And what is fame? the meanest have their day, The greatest can but blaze and pass away.
Graced as thou art, with all the power of words, So known, so honoured, at the House of Lords:
Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh, (More silent far) where kings and poets lie;Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)Shall be no more than Tully, or than Hyde!
Racked with sciatics, martyred with the stone, Will any mortal let himself alone?
See Ward by battered beaux invited over, And desperate misery lays hold on Dover.
The case is easier in the mind's disease;There all men may be cured, whene'er they please, Would ye be blest? despise low joys, low gains; )Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; )Be virtuous and be happy for your pains. )But art thou one, whom new opinions sway, One who believes as Tindal leads the way, Who virtue and a church alike disowns, Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones?
Fly then on all the wings of wild desire, Admire whate'er the maddest can admire.
Is wealth thy passion? Hence! from pole to pole, Where winds can carry, or where waves can roll, For Indian spices, for Peruvian gold, Prevent the greedy, and out-bid the bold:
Advance thy golden mountain to the skies;On the broad base of fifty thousand rise, Add one round hundred, and (if that's not fair)Add fifty more, and bring it to a square.
For, mark th' advantage; just so many score Will gain a wife with half as many more, Procure her beauty, make that beauty chaste, And then such friends--as cannot fail to last.
A man of wealth is dubbed a man of worth, Venus shall give him form, and Antis birth.
(Believe me, many a German Prince is worse, Who proud of pedigree, is poor of purse.)His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds;Asked for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds;Or if three ladies like a luckless play, Takes the whole house upon the poet's day.
Now, in such exigencies not to need, Upon my word, you must be rich indeed;A noble superfluity it craves, Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves:
Something, which for your honour they may cheat, And which it much becomes you to forget.
If wealth alone then make and keep us blest, Still, still be getting, never, never rest.
But if to power and place your passion lie, If in the pomp of life consist the joy;Then hire a slave, or (if you will) a lord To do the honours, and to give the word;Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach, To whom to nod, whom take into your coach, Whom honour with your hand: to make remarks, Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks:
"This may be troublesome, is near the chair;Thatmakes three members, this can choose a mayor."Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest, )Adopt him son, or cousin at the least, )Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest. )Or if your life be one continued treat, If to live well means nothing but to eat;Up, up! cries gluttony, 'tis break of day, Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey;With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite--So Russel did, but could not eat at night, Called happy dog! the beggar at his door, And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.
Or shall we every decency confound, Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our round, Go dine with Chartres, in each vice out-do K---l's lewd cargo, or Ty---y's crew, From Latian Syrens, French Circean feasts, Return well travelled, and transformed to beasts.
If, after all, we must with Wilmot own, The cordial drop of life is love alone, And Swift cry wisely, "Vive la Bagatelle!"The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well.
Adieu--if this advice appear the worst, E'en take the counsel which I gave you first:
Or better precepts if you can impart, 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 past in his Epistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present Times, 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 Praetores, ne paterentur Nomen suum obsolefieri, etc. 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 Licence of those ancient Poets restrained: that Satire and Comedy were become more just and useful; that, whatever extravagances 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 farther 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. P.
EPISTLE I.
TO AUGUSTUS.
