fucceed without the former. An Author without it, betrays too great a contempt for mankind, and opinion of himself; which are bad advocates for reputation and fuccefs. What a difference is there between the merit, if not the wit, of Cervantes and Rabelais! The last has a particular art of throwing a great deal of genius and learning into frolic and jeft; but the genius and the fcholar is all you can admire; you want the gentleman to converse with in him: he is like a criminal who receives his life for fome fervices; you commend, but you pardon too. Indecency offends our pride, as men; and our unaffected tafte, as judges of compofition Nature has wifely formed us with an averfion to it; and he that fucceeds in fpight of it is, * " aliena ❝venia, quam fua providentia tutior.”

Such wits, like falfe oracles of old (which were wits and cheats), fhould fet up for reputation among the weak, in fome Boeotia, which was the land of oracles; for the wife will hold them in contempt. Some wits too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities; but not with equal fuccefs: for though ambiguities are the firft excellence of an impoftor, they are the laft of a wit.

Some fatirical wits and humourifts, like their father Lucian, laugh at every thing indifcriminately; which betrays fuch a poverty of wit, as cannot afford to part with any thing; and such a want of virtue, as to postpone it to a jeft. Such writers encourage vice and folly, which

* Val. Max.

which they pretend to combat, by fetting them on an equal foot with better things: and while they labour to bring every thing into contempt, how can they expect their own parts fhould escape? Some French writers particularly, are guilty of this in matters of the laft confequence; and fome of our own. They that are for leffening the true dignity of mankind, are not fure of being fuccefsful, but with regard to one individual in it. It is this conduct that justly makes a Wit a term of reproach.

Which puts me mind of Plato's fable of the birth of Love; one of the prettieft fables of all antiquity; which will hold likewife with regard to modern Poetry. Love, fays he, is the son of the goddess Poverty, and the god of Riches: he has from his father his daring genius; his elevation of thought; his building caftles in the air; his prodigality; his neglect of things ferious and useful; his vain opinion of his own merit ; and his affectation of preference and distinction: from his mother he inherits his indigence, which makes him a conftant beggar of favours; that importunity with which he begs; his flattery; his fervility; his fear of being defpifed, which is infeparable from him. This addition may be made; viz. That Poetry, like Love, is a little subject to blindness, which makes her mistake way to preferments and honours; that she has her fatirical quiver; and, laftly, that she retains a dutiful admiration of her father's family; but divides her favours, and generally lives with her mother's rela

her

tions.

However,

However, this is not neceffity, but choice: were Wisdom her governess, fhe might have much more of the father than the mother; efpecially in fuch an age as this, which fhews a due paffion for her charms.

MY

Juv. Sat. x.

Y verfe is Satire; Dorset, lend your ear,
And patronize a Muse you cannot fear.
To poets facred is a Dorset's name :

Their wonted passport through the gates of fame;
It bribes the partial reader into praise,

And throws a glory round the shelter'd lays :
The dazzled judgment fewer faults can see,
And gives applause to Blackmore, or to me.
But you decline the mistress we pursue;
Others are fond of Fame, but Fame of you.

Inftructive Satire, true to virtue's cause!
Thou shining fupplement of public laws!
When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age
Reproach our filence, and demand our rage;
When purchas'd follies, from each distant land,
Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand;
When the Law fhews her teeth, but dares not bite,
And South-fea treasures are not brought to light;
When Churchmen Scripture for the Claffics quit,
Polite apoftates from God's grace to Wit;
When men grow great from their revenue spent,
And fly from bailiffs into parliament;

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10

15

20

When

When dying finners, to blot out their score,

Bequeath the church the leavings of a whore;

To chafe our spleen, when themes like these increase, 25 Shall Panegyrick reign, and Cenfure cease?

Shall Poefy, like Law, turn wrong to right,

And dedications wash an Æthiop white,

Set

up

each fenfelefs wretch for nature's boaft,
On whom praise shines, as trophies on a poft?
Shall funeral eloquence her colours spread,
And scatter rofes on the wealthy dead?
Shall authors smile on fuch illustrious days,
And fatirife with nothing but their praise?

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Why flumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train, 35 Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain? Donne, Dorfet, Dryden, Rochefter, are dead, And guilt's chief foe, in Addison, is fled; »Congreve, who, crown'd with laurels, fairly won, Sits fimiling at the goal, while others run, He will not write; and (more provoking still!) Ye gods! he will not write, and Mævius will. Doubly diftreft, what author fhall we find, Difcreetly daring, and severely kind,

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The courtly* Roman's shining path to tread,

45

And fharply fmile prevailing, folly dead?

Will no fuperior genius fnatch the quill,

And fave me, on the brink, from writing ill?
Though vain the ftrife, I'll strive my voice to raise.
What will not men attempt for facred praise ?

* Horace.

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The