That rattles loud a small enchanted box, From Eolus's cave impetuous broke, From this small cavern a mix'd tempest flies, Like the mad maid in the Cumean cell. Thus that divine one her soft nights employs! O scene of horrour, and of wild despair, Why that drawn sword? and whence that dis- Why pale distraction through the family? But wanders not my Satire from her theme? Sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, tradesmen, close In my complaint, and brand your sins in prose: Yet I believe, as firmly as my Creed, In spite of all our wisdom, you'll proceed : Our pride so great, our passion is so strong, The charm begins! To yonder flood of light, Thus the majestic mother of mankind 2, To her own charms most amiably blind, On the green margin innocently stood, And gaz'd indulgent on the crystal flood; Survey'd the stranger in the painted wave, And, smiling, prais'd the beauties which she gave. SATIRE VII. TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. Carmina tum melius, cum venerit Ipse, canemus. VIRG. On this last labour, this my closing strain, (A bad effect, but from a pleasing cause!) The follies past are of a private kind; a Milton. The Grecian chief, th' enthusiast of his pride, With Rage and Terrour stalking by his side, Raves round the globe; he soars into a god! Stand fast, Olympus! and sustain his nod. The pest divine in horrid grandeur reigns, And thrives on mankind's miseries and pains. What slaughter'd hosts! what cities in a blaze! What wasted countries! and what crimson seas! With orphans' tears his impious bowl o'erflows, And cries of kingdoms lull him to repose. And cannot thrice ten hundred years unpraise The boisterous boy, and blast his guilty bays? Why want we then encomiums on the storm, Or famine, or volcano? They perform Their mighty deeds; they, hero-like, can slay, And spread their ample deserts in a day. O great alliance! O divine renown! With dearth, and pestilence, to share the crown. When men extol a wild destroyer's name, Earth's Builder and Preserver they blaspheme. One to destroy, is murder by the law; And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; To murder thousands, takes a specious name, War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame. When, after battle, I the field have seen Spread o'er with ghastly shapes. which once were men; A nation crush'd, a nation of the brave! A realm of death! and on this side the grave! How guilty these! Yet not less guilty they, Here cease, my Muse! the catalogue is writ; Some future strain, in which the Muse shall How science dwindles, and how volumes swell. How commentators each dark passage shun, And hold their farthing candle to the Sun. How tortur'd texts to speak our sense are made, And every vice is to the Scripture laid. How misers squeeze a young voluptuous peer; His sins to Lucifer not half so dear. How Versus is less qualified to steal How man eternally false judgments makes, This swarm of themes that settles on my pen, Which I, like summer flies, shake off again, Let others sing, to whom my weak essay But sounds a prelude, and points out their prey: That duty done, I hasten to complete My own design; for Tonson's at the gate. The Love of Fame in its effect survey'd, The Muse has sung: be now the cause display'd: Since so diffusive, and so wide its sway, What is this power, whom all mankind obey? Shot from above, by Heaven's indulgence, cams But oh! this passion planted in the soul, Would you then fully comprehend the whole, Why, and in what degrees, pride sways the soul? (For, though in all, not equally she reigns) Awake to knowledge, and attend my strains. Ye doctors! hear the doctrine I disclose, Ambition, in the truly noble mind, No mask in basest minds Ambition wears, Amphitryon. All I have sung are instances of this, Brave men would act, though scandal should ensue. No pride of thrones, no fever after fame: In Brunswick such a source the Muse adores, Nor human rage alone his power perceives, And sported with a king's and kingdom's fate, What felt thy Walpole, pilot of the realm! His eye ne'er clos'd; long since inur'd to wake, 2 The king in danger by sea. VOL. XIIL OCEAN; AN ODE: OCCASIONED BY HIS MAJESTY'S ROYAL ENCOURAGEMENT TO WHICH IS PREFIXED AN ODE TO THE KING; AND A DISCOURSE ON ODE. I THINK myself obliged to recommend to you a consideration of the greatest importance; and I should look upon it as a great happiness, if, at the beginning of my reign, I could see the foundation laid of so great and necessary a work, as the increase and encouragement of our seamen in general; that they may be invited, rather than compelled by force and violence, to enter into the service of their country, as oft as occasion shall require it: a consideration worthy the representatives of a people great and flourishing in trade and navigation. This leads me to mention to you the case of Greenwich Hospital, that care may be taken, by some addition to that fund, to render comfortable and effectual that charitable provision for the support and maintenance of our seamen, worn out, and become decrepit by age and infirmities, in the service of their country. [Speech, Jan. 27, 1727-8.] Let Thebes, nor Rome, So fam'd, presume To triumph o'er a Northern Isle; Late Time shall know The North can glow, If dread Augustus deign to smile. The work is done! The distant Sun His smile supplies! exalts my voice! Through Earth's wide bound Shall George resound, My theme, by duty, and by choice. The naval crown Is all his own! Our fleet, if war or commerce call, His will performs Through waves and storms, And rides in triumph round the ball. Since then the main Sublimes my strain, To whom should I address my song? To whom but thee? The boundless sea, And grateful Muse, to George belong. Hail, mighty theme! If gods invok'd extend their aid; Reserv'd by the Pierian maid. Durst Homer's Muse, To pour the billows on his string? No, both defraud The tuneful god; To our having, or not having, this idea of perfection in the poem we undertake, is chiefly owing the merit or demerit of our performances, as also the modesty or vanity of our opinions concerning them. And in speaking of it I shall show how it unavoidably comes to pass, that bad poets, that is, poets in general, are esteemed, and really are, the most vain, the most irritable, and most ridiculous set of men upon Earth. But poetry in its own nature is certainly -Non hos quæsitum munus in usus. VIRG. He that has an idea of perfection in the work he undertakes may fail in it; he that has not, must: and yet he will be vain. For every little degree of beauty, how short or improper soever, will be looked on fondly by him; because it is all pure gains, and more than he promised to himself; and because he has no test, or standard in his judgment, with which to chastise his opinion of it. Now this idea of perfection is, in poetry, more refined than in other kinds of writing; and because more refined, therefore more difficult; and because more difficult, therefore more rarely attained; and the non-attainment of it is, as I have said, the source of our vanity. Hence the poetic clan are more obnoxious to vanity than others. And from vanity consequently flows that great sensibility of disrespect, that quick resentment, that tinder of the mind that kindles at every spark, and justly marks them out for the genus irritabile among mankind. And from this combustible temper, this serious anger for no very serious things, things looked on by most as foreign to the important points of life, as consequentially flows that inheritance of ridicule, which devolves on them, from generation to generation. As soon as they become authors, they become like Ben Jonson's angry boy, and learn the art of quarrel. Concordes anima-dum nocte premuntur; Attigerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt! Qui Juvenes! quantas ostentant, aspice. vires. Ne, pueri! ne tanta animis assuescite bella. Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, Sidereo flagrans clypeo, et cœlestibus armis, Projice tela manu, sanguis meus! Nec te ullæ facies, non terruit ispe Typhorus Ardaus, arma tenens; nonte Messapus et Ufens, VIRG. Contemptorque Deûm Mezentius. But to return. He that has this idea of perfection in the work he undertakes, however successful he is; will yet be modest; because to rise up to that idea, which he proposed for his model, is almost, if not absolutely, impossible. These two observations account for what may seem as strange, as it is infallibly true; I mean, they show us why good writers have the lowest, and bad writers the highest, opinion of their own performances. They who have only partial idea of this perfection, as their portion of ignorance or knowledge of it is greater or less, have proportionable degrees of modesty or conceit. Nor, though natural good understanding makes a tolerably just judgment in things of this nature, will the reader judge the worse, for forming to himself a notion of what he ought to expect from the piece he has in hand, before he begins his perusal of it. is more spiritous, and more remote from prose The Ode, as it is the eldest kind of poetry, so it any other, in sense, sound, expression, and con than duct. Its thoughts should be uncommon, sublime, and moral; its numbers full, easy, and most harmonious; its expression pure, strong, delicate, yet unaffected; and of a curious felicity beyond other poems; its conduct should be rapturous, somewhat abrupt, and immethodical to a vulgar eye. That apparent order, and connexion, which gives form and life to some compositions, takes away the very soul of this. Fire, elevation, and select thought, are indispensable; an humble, tame, and vulgar ode is the most pitiful errour a pen can commit. Musa dedit Fidibus divos, puerosque deorum. And as its subjects are sublime, its writer's genins should be so too; otherwise it becomes the meanest thing in writing, viz. an involuntary burlesque. It is the genuine character, and true merit of the ode, a little to startle some apprehensions. Men of cold complexions are very apt to mistake a want of vigour in their imaginations, for a delicacy of taste in their judgments; and, like persons of a tender sight, they look on bright objects, in their natural lustre, as too glaring; what is most delightful to a stronger eye, is painful to them. Thus Pindar, who has as much logic at the bottom as Aristotle or Euclid, to some critics has appeared as niad; and must appear so to all who enjoy no portion of his own divine spirit. Dwarf-understandings, measuring others by their own standard, are apt to think they see a monster, when they see a man. And indeed it seems to be the amends which Nature makes to those whom she has not blessed with an elevation of mind, to indulge them in the comfortable mistake, that all is wrong, which falls not within the narrow limits of their own comprehensions and relish. Judgment, indeed, that masculine power of the mind, in ode, as in all compositions, should bear the supreme sway; and a beautiful imagination, as its mistress, should be subdued to its dominion. |