Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone, See Ward by batter'd beaus invited over, Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. 60 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, Prevent the greedy, and out-bid the bold: 70 80 Or if three ladies like a luckless play, Takes the whole house upon the poet's day. Upon my word, you must be rich indeed; 90 A noble superfluity it craves, Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves; But if to pow'r 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 crouds 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: That makes three members, this can chuse a may’r.' 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 continu'd treat, If to live well means nothing but to eat; Or shall we ev'ry decency confound, Thro' taverns, stews, and bagnio's take our round, IIO Go dine with Chartres, in each vice out-do Renounce our country, and degrade our name? If, after all, we must with Wilmot own, The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well. 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. 120 130 SATIRES AND EPISTLES. V. To Augustus. (HORACE, 2 Epist. 1.) ADVERTISEMENT. THE reflections of Horace, and the judgments past in his Epistle to Augustus, seem'd 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 the great and good qualities of a monarch, upon whom the Romans depended for the encrease 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. one, This Epistle will shew the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: 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, &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 cotemporaries, 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 shews (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 hsmelf 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. HILE you, great patron of mankind! sustain Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, IO 20 |