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| SINCE, dearest Harry, you will needs request | |
| A short account of all the muse-possest, | |
| That, down from Chaucer’s days to Dryden’s times, | |
| Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes; | |
| Without more preface, writ in formal length, | 5 |
| To speak the undertaker’s want of strength, | |
| I’ll try to make their several beauties known, | |
| And show their verses worth tho’ not my own. | |
| Long had our dull forefathers slept supine, | |
| Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine, | 10 |
| Till Chaucer first, a merry bard, arose, | |
| And many a story told in rhyme and prose. | |
| But age has rusted what the poet writ, | |
| Worn out his language, and obscured his wit; | |
| In vain he jests in his unpolished strain, | 15 |
| And tries to make his readers laugh in vain. | |
| Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage, | |
| In ancient tales amused a barb’rous age; | |
| An age that yet uncultivate and rude, | |
| Where’er the poet’s fancy led, pursu’d | 20 |
| Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods, | |
| To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods. | |
| But now the mystic tale that pleased of yore, | |
| Can charm an understanding age no more; | |
| The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, | 25 |
| While the dull moral lies too plain below. | |
| We view well-pleased at distance all the sights | |
| Of arms and palfreys, battles, fields, and fights, | |
| And damsels in distress, and courteous knights. | |
| But when we look too near the shades decay, | 30 |
| And all the pleasing landscape fades away. | |
| Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote, | |
| O’er-run with wit, and lavish of his thought; | |
| His turns too closely on the reader press: | |
| He had more pleased us had he pleased us less. | 35 |
| One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes | |
| With silent wonder, but new wonders rise, | |
| As in the milky-way a shining white | |
| O’erflows the heav’ns with one continued light; | |
| That not a single star can shew his rays, | 40 |
| Whilst jointly all promote the common blaze. | |
| Pardon, great poet, that I dare to name | |
| Th’ unnumbered beauties of thy verse with blame; | |
| Thy fault is only wit in its excess, | |
| But wit like thine in any shape will please. | 45 |
| What muse but thine can equal hints inspire, | |
| And fit the deep-mouthed Pindar to thy lyre: | |
| Pindar, whom others in a laboured strain, | |
| And forced expression imitate in vain. | |
| Well-pleased in thee he soars with new delight, | 50 |
| And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a nobler flight. | |
| Blest man! whose spotless life and charming lays | |
| Employed the tuneful prelate in thy praise: | |
| Blest man! who now shalt be for ever known | |
| In Sprat’s successful labours and thy own. | 55 |
| But Milton, next, with high and haughty stalks, | |
| Unfettered in majestic numbers walks; | |
| No vulgar hero can his muse engage, | |
| Nor earth’s wide scene confine his hallow’d rage. | |
| See! see, he upward springs, and towering high | 60 |
| Spurns the dull province of mortality, | |
| Shakes heaven’s eternal throne with dire alarms, | |
| And sets the Almighty thunderer in arms. | |
| Whate’er his pen describes I more than see, | |
| Whilst every verse arrayed in majesty, | 65 |
| Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws, | |
| And seems above the critic’s nicer laws. | |
| How are you struck with terror and delight, | |
| When angel with arch-angel copes in fight! | |
| When great Messiah’s out-spread banner shines, | 70 |
| How does the chariot rattle in his lines! | |
| What sounds of brazen wheels, what thunder, scare, | |
| And stun the reader with the din of war! | |
| With fear my spirits and my blood retire, | |
| To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire; | 75 |
| But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise, | |
| And view the first gay scenes of Paradise, | |
| What tongue, what words of rapture can express | |
| A vision so profuse of pleasantness. | |
| Oh had the poet ne’er profaned his pen, | 80 |
| To varnish o’er the guilt of faithless men; | |
| His other works might have deserved applause, | |
| But now the language can’t support the cause. | |
| While the clean current, though serene and bright, | |
| Betrays a bottom odious to the sight. | 85 |
| But now my muse a softer strain rehearse, | |
| Turn every line with art, and smooth thy verse; | |
| The courtly Waller next commands thy lays: | |
| Muse tune thy verse with art, to Waller’s praise. | |
| While tender airs and lovely dames inspire | 90 |
| Soft melting thoughts and propagate desire, | |
| So long shall Waller’s strains our passions move, | |
| And Sacharissa’s beauties kindle love. | |
| Thy verse, harmonious bard, and flatt’ring song, | |
| Can make the vanquished great, and coward strong; | 95 |
| Thy verse can show ev’n Cromwell’s innocence, | |
| And compliment the storms that bore him hence. | |
| Oh had thy muse not come an age too soon, | |
| But seen great Nassau on the British throne! | |
| How had his triumphs glittered in thy page, | 100 |
| And warmed thee to a more exalted rage. | |
| What scenes of death and horror had we view’d, | |
| And how had Boyne’s wide current reek’d in blood. | |
| Or, if Maria’s charms thou would’st rehearse | |
| In smoother numbers and a softer verse, | 105 |
| Thy pen had well described her graceful air, | |
| And Gloriana would have seemed more fair. | |
| Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by, | |
| That makes ev’n rules a noble poetry; | |
| Rules, whose deep sense and heav’nly numbers show | 110 |
| The best of critics and of poets too. | |
| Nor Denham, must we e’er forget thy strains, | |
| While Cooper’s Hill commands the neighb’ring plains. | |
| But see where artful Dryden next appears | |
| Grown old in rhyme, but charming ev’n in years. | 115 |
| Great Dryden next, whose tuneful muse affords | |
| The sweetest numbers and the fittest words. | |
| Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs | |
| She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears. | |
| If satire or heroic strains she writes, | 120 |
| Her hero pleases, and her satire bites. | |
| From her no harsh unartful numbers fall, | |
| She wears all dresses and she charms in all. | |
| How might we fear our English poetry, | |
| That long has flourished, should decay with thee, | 125 |
| Did not the muse’s other hope appear, | |
| Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear. | |
| Congreve! whose fancy’s unexhausted store | |
| Has given already much, and promised more. | |
| Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive, | 130 |
| And Dryden’s muse shall in his friend survive. | |
| I’m tired with rhyming, and would fain give o’er, | |
| But justice still demands one labour more: | |
| The noble Montagu remains unnamed, | |
| For wit, for humour, and for judgment famed; | 135 |
| To Dorset he directs his artful muse, | |
| In numbers such as Dorset’s self might use. | |
| How negligently graceful he unreins | |
| His verse, and writes in loose familiar strains; | |
| How Nassau’s godlike acts adorns his lines, | 140 |
| And all the hero in full glory shines. | |
| We see his army set in just array, | |
| And Boyne’s dyed waves run purple to the sea. | |
| Nor Simois choked with men, and arms, and blood; | |
| Nor rapid Xanthus’ celebrated flood, | 145 |
| Shall longer be the poet’s highest themes, | |
| Though gods and heroes fought promiscuous in their streams. | |
| But now, to Nassau’s secret councils raised, | |
| He aids the hero whom before he praised. | |
| I’ve done at length: and now, dear friend, receive | 150 |
| The last poor present that my muse can give. | |
| I leave the arts of poetry and verse | |
| To them that practise ’em with more success. | |
| Of greater truths I’ll now prepare to tell, | |
| And so at once, dear friend and muse, farewell. | 155 |
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