfelves fome particular lines for the fake of a whole poem. and vice verfa a whole poem for the fake of fome particular lines. I believe, no one qualifi cation is fo likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts; and it muft be this (if any thing) that can give me a chance to be one. For what I have publifhed, I can only hope to be pardoned; but for what I have burned I deferve to be praift d. On this account the world is under fome obligation to me, and owes me the juftice in return, to look upon no verfes as mine that are not inferted in this collection. And per haps nothing could make it worth my while to own what are really fo, but to avoid the imputation of fo many dull and immo al things, as partly by mal.ce, and partly by ignorance, have been afcribed to me. I mult frther acquit myfelt of the prefumption of having lent my name to re |