A. Is genius only found in epic lays?
Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise,
Make their heroic pow'rs your own at once,
Or candidly confefs yourself a dunce.
B. These were the chief, each interval of night
Was grac'd with many an undulating light;
In lefs illuftrious bards his beauty fhone
A meteor or a star, in thefe, the fun.
The nightingale may claim the topmost bough,
While the poor grasshopper must chirp below,
Like him unnotic'd, I, and fuch as I,
Spread little wings, and rather fkip than fly,
Perch'd on the meagre produce of the land,
An ell or two of profpect we command,
But never peep beyond the thorny bound
Or oaken fence that hems the paddoc round,
In Eden ere yet innocence of heart
Had faded, poetry was not an art;
Language above all teaching, or if taught,
Only by gratitude and glowing thought;
Elegant as fimplicity, and warm
As exftafy, unmanacl'd by form,
Not prompted as in our degen'rate days,
By low ambition and the thirst of praise,
Was natural as is the flowing stream,
And yet magnificent, a God the theme.
That theme on earth exhausted, though above
Tis found as everlasting as his love,
Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things,
The feats of heroes and the wrath of kings,
But still while virtue kindled his delight,
The fong was moral, and fo far was right:
'Twas thus till luxury feduc'd the mind,
To joys lefs innocent, as less refin’d;
Then genius danc'd a bacchanal, he crown'd
The brimming goblet, feiz'd the thyrfus, bound
His brows with ivy, rush'd into the field
Of wild imagination, and there reel'd,
The victim of his own lafcivious fires,
And dizzy with delight, profan'd the facred wires.
Anacreon, Horace, play'd in Greece and Rome
This Bedlam part; and, others nearer home.
When Cromwell fought for pow'r, and while he reign'd
The proud protector of the pow'r he gain'd,
Religion harfh, intolerant, auftere,
Parent of manners like herfelf fevere,
Drew a rough copy of the Chriftian face
Without the fmile, the fweetnefs, or the grace;
The dark and fullen humour of the time
Judg'd ev'ry effort of the mufe a crime;
Verfe in the fineft mould of fancy caft,
Was lumber in an age fo void of taste;
But when the fecond Charles affum'd the sway,
And arts reviv'd beneath a fofter day,
Then like a bow long forc'd into a curve,
The mind, releas'd from too constrain'd a nerve,
Flew to its firft pofition with a fpring
That made the vaulted roofs of pleasure ring.
His court, the diffolute and hateful school
Of wantonnefs, where vice was taught by rule,
Swarm'd with a fcribbling herd as deep inlaid
With brutal luft as ever Circe made.
From these a long fucceffion, in the rage
Of rank obfcenity debauch'd their age,
Nor ceas'd, 'till ever anxious to redress
Th' abuses of her facred charge, the prefs,
The muse instructed a well nurtur'd train
Of abler votaries to cleanfe the stain,
And claim the palm for purity of fong,
That lewdnefs had ufurp'd and worn fo long.
Then decent pleasantry and sterling sense
That neither gave nor would endure offence,
Whipp'd out of fight with fatyr just and keen,
The puppy pack that had defil'd the scene.
In front of these came Addifon. In him
Humour in holiday and fightly trim,
Sublimity and attic tafte combin'd,
To polish, furnish, and delight the mind:
Then Pope, as harmony itself exact,
In verfe well difciplin'd, complete, compact;
Gave virtue and morality a grace
That quite eclipfing pleasure's painted face,
Levied a tax of wonder and applause,
Ev'n on the fools that trampl'd on their laws.
But he (his mufical fineffe was fuch,
So nice his ear, fo delicate his touch)
Made poetry a mere mechanic art,
And ev'ry warbler has his tune by heart.
Nature imparting her fatyric gift,
Her ferious mirth, to Arbuthnot and Swift,
With droll fobriety they rais'd a smile
At Folly's coft, themselves unmov'd the while.
That conftellation fet, the world in vain
Must hope to look upon their like again.
A. Are we then left-B. Not wholly in the dark,
Wit now and then, ftruck smartly fhews a spark,
-Sufficient to redeem the modern race
From total night and abfolute difgrace.
While fervile trick and imitative knack
Confine the million in the beaten track,
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