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honour of receiving my education) these Divine | Incredible to thought. There tow'rs of oak Poems are humbly dedicated by his

most obliged,

and obedient servant,

PSALM THE CIVth,

PARAPHRASED.

W. HARTE,

AWAKE my soul! in hallow'd raptures praise
Th' Almighty God, who in th' empyreal height
Majestic shines, too glorious to behold.
Methinks the broad expansion of the sky
O'erspreads thy throne: in air thy chambers
hang

Eternal, and unmov'd. Clouds roll'd on clouds
Thy chariot form; in thund'rings wrapt and fires
Thou walk'st, incumbent on the wings of wind.
Active as flames, all intellect, God forms
Angels of essence pure, whose finer parts
Invisible, and half dissolv'd in light,
Should fleet through worlds of air. Th' Almighty
Fixt earth's eterual basis, and prescrib'd
Its utmost limits to the raging main.

[hand

Forth from their deeps a world of waters rose
And delug'd earth. He spoke, the waves obey'd
In peace, subsiding to their ancient springs.
Part murmur headlong down the mountain's
sides:

Part through the vales in slow mæanders play,
As pleas'd, yet loth to leave the flow'ry scene.
Thither by instinct savage beasts repair
To slake their thirst. Along the margin trees
Wave in the watry gleam, amid whose boughs
The winged songsters chant their Maker's pow'r.
God with prolific dews, and genial rain
Impregnates earth, then crowns the smiling fields
With lively green: the vegetative juice

Flows briskly through the trees; the purple grape
Swells with nectareous wines t'inspire the soul.
With verdant fruits the clust'ring olive bends
Whose spritely liquor smooths the shining face.
On Lebanon the sacred cedar waves,
And spiry fir-tree, where the stork conceals
Her clam'rous young. The rocks bare, unadorn'd,
Have uses too: there goats in quest of food
Hang pendulous in air, there rabbits form
Their mazy cells-in constant course the Moon
Nocturnal sheds her kindly influence down,
Marks out the circling year, and rules the

tides.

In constant regularity the Sun Purples the rosy east, or leaves the skies. Then awful night o'er all the globe extends Her sable shades: the woods and deserts ring With hideous yell, what time the lions roar And tear their prey; but when the glimm'ring

morn

Dawns o'er the hills, their depredations cease
And sacred silence reigns. The painful man
Commences with the Sun his early toil,
With him retires to rest. O Pow'r supreme!
How wonderful thy works! the bounteous earth
Pours from its fruitful surface plants and herbs
Adapt for ev'ry use: its bowels hold
Rich veins of silver, and the golden ore.

Unnumber'd wonders in the deeps appear,

Float o'er the surges; there enormous whales
In awkward gainbols play, th' inferior fry
Sportive through groves of shining coral glide.
These with observance due, when hunger calls
Expect their meat from God, who sometimes
A just sufficiency, or more profuse [gives
Show'rs down his bounty with a copious hand.
When God withholds his all-sustaining care,
To dust, their former principle, they fall.
Then thy prolific spirit forms anew
Each undecaying species. Mighty God!
How great, how good thy pow'r; that was, and
And e'er shall be immutably the same!

[is,

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pass'd

Erroneous through the dreary waste of plains,
Immeas'rable: the broad expanse of Heav'n
Their canopy, the ground, of damp malign,
Their bed nocturnal. Thus in wild despair
Anxious they sought some hospitable town.
In shame and bitterness of soul once more
They recognized the Lord, and trembling cry'd
"Have mercy on us!" he, the source of mercy,
Kindly revisited his fav'rite race,

Consol'd their woes, and led the weary train
Through barren wilds to the long-promis'd land,
Then plac'd 'em there in peaceful habitations.

CHORUS.

"O that the sons of men in grateful songs, Wou'd praise th' unbounded goodness of the Lord,

Declare his miracles, and laud his pow'r!"

He cheers the sad, and bids the famish'd soul
Luxuriant feast till nature craves no more.
He often saves th' imprison'd wretch that lies
Tortur'd in iron chains, no more to see
The cheerful light, or breathe the
purer air.
(The due reward imperious mortals find, [pise
When swell'd with earthly grandeur, they des-
The Pow'r supreme) thus Jesse's sacred seed,
Elated with the nun.'rous gifts of Heav'n,

Slighted the giver: then the wrathful Lord
With-held his hand. They, impotent to save
Their forfeit lives, in piercing accents cry'd,
"Help Lord, we die!" he soon with aspect mild
Commiserates their anguish, and reliev'd
Those limbs, which sedentary numbness e'rst
Had crampt, when they in doleful shades of
death

Sate inconsolable-" O then that men [Lord,
Wou'd praise th' unbounded goodness of the
Declare his miracles, and laud his pow'r !"

Man, thoughtless of his end, in anguish reaps The fruits of folly, and voluptuous life. Sated with luxury his stomach loaths Most palatable meats: with heavy pain His eyes roll slowly; if he drops to rest, He starts delirious, and still seems to see Horrible fiends, that tear him from mankind. His flushing cheeks now glow like flames of fire: Now chill'd, he trembles with extremes of coid That shoot, like darts of ice, through every vein. Ev'n then, when art was conquer'd, pray'rs

and vows

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They stagger in amaze, like reeling men
Intoxicated with the fumes of wine,
Yet when they cry to God, his saving pow'r
Hushes the winds, and bids the main subside.
Instead of storms the whisp'ring zephyrs fan
The silent deep, and wave their pendent sails.
Then ev'ry heart exults: joyous repose
Dismisses each terrific thought, when once
(At Heav'n's command) the weary vessel makes
Her long-expected haven.-" O that men
Would praise th' unbounded goodness of the
Lord,

Declare his miracles, and laud his pow'r !"

To him once more address your songs of praise In ev'ry temple sacred to his name, Or where the rev'rend senators conven'd In council sit. He turns the limpid streams, And flow'ry meadows to a dreary waste. Where corn has grown, and fragrant roses fill'd The skies with odoriferous sweets, he bids The baleful aconite up-lift its head (The curse of impious nations): and again In lonely deserts at his high behests Soft-purling rills in sportive mazes glide Mæander'd through the valleys: there he bids The hungry souls increase and multiply. [down His bounteous hand the while pours goodness Ineffable, and guards their num'rous herds. Though thousands fall, his mercy still renews The never-ending race.-When tyrants, proud

Of arrogated greatness, without law
Unpeople realms, and breathe but to destroy;
Then God his high prerogative asserts,
Resumes his pow'r, and blasts their guilty heads:
Then raises fror the dust the humble soul
Who meekly bore indignities and woe.

TO MY SOUL.

FROM CHAUCER.

FAR from mankind, my weary soul, retire,
Still follow truth, contentment still desire.
Who climbs on high, at best his weakness shows,
Who rolls in riches, all to fortune owes.
Read well thy self, and mark thy early ways,
Vain is the Muse, and envy waits on praise.
Wav'ring as winds the breath of fortune blows,
No pow'r can turn it, and no pray'rs compose.
Repose and ease and contemplation dwell.
Deep in some hermit's solitary cell
Let conscience guide thee in the days of need;
Judge well thy own, and then thy neighbour's
deed.

What Heav'n bestows with thankful eyes receive; Slowly we wander o'er a toilsome way, First ask thy heart, and then through faith be[lieve. Shadows of life, and pilgrims of a day. "Who wrestles in this world, receives a fall; Look up on high, and thank thy God for all!"

AN ESSAY ON SATIRE: PARTICULARLY ON THE DUNCIAD. PRINTED 1750.

CONTENTS.

I. The origin and use of satire. The excellency of epic satire above others, as adding example to precept, and animating by fable and sensible images. Epic satire compared with epic poem, and wherein they differ of their extent, action, unities, episodes, and the nature of their morals. Of parody: of the style, figures and wit, proper to this sort of poem, and the superior talents requisite to excel in it.

II. The characters of the several authors of satire. 1. The ancients; Homer, Simonides, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Menippus, Ennius, Lucilius, Varro, Horace, Persius, Petronius, Juvenal, Lucian, the emperor Julian. moderns: Tassone, Coccaius, Rabelais, Regnier, Boileau, Dryden, Garth, Pope.

2. The

III. From the practice of all the best writers and men in every age and nation, the moral justice of satire in general, and of this sort in particular, is vindicated. The necessity of it shown in this age more especially, and why bad writers are at present the most proper objects of satire. The true causes of bad writers. Characters of several sorts of them now abounding. Envious critics, furious pedants, secret libellers, obscene poetesses, advocates for corruption,

scoffers at religion, writers for deism, desitical | and Arian clergymen.

Application of the whole discourse to the Dunciad, concluding with an address to the author of it.

T'EXALT the soul, or make the heart sincere,
To arm our lives with honesty severe,

To shake the wretch beyond the reach of law,
Deter the young, and touch the bold with awe,
To raise the fallen, to hear the sufferer's cries,
And sanctify the virtues of the wise,
Old Satire rose from probity of mind,
The noblest ethics, to reform mankind.

As Cynthia's orb excels the gems of night,
So epic satire shines, distinctly bright.
Here genius lives, and strength in ev'ry part,
And lights and shades, and fancy fix'd by art.
A second beauty in its nature lies,

It gives not things, but beings to our eyes,
Life, substance, spirit animate the whole :
Fiction and fable are the sense and soul.
The common dulness of mankind array'd
In pomp, here lives and breathes, a wond'rous
maid:

The poet decks her with each unknown grace,
Clears her dull brain, and brightens her dark
face.

See! father Chaos o'er his first-born nods,
And mother Night, in majesty of gods.
See Querno's throne, by hands pontific rise,
And a fools' pandæmonium strike our eyes.
Ev'n what on Curl the public bounteous pours
Is sublimated here to golden show'rs.

A Dunciad or a Lutrin is compleat,
And one in action; ludicrously great.
Each wheel rolls round in due degrees of force;
Ev'n episodes are needful, and of course:
Of course when things are virtually begun
E'er the first ends, the father and the son!
Or else so needful, and exactly grac'd,
That nothing is ill-suited, or ill-plac❜d.

True epic's a vast world, and this a small,
One has its proper beauties, and one all.
Like Cynthia, one in thirty days appears;
Like Saturn, one rolls round in thirty years.
There opens a wide tract, a length of floods,
A height of mountains, and a waste of woods:
Here but one spot: nor leaf nor green depart
From rules; e'en Nature seems the child of Art.
As unities in epic works appear,

So must they shine in full distinction here,
Ev'n the warm Iliad moves with slower pow'rs;
That forty days demands, this forty hours.

Each other satire humbler arts has known,
Content with meaner beauties, though its own:
Enough for that, if rugged in its course
The verse but rolls with vehemence and force;
Or nicely pointed in th' Horatian way,
Wounds keen, like Sirens mischievously gay.]
Here all has wit, yet must that wit be strong
Beyond the turns of epigram or song.
The thought must rise, exactly from the vice,
Sudden, yet finish'd; clean, and yet concise.
One harmony must first with last unite:
As all true paintings have their place and light.
Transitions must be quick, and yet design'd,
Not made to fill, but just retain the mind:

And similies, like meteors of the night,
Just give one flash of momentary light.

As thinking makes the soul, low things exprest
In high-rais'd terms, define a Dunciad best.
Books and the man, demand as much, or more,
Than he who wander'd on the Latian shore:
For here (eternal grief to Duns's soul,
And B's thin ghost) the part contains the
whole :

Since in mock-epic none succeeds, but he
Who tastes the whole of epic poesy.

The moral must be clear and understood:
But finer still, if negatively good :
Blaspheming Capaneus obliquely shows
T'adore those gods Eneas fears and knows,
A fool's the hero: but the poets end
Is to be candid, modest, and a friend.

Let classic learning sanctify each part,
Not only show your reading, but your art.
The charms of parody, like those of wit,
If well contrasted, never fail to hit ;
One half in light, and one in darkness drest,
(For contraries oppos'd still shine the best.)
When a cold pause half breaks the writer's heart,
By this, it warms, and brightens into art.
When rhet❜ric glitters with too pompous pride,
By this, like Circe, 'tis undeify'd.
So Berecynthia, while her offspring vie
[flow'rs,
In homage to the mother of the sky,
(Deck'd in rich robes of trees, and plants, and
And crown'd illustrious with a hundred tow'rs)
O'er all Parnassus casts her eyes at once,
And sees an hundred sons-and each a dunce.
The language next: from hence new pleasure
springs:

For styles are dignified as well as things.
Tho' sense subsists, distinct from phrase or sound,
Yet gravity conveys a surer wound.

The chymic secret which your pains would find,
Breaks out, unsought for, in Cervantes' mind:
And Quixote's wildness, like that king's of old,
Turns all he touches into pomp and gold.
Yet in this pomp discretion must be had:
Though grave, not stiff; though whimsical, not
mad:

In works like these if fustain might appear,
Mock-epics, Blackmore, would not cost thee

dear.

We grant, that Butler ravishes the heart,
As Shakespeare soar'd beyond the reach of art;
(For Nature form'd those poets without rules
To fill the world with imitating fools.)
What burlesque could, was by that genius done;
Yet faults it has, impossible to shun:

Th' unchanging strain for want of grandeur cloys,
And gives too oft the horse-laugh mirth of boys:
The short-legg'd verse, and double-gingling sound,
So quick surprise us, that our heads run round:
Yet in this work peculiar life presides,
And wit, for all the world to glean besides.

Here pause, my Muse, too daring and too
young,

Nor rashly aim at precepts yet unsung."
Can man the master of the Dunciad teach?
And these new bays what other hopes to reach?
"Twere better judg'd, to study and explain
Each ancient grace he copies not in vain:
To trace thee, Satire, to thy utmost spring,
Thy form, thy changes, and thy authors sing.

1

All nations with this liberty dipense, And bid us shock the man that shocks good sense. Great Homer first the mimic sketch design'd: What grasp'd not Homer's comprehensive mind? By him who virtue prais'd, was folly curst, And who Achilles sung, drew Dunce the first'. Next him Simonides, with lighter air In beasts, and apes, and vermin, paints the fair: The good Scriblerus in like forms displays The reptile rhymsters of these later days.

More fierce, Archilochus, thy vengeful flame: Fools read, and died: for blockheads then had shame.

The comic satirist 2 attack'd his age,

Tassone shone fantastic, but sublime:
And he, who form'd the Macaronic-rhyme.

Then westward too by slow degrees confest, Where boundless Rabelais made the world his jest:

Marot had nature, Regnier force and flame,
But swallow'd all in Boileau's matchless fame!
Extensive soul! who rang'd all learning o'er,
Present and past-and yet found room for more.
Full of new sense, exact in ev'ry page,
Unbounded, and yet sober in thy rage.
Strange fate! Thy solid sterling of two lines,
Drawn to our tinsel, thro' whole pages shines 9.
In Albion then, with equal lustre bright,

And found low arts, and pride, among the sage: Great Dryden rose, and steer'd by Nature's light.
See learned Athens stand attentive by,
And stoics learn their foibles from the eye.

Two glimm'ring orbs he just observ'd from far, The ocean wide, and dubious either star.

Latium's fifth Homer3 held the Greeks in Donne teem'd with wit, but all was maiṁ'd and

view:

Solid, though rough, yet incorrect as new.
Lucilius, warm'd with more than mortal flame,
Rose next, and held a torch to ev'ry shame.
See stern Menippus, cynical, unclean;
And Grecian centos, inannerly obscene.
Add the last efforts of Pacuvius' rage,
And the chaste decency of V ro's page.

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See Horace next, in each reflection nice,
Learn'd, but not vain: the foe of fools, not vice.
Each page instructs, each sentiment prevails,
All shines alike, he rallies, but ne'er rails:
With courtly ease conceals a master's art,
And least expected steals upon the heart.
Yet Cassius felt the fury of his rage,
(Cassius, the Welsted of a former age);
And sad Alpinus ignorantly read,
Who murder'd Memnon, tho' for ages dead.
Then Persius came: whose line tho' roughly
wrought,

His sense o'erpaid the stricture of his thought.
Here in clear light the stoic-doctrine shines,
Truth all subdues, or patience all resigns.
A mind supreme: impartial, yet severe:
Pure in each act, in each recess sincere !
Yet rich ill poets urg'd the stoic's frown,
And bade him strike at dulness and a crown 5.
The vice and luxury Petronius drew
In Nero meet th' imperial point of view:
The Roman Wilmot, that could vice chastise,
Pleas'd the mad king he serv'd to satirise.

The next in satire 6 felt a nobler rage,
What honest heart could bear Domitian's age?
See his strong sense, and numbers masculine!
His soul is kindled, and he kindles mine:
Scornful of vice, and fearless of offence,
He flows a torrent of impetuous sense.

So savage tyrants who blasphem'd their god, Turn suppliants now, and gaze at Julian's rod?. Lucian, severe, but in a gay disguise, Attacks old faith, or sports in learned lyes 8; Sets heroes and philosophers at odds; And scourges mortals, and dethrones the gods. Then all was right-But Satire rose once more Where Medici and Leo arts restore.

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bruis'd,

The periods endless, and the sense confus'd:
Oldham rush'd on, impetuous and sublime,
But lame in language, harmony and rhyme :
These (with new graces) vig'rous Nature join'd
In one, and center'd them in Dryden's mind.
How full thy verse! Thy meaning how severe !
How dark thy theme! Yet made exactly clear.
Not mortal is thy accent, nor thy rage,
Yet mercy softens, or contracts each page.
Dread bard! instruct us to revere thy rules,
And hate like thee, all rebels, and all fools.
His spirit ceas'd not (in strict truth) to be:
For dying Dryden breath'd,' O Garth, on thee,
Bade thee to keep alive his genuine rage,
Half sunk in want, oppression and old age:
Then, when thy pious hands 1 repos'd his head,
When vain young lords and ev'n the flamen fled.
For well thou knewst his merit and his art,
His upright mind, clear bead, and friendly heart.
Ev'n Pope himself (who sees no virtue bleed
But bears th' affliction) envies thee the deed,
O Pope! instructor of my studious days,
Who fix'd my steps in virtue's early ways;
On whom our labours, and our hopes depend,
Thou more than patron, and ev'n more than
Above all flattery, all thirst of gain, [friend!
And mortal but in sickness, and in pain!
Thou taught'st old Satire nobler fruits to bear,
And check'd her licence with a moral care,
Thou gav'st the thought new beauties not its own,
And touch'd the verse with graces yet unknown;
Each lawless branch thy level eye survey'd,
And still corrected Nature as she stray'd:
Warm'd Boileau's sense with Britain's genuine
fire,

And added softness to Tassone's lyre.

Yet mark the hideous nonseuse of the age, And thou thyself the subject of its rage. So in old times, round godlike Scæva ran Rome's dastard sons, a million, and a man. Th' exalted merits of the wise and good Are seen, far off, and rarely understood. The world's a father to a dunce unknown, And much he thrives, for, Dulness! he's thy own. No hackney brethren e'er condemn'd him twice: He fears no enemies, but dust and mice.

9 Roscommon, reversed.

19 Dr. Garth took care of Mr. Dryden's funeral, which some noblemen, who undertook it, had neglected.

"

If Pope but writes, the devil, Legion raves, And meagre critics mutter in their caves: (Such critics of necessity consume All wit, as hangmen ravish'd maids at Rome.) Names he a scribbler? all the world's in arms; Augusta, Granta, Rhedecyna swarms: The guilty reader fancies what he fears, And every Midas trembles for his ears.

See all such malice, obloquy and spite, Expire e'er morn, the mushroom of a night. Transient as vapours glimm'ring thro' the glades, Half-form'd and idle, as the dreams of maids. Vain as the sick man's vow, or young man's sigh, Third-nights of bards, or Henley's "sophistry. These ever hate the poet's sacred line: These hate whate'er is glorious or divine. From one eternal fountain beauty springs, The energy of wit and truth of things.

That source is God: from him they downwards tend,

Flow round--yet in their native centre end. Hence rules, and truth, and order, dunces strike; Of arts, and virtues, enemies alike.

Some urge, that poets of supreme renown Judge ill to scourge the refuse of the town; Howe'er their casuists hope to turn the scale, These men must smart, or scandal will prevail. By these the weaker sex still suffer most; And such are prais'd who rose at honour's cost: The learn'd they wound, the virtuous, and the

fair;

No fault they cancel, no reproach they spare:
The random shaft, impetuous in the dark,
Sings on unseen, and quivers in the mark.
'Tis justice, and not anger, makes us write,
Such sons of darkness must be dragg'd to light:
Long-suff'ring nature must not always hold:
In virtue's cause 'tis gen'rous to be bold.
To scourge the bad, th' unwary to reclaim,
And make light flash upon the face of shame.
Others have urg'd (but weigh it, and you'll
find

'Tis light as feathers blown before the wind)
That poverty, the curse of Providence,
Atones for a dull writer's want of sense:
Alas! his dulness 'twas which made him poor :
Not vice versa: we infer no more.

Of vice and folly poverty's the curse,
Heav'n may be rigid, but the man was worse,
By good made bad, by favours more disgrac'd,
So dire th' effects of ignorance misplac'd!
Of idle youth, unwatch'd by parents' eyes!
Of zeal for pence, and dedication lies!
Of conscience modell'd by a great man's looks,
And arguings in religion-from no books!

No light the darkness of that mind invades,
Where Chaos rules, enshrin'd in genuine shades:
Where in the dungeon of the soul enclos'd,
True Dulness nods, reclining and repos'd.
Sense, grace, or harmony, ne'er enter there,
Nor human faith, nor piety sincere:
A midnight of the spirits, soul and head,
(Suspended all) as thought itself lay dead.
Yet oft a mimic gleam of transient light
Breaks thro' this gloom, and then they think
they write;

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sings.

The first with Egypt's darkness in his head, Thinks wit the devil, and curses books unread. For twice ten winters he has blunder'd on, Thro' heavy comments, yet ne'er lost nor won: Much may be done in twenty winters more, And let him then learn English at threescore. No sacred Maro glitters on his shelf, He wants the mighty Stagyrite himself. See vast Coimbrias' 13 comments pil'd on high; In heaps Soncinas'4, Sotus, Sanchez lie; For idle hours, Sa's's idle casuistry.

Yet worse is he, who in one language read,
Has one eternal jingling in his head,
At night, or morn, in bed, and on the stairs-
Talks flights to grooms, and makes lewd songs
at pray'rs;

His pride, a pun, a guinea his reward,
His critic Gildon, Jemmy Moore his bard.

What artful hand the wretch's form can hit,
Begot by Satan on a Manley's wit:
In partics furious at the great man's nod,
And hating none for nothing, but his God:
Foe to the learn'd, the virtuous, and the sage,
A pimp in youth, an atheist in old age;
Now plung'd in bawdry and substantial lies,
Now dabbling in ungodly theories:

But so, as swallows skim the pleasing flood,
Grows giddy, but ne'er drinks to do him good:
Alike resolv'd to flatter, or to cheat,
Nay worship onions, if they cry, "come eat:'
A foe to faith, in revelation blind,
And impious much, as dunces are by kind.

[tear;

Next see the master-piece of flatt'ry rise, Th' anointed son of dulness and of lies; Whose softest whisper fills a patron's ear, Who smiles unpleas'd, and mourns without a Persuasive, tho' a woful blockhead he: Truth dies before his shadow's sophistry; For well he knows the vices of the town, The schemes of state, and int'rest of the gown: Immoral afternoons, indecent nights, Inflaming wines, and second appetites.

But most the theatres with dulness groan; Embrios half form'd, a progeny unknown:

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"In the original H-; probably orator Jesuitis:n. Henley. C.

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