Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

Him with her love propitious SATIRE blest,
And breath'd her airs divine into his breast:
Fancy and Sense to form his line conspire,
And faultless Judgment guides the purest Fire.
But see at length the British Genius smile,

445

And show'r her bounties o'er her favour'd Isle : 450
Behold for POPE she twines the laurel crown,
And centres ev'ry Poet's power in one :

Each Roman's force adorns his various page,
Gay smiles, corrected strength, and manly rage.
Despairing Guilt and Dulness loathe the sight, 455
As Spectres vanish at approaching light:
In this clear Mirror with delight we view
Each image justly fine, and boldly true:

460

Here Vice, dragg'd forth by Truth's supreme decree,
Beholds and hates her own deformity:
While self-seen Virtue in the faithful line
With modest joy surveys her form divine.
But oh, what thoughts, what numbers shall I find,
But faintly to express the Poet's mind!
Who yonder Star's effulgence can display,
Unless he dip his pencil in the ray?

465

Who paint a God, unless the God inspire?
What catch the Lightning, but the speed of fire?
So, mighty POPE, to make thy Genius known,
All pow'r is weak, all numbers-but thy own. 470
Each Muse for thee with kind contention strove,
For thee the Graces left th' IDALIAN grove;
With watchful fondness o'er thy cradle hung,
Attun'd thy voice, and form'd thy infant tongue.
Next, to her Bard majestic Wisdom came;
The Bard enraptur'd caught the heav'nly flame:

475

With taste superior scorn'd the venal tribe,
Whom fear can sway, or guilty Greatness bribe;
At Fancy's call, who rear the wanton sail,
Sport with the stream, and trifle in the gale: 480
Sublimer views thy daring Spirit bound;
Thy mighty Voyage was Creation's round;
Intent new Worlds of Wisdom to explore,
And bless Mankind with Virtue's sacred store:
A nobler joy than Wit can give, impart;
And pour a moral transport o'er the heart.
Fantastic Wit shoots momentary fires,

485

491

495

And, like a Meteor, while we gaze, expires:
Wit kindled by the sulph'rous breath of Vice,
Like the blue Lightning, while it shines, destroys:
But Genius, fir'd by Truth's eternal
ray,
Burns clear and constant, like the source of day:
Like this, its beam prolific and refin'd,
Feeds, warms, inspirits, and exalts the mind;
Mildly dispels each wintry Passion's gloom,
And opens all the Virtues into bloom.
This Praise, immortal POPE, to thee be giv❜n:
Thy Genius was indeed a Gift from Heav'n.
Hail, Bard unequall'd, in whose deathless line
Reason and Wit, with strength collected shine; 500
Where matchless Wit but wins the second praise,
Lost, nobly lost, in Truth's superior blaze.
Did FRIENDSHIP e'er mislead thy wand'ring Muse?
That Friendship sure may plead the great excuse :
That sacred Friendship which inspir'd thy Song,
Fair in defect, and amiably wrong.

Error like this ev'n Truth can scarce reprove;

"Tis almost Virtue when it flows from Love.

506

510

515

Ye deathless Names, ye Sons of endless praise,
By Virtue crown'd with never-fading bays!
Say, shall an artless Muse, if you inspire,
Light her pale lamp at your immortal fire?
Or if, O WARBURTON, inspir'd by You,
The daring Muse a nobler path pursue,
By you inspir'd, on trembling pinion soar,
The sacred founts of social bliss explore,
In her bold numbers chain the Tyrant's rage,
And bid her Country's Glory fire her page:
If such her fate, do thou, fair Truth, descend,
And watchful guard her in an honest end:
Kindly severe, instruct her equal line

To court no Friend, nor own a Foe but thine.
But if her giddy eye should vainly quit

Thy sacred paths, to run the maze of wit;
If her apostate heart should e'er incline
To offer incense at Corruption's shrine;

520

525

Urge, urge thy pow'r, the black attempt confound, And dash the smoking Censer to the ground. Thus aw'd to fear instructed Bards may see,

That Guilt is doom'd to sink in Infamy.

530

A LETTER'

то

A NOBLE LORD,

ON OCCASION OF SOME LIBELS WRITTEN AND PROPAGATED AT COURT, IN THE YEAR 1732-3.

MY LORD,

Nov. 30, 1733.

YOUR Lordship's epistle has been published some days, but I had not the pleasure and pain of seeing it till yesterday: Pain to think your Lordship should attack me at all; Pleasure, to find that you can attack me so weakly. As I want not the humility, to think myself in every way but one your inferior, it

1 This Letter (which was first printed in the Year 1733) bears the same place in our Author's prose that the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot does in his poetry. They are both Apologetical, repelling the libellous slanders on his Reputation: with this difference, that the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, his friend, was chiefly directed against Grub-street Writers, and this letter to the Noble Lord, his enemy, against Court Scribblers. For the rest, they are both Masterpieces in their kinds; That in verse, more grave, moral, and sublime; This in prose, more lively, critical, and pointed; but equally conducive to what he had most at heart, the vindication of his moral Character: the only thing he thought worth his care in literary altercations; and the first thing he would expect from the good offices of a surviving Friend. W.

2 Intitled, An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court, Aug. 28, 1733, and printed the November following for J. Roberts. Fol. W.

seems but reasonable that I should take the only method either of self-defence or retaliation, that is left me against a person of your quality and power And as by your choice of this weapon, your pen, you generously (and modestly too, no doubt) meant to put yourself upon a level with me; I will as soon believe that your Lordship would give a wound to a man unarmed, as that you would deny me the use of it in my own defence.

you

I presume you will allow me to take the same liberty in my answer to so candid, polite, and ingenious, a Nobleman, which your Lordship took in yours, to so grave, religious, and respectable, a clergyman3: As answered his Latin in English, permit me to answer your Verse in Prose. And though your Lordship's reasons for not writing in Latin might be stronger than mine for not writing in Verse, yet I may plead Two good ones, for this conduct: the one that I want the talent of spinning a thousand lines in a Day (which, I think, is as much Time as this subject deserves), and the other, that I take your Lordship's Verse to be as much Prose as this letter. But no doubt it was your choice, in writing to a friend, to renounce all the pomp of Poetry, and give us this excellent model of the familiar.

When I consider the great difference betwixt the rank your Lordship holds in the World, and the rank which your writings are like to hold in the learned world, I presume that distinction of style is but ne

3 Dr. S.

And Pope with justice of such lines may say,

His Lordship spins a thousand in a day.-Epist. p. 6.

« НазадПродовжити »