In ev'ry public virtue we excel;

45

We build, we paint, (o) we fing, we dance as well,

And (p) learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could the behold us tumbling thro' a hoop.
If (q) time improve our wit as well as wine,
Say at what age a poet grows divine?
Shall we, or shall we not account him fo,
Who dy'd, perhaps, an hundred years ago?
End all difpute; and fix the year precise
When British bards begin t'immortalize?

50

"Who lafts a (r) century can have no flaw, 55 "I hold that wit a claffic, good in law."

Suppofe he wants a year, will you compound? And fhall we deem him (s) ancient, right, and found,

Or damn to all eternity at once,

At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?

60

Scriptores trutina; non eft quod multa loquamur;
Nil intra eft oleam, nil extra est in nuce duri.
Venimus ad fummum fortuna: pingimus, atque
(0) Pfallimus, et (p) luctamur Achivis doctius unctis,
Si (9) meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit ;
Scire velim, chartis pretium quotus arroget annus.
Scriptor ab hinc annos centum qui decidit, inter
Perfectos veterefque referri debet, an inter
Viles atque novos? excludat jurgia finis.

Eft vetus atque probus, (r) centum qui perficit

annos.

Quid? qui deperiit minor uno menfe vel anno, Inter quos referendus erit? (s) veterefne poetas, An quos et præfens et poftera refpuat ætas?

"We

"We fhall not quarrel for a year or two; "By (t) courtesy of England, he may do."

Then, by the rule that made the (u) horfe-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,

And melt (x) down ancients like a heap of fnow: 65
While you, to measure merits, look in (y) Stowe,
And eftimating authors by the year,
Beftow a garland only on a (≈) bier.

[bill

(a) Shakespear (whom you and ev'ry playhouseStyle the divine, the matchlefs, what you will) 70 For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despite. Ben, old and poor, as little feem'd to heed (b) The life to come, in every poet's creed. Who now reads (c) Cowley? if he pleafes yet, 75 His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;

Ifte quidem veteres inter ponetur (1) honefte,
Qui vel menfe brevi, vel toto eft junior anno.
Utor permiffo, caudæque pilos ut [u] equinæ
Paulatim vello: et demo unum, demo et item unum;
Dum cadat elufus ratione [x] ruentis acervi,

Qui redit in [y] fafios, et virtutem æftimat annis,
Miraturpue nihil, nifi quod [x] Libitina facravit.

[a] Ennius et fapiens, et fortis, et alter Homerus, Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur Quo [b] promiffa cadant, et fomnia [c] Pythagorea.

NOTES.

Ver. 69. Shakespear.] Shakespear and Ben Johnson may truly be faid not much to have thought of this immortality; the one in many pieces compofed in hafte for the stage; the other in his latter works in general, which Dryden called his dotages.

Forgot

Forgot his Epic, nay Pindaric art,
But till (d) I love the language of his heart.

"Yet furely, (e) surely these were famous men! "What boy but hears the fayings of old Ben? 80 "In all (f) debates where critics bear a part, "Not one but nods, and talks of Johnson's Art, "Of Shakespear's Nature, and of Cowley's Wit; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletch66 er writ;

"How Shadwell hafty, Wycherley was flow; 85 "But, for the paífions, Southern fure and Rowe. "Thefe, (g) only thefe, fupport the crowded ftage, "From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age." Nævius in manibus non est; at [d] mentibus hæret Pene recens: [e] adeo fanctum eft vetus omne poema.

Ambigitur [f] quoties, uter utro fit prior; aufert
Pacuvius docti famam fenis, Accius alti:
Dicitur Afrani toga conveniffe Menandro;
Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi;
Vincere Cæcilius gravitate, Terentius arte:
Hos edifcit, et hos arcto ftipata theatro

Spectat Roma potens; [g] habet nos numeratque

poetas

NOTES.

Ver. 77. Pindaric art,] which has much more merit than his epic, but very unlike the character, as well as numbers of Pindar.

Ver. 85. Shadwell hafty, Wycherley was for.] Nothing was lefs true than this particular: But the whole paragraph has a mixture of irony, and must not altogether be taken for Horace's own judgment, only the common chat of the pretenders to criticism; in fome things right, in others wrong; as he tells us in his answer.

Interdum vulgus rectum videt: eft ubi peceat.

All

90

All this may be; (b) the people's voice is odd,
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
To (i) Gammer Gurton if it give the bays,
And yet deny the Careless Husband praise,
Or fay our father's never broke a rule;
Why then, I fay, the public is a fool.

But let them own, that greater faults than we 95
They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree.
Spenfer himself affects the (k) Obfolete,

And Sydney's verse halts ill on (/) Roman feet :
Milton's ftrong pinion now not heav'n can bound,
Now, ferpent-like, in (m) profe he fweeps the ground,
In quibbles, angel and archangel join,

ΙΟΙ

And God the Father turns a school divine.
(n) Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,
Like (0) flashing Bentley with his desperate hook,
Or damn all Shakespear, like th' affected fool 105
At court, who hates whate'er he (p) read at school.

Ad noftrum tempus, Livi scriptoris ab ævo.
[b] Interdum vulgus rectum videt: eft ubi peccat.
Si [i] veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas,
Ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet; errat:
Si quædum nimis [k] antique, fi pleraque [/] dure
Dicere cedit eos, [m] ignave multa fatetur;
Et fapit, et mecum facit, et Jove judicat æquo.
[7] Non equidem in fector, delendaque carmina Livi
Effe reor, memini quæ [0] plagofum [p] mihi parvo
Orbilium dictarè;

fed emendata videri

NOTES.

Ver. 91. Gammer Gurton] a piece of very low humour, one of the first printed plays in English, and therefore much valued by fome antiquaries.

But

But for the wits of either Charles's days, The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease; Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more, (Like twinkling stars the mifcellanies o'er), 110 One fimile, that (g) folitary fhines.

In the dry defert of a thousand lines,

Or (r) lengthen'd thought that gleams through

many a page,

poems

for an age.

Has fanctify'd, whole
(s) I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are cenfur'd, not as bad but new;
While if our elders break all reafon's laws,
These fools demand not pardon, but applause,

115

(t) On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow, If I but afk, if any weed can grow;

120

One tragic fentence if I dare deride,
Which (u) Betterton's grave action dignify'd,
Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphafis proclaims,
(Tho' but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names),

Pulchraque, et exactis minimum diftantia, miror:
Inter quæ [q] verbum emicuit fi forte decorum,
Si [r] verfus paulo concinnior unus et alter;
Injufte totum ducit venitque poema.

[] Indignior quidquam reprehendi, non quia

craffe

Compofitum, illepideve putetur, fed quia nuper; Nec veniam antiquis, fed honorem et præmia pofci. [] Recte necne crocum florefque perambulet Atta Fabula, fi dubitem; clamant periiffe pudorem Cuncti pene patres: ea cum reprehendere coner, Que [u] gravis Efopus, quæ doctus Rofcius egit.

How