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THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE [ ] - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]

Edition used:

The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903).

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THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.

—Hor.

    • Dear Colonel , Cobham’s and your country’s friend,
    • You love a verse; take such as I can send.
    • A Frenchman comes, presents you with his boy,
    • Bows and begins—‘This lad, sir, is of Blois :
    • Observe his shape how clean! his locks how curl’d.
    • My only son, I’d have him see the world:
    • His French is pure; his voice too—you shall hear—
    • Sir, he’s your slave for twenty pound a year.
    • Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease,
    • Your barber, cook, upholst’rer; what you please:10
    • A perfect genius at an opera song—
    • To say too much might do my honour wrong.
    • Take him with all his virtues on my word;
    • His whole ambition was to serve a Lord.
    • But, Sir, to you with what would I not part?
    • Tho’, faith, I fear, ’t will break his mother’s heart.
    • Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie,
    • And then, unwhipp’d, he had the grace to cry:
    • The fault he has I fairly shall reveal
    • (Could you o’erlook but that), it is—to steal.’20
    • If, after this, you took the graceless lad,
    • Could you complain, my friend, he prov’d so bad?
    • Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute,
    • I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit;
    • Who sent the thief that stole the cash away,
    • And punish’d him that put it in his way.
    • Consider then, and judge me in this light;
    • I told you when I went I could not write;
    • You said the same; and are you discontent
    • With laws to which you gave your own assent?30
    • Nay, worse, to ask for verse at such a time!
    • D’ ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme?
    • In Anna’s wars a Soldier, poor and old,
    • Had dearly earn’d a little purse of gold:
    • Tired in a tedious march, one luckless night
    • He slept, (poor dog!) and lost it to a doit.
    • This put the man in such a desp’rate mind, }
    • Between revenge, and grief, and hunger join’d }
    • Against the foe, himself, and all mankind, }
    • He leap’d the trenches, scaled a castle wall,40
    • Tore down a standard, took the fort and all.
    • ‘Prodigious well!’ his great commander cried,
    • Gave him much praise, and some reward beside.
    • Next pleas’d His Excellence a town to batter
    • (Its name I know not, and ’t is no great matter);
    • ‘Go on, my friend (he cried), see yonder walls!
    • Advance and conquer! go where Glory calls!
    • More honours, more rewards, attend the brave.’
    • Don’t you remember what reply he gave?—
    • ‘D’ ye think me, noble Gen’ral, such a sot?50
    • Let him take castles who has ne’er a groat.’
    • Bred up at home, full early I begun
    • To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus’ son:
    • Besides, my father taught me from a lad
    • The better art, to know the good from bad
    • (And little sure imported to remove,
    • To hunt for truth in Maudlin’s learned grove ).
    • But knottier points we knew not half so well,
    • Deprived us soon of our paternal cell;
    • And certain laws, by suff’rers thought unjust,60
    • Denied all posts of profit or of trust.
    • Hopes after hopes of pious papists fail’d,
    • While mighty William’s thund’ring arm prevail’d;
    • For right hereditary tax’d and fin’d
    • He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
    • And me, the Muses help’d to undergo it;
    • Convict a Papist he, and I a Poet.
    • But (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive,
    • Indebted to no prince or peer alive,
    • Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes ,70
    • If I would scribble rather than repose.
    • Years foll’wing years steal something ev’ry day,
    • At last they steal us from ourselves away;
    • In one our frolics, one amusements end,
    • In one a Mistress drops, in one a Friend.
    • This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,
    • What will it leave me if it snatch my rhyme?
    • If ev’ry wheel of that unwearied mill
    • That turn’d ten thousand verses, now stands still?
    • But, after all, what would ye have me do,80
    • When out of twenty I can please not two?
    • When this Heroics only deigns to praise,
    • Sharp Satire that, and that Pindaric lays?
    • One likes the pheasant’s wing, and one the leg;
    • The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg:
    • Hard task to hit the palate of such guests,
    • When Oldfield loves what Dartineuf detests!
    • But grant I may relapse, for want of grace,
    • Again to rhyme, can London be the place?
    • Who there his muse, or self, or soul attends,90
    • In Crowds, and Courts, Law, Bus’ness, Feasts, and Friends?
    • My counsel sends to execute a deed:
    • A poet begs me I will hear him read.
    • In Palace yard at nine you ’ll find me there—
    • At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square—
    • Before the Lords at twelve my cause comes on—
    • There ’s a rehearsal, Sir, exact at one.—
    • ‘Oh! but a Wit can study in the streets,
    • And raise his mind above the mob he meets.’
    • Not quite so well, however, as one ought:100
    • A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought,
    • And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,
    • God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
    • Have you not seen, at Guildhall’s narrow pass,
    • Two Aldermen dispute it with an Ass?
    • And Peers give way, exalted as they are,
    • Ev’n to their own s-r-v—nce in a car?
    • Go, lofty Poet, and in such a crowd
    • Sing thy sonorous verse—but not aloud.
    • Alas! to grottos and to groves we run,110
    • To ease and silence, ev’ry Muse’s son:
    • Blackmore himself, for any grand effort
    • Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl’s-court .
    • How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?
    • How match the bards whom none e’er match’d before?
    • The man who, stretch’d in Isis’ calm retreat,
    • To books and study gives sev’n years complete,
    • See! strew’d with learned dust, his nightcap on,
    • He walks an object new beneath the sun!
    • The boys flock round him, and the people stare:120 }
    • So stiff, so mute; some Statue you would swear }
    • Stept from its pedestal to take the air! }
    • And here, while town, and court, and city roars,
    • With Mobs, and Duns, and Soldiers, at their doors,
    • Shall I, in London, act this idle part,
    • Composing songs for fools to get by heart?
    • The Temple late two brother sergeants saw,
    • Who deem’d each other oracles of law;
    • With equal talents these congenial souls,
    • One lull’d th’ Exchequer, and one stunn’d the Rolls;130
    • Each had a gravity would make you split,
    • And shook his head at Murray as a wit;
    • ’T was, ‘Sir, your law’—and ‘Sir, your eloquence,’
    • ‘Yours, manner’—and ‘Yours, sense.’
    • Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,
    • Yours Milton’s genius, and mine Homer’s spirit.
    • Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he ’ll swear the Nine,
    • Dear Cibber! never match’d one ode of thine.
    • Lord! how we strut thro’ Merlin’s Cave , to see139
    • No poets there but Stephen , you, and me.
    • Walk with respect behind, while we at ease
    • Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we please.
    • ‘My dear Tibullus! (if that will not do)
    • Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you:
    • Or, I ’m content, allow me Dryden’s strains,
    • And you shall rise up Otway for your pains.’
    • Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace
    • This jealous, waspish, wronghead, rhyming race;
    • And much must flatter, if the whim should bite149
    • To court applause by printing what I write:
    • But let the fit pass o’er; I ’m wise enough
    • To stop my ears to their confounded stuff.
    • In vain bad rhymers all mankind reject,
    • They treat themselves with most profound respect;
    • ’T is to small purpose that you hold your tongue,
    • Each, prais’d within, is happy all day long:
    • But how severely with themselves proceed
    • The men who write such verse as we can read?
    • Their own strict judges, not a word they spare
    • That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care;160
    • Howe’er unwillingly it quits its place,
    • Nay, tho’ at Court (perhaps) it may find grace.
    • Such they ’ll degrade; and, sometimes in its stead,
    • In downright charity revive the dead;
    • Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
    • Bright thro’ the rubbish of some hundred years;
    • Command old words, that long have slept, to wake,
    • Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake;
    • Or bid the new be English ages hence
    • (For Use will father what’s begot by Sense);170
    • Pour the full tide of eloquence along, }
    • Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, }
    • Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue; }
    • Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine,
    • But show no mercy to an empty line;
    • Then polish all with so much life and ease,
    • You think ’t is Nature, and a knack to please;
    • But ease in writing flows from Art, not Chance,
    • As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
    • If such the plague and pains to write by rule,180
    • Better (say I) be pleas’d, and play the fool;
    • Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease,
    • It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.
    • There lived in primo Georgii (they record)
    • A worthy member, no small fool, a Lord;
    • Who, tho’ the House was up, delighted sate,
    • Heard, noted, answer’d, as in full debate:
    • In all but this a man of sober life,
    • Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
    • Not quite a madman tho’ a pasty fell,190
    • And much too wise to walk into a well.
    • Him the damn’d doctors and his friends immured,
    • They bled, they cupp’d, they purged; in short they cured;
    • Whereat the gentleman began to stare—
    • ‘My friends! (he cried) pox take you for your care!
    • That, from a patriot of distinguish’d note,
    • Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.’
    • Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate:
    • Wisdom (curse on it!) will come soon or late.
    • There is a time when poets will grow dull:200
    • I’ll ev’n leave verses to the boys at school.
    • To rules of poetry no more confin’d,
    • I’ll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind,
    • Teach ev’ry thought within its bounds to roll,
    • And keep the equal measure of the soul.
    • Soon as I enter at my country door,
    • My mind resumes the thread it dropt before;
    • Thoughts which at Hyde-park Corner I forgot,
    • Meet and rejoin me in the pensive grot:
    • There all alone, and compliments apart,210
    • I ask these sober questions of my heart:
    • If, when the more you drink the more you crave,
    • You tell the doctor; when the more you have
    • The more you want, why not, with equal ease,
    • Confess as well your folly as disease?
    • The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
    • ‘Men only feel the smart, but not the vice.’
    • When golden angels cease to cure the evil,
    • You give all royal witchcraft to the devil:
    • When servile Chaplains cry , that birth and place220
    • Endue a Peer with Honour, Truth, and Grace,
    • Look in that breast, most dirty D[uke]! be fair,
    • Say, can you find out one such lodger there?
    • Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach,
    • You go to church to hear these flatt’rers preach.
    • Indeed, could wealth bestow or Wit or Merit,
    • A grain of Courage, or a spark of Spirit,
    • The wisest man might blush, I must agree,
    • If D[evonshire] lov’d sixpence more than he.
    • If there be truth in law, and use can give230
    • A property, that’s yours on which you live.
    • Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford
    • Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
    • All Worldly’s hens, nay, partridge, sold to town,
    • His venison too, a guinea makes your own:
    • He bought at thousands what with better wit
    • You purchase as you want, and bit by bit:
    • Now, or long since, what diff’rence will be found?
    • You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.
    • Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,240
    • Lords of fat E’sham, or of Lincoln Fen,
    • Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat,
    • Buy every pullet they afford to eat;
    • Yet these are wights who fondly call their own
    • Half that the Devil o’erlooks from Lincoln town.
    • The laws of God, as well as of the land,
    • Abhor a perpetuity should stand:
    • Estates have wings, and hang in Fortune’s power,
    • Loose on the point of ev’ry wav’ring hour,
    • Ready by force, or of your own-accord,250
    • By sale, at least by death, to change their lord.
    • Man? and for ever? Wretch! what wouldst thou have?
    • Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.
    • All vast possessions (just the same the case
    • Whether you call them Villa, Park, or Chase),
    • Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail?
    • Join Cotswood hills to Saperton’s fair dale;
    • Let rising granaries and temples here,
    • There mingled farms and pyramids, appear;
    • Link towns to towns with avenues of oak,260
    • Enclose whole towns in walls; ’t is all a joke!
    • Inexorable death shall level all,
    • And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.
    • Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high,
    • Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,
    • There are who have not—and, thank Heav’n, there are
    • Who, if they have not, think not worth their care.
    • Talk what you will of Taste, my friend, you’ll find
    • Two of a face as soon as of a mind.
    • Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one270
    • Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun,
    • The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
    • All Townshend’s turnips, and all Grosvenor’s mines:
    • Why one, like Bubb , with pay and scorn content,
    • Bows and votes on in Court and Parliament;
    • One, driv’n by strong benevolence of soul,
    • Shall fly, like Oglethorpe , from pole to pole;
    • Is known alone to that directing Power278
    • Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
    • That God of Nature, who, within us still,
    • Inclines our action, not constrains our will;
    • Various of temper, as of face or frame,
    • Each individual: His great end the same.
    • Yes, Sir, how small soever be my heap,
    • A part I will enjoy as well as keep.
    • My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace
    • A man so poor would live without a place;
    • But sure no statute in his favour says,
    • How free or frugal I shall pass my days;
    • I who at some times spend, at others spare,
    • Divided between carelessness and care.291
    • ’T is one thing, madly to disperse my store;
    • Another, not to heed to treasure more;
    • Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day,
    • And pleas’d, if sordid want be far away.
    • What is’t to me (a passenger, God wot)
    • Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?
    • The ship itself may make a better figure,
    • But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger.
    • I neither strut with ev’ry fav’ring breath,300
    • Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth;
    • In Power, Wit, Figure, Virtue, Fortune, placed
    • Behind the foremost, and before the last.
    • ‘But why all this of Av’rice? I have none.’
    • I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone:
    • But does no other lord it at this hour,
    • As wild and mad? the avarice of Pow’r?
    • Does neither Rage inflame nor Fear appall?
    • Not the black fear of Death, that saddens all?
    • With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne,310
    • Despise the known, nor tremble at th’unknown?
    • Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,
    • In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?
    • Pleas’d to look forward, pleas’d to look behind,
    • And count each birthday with a grateful mind?
    • Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?
    • Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
    • Has age but melted the rough parts away,
    • As winter fruits grow mild ere they decay?
    • Or will you think, my friend! your bus’ness done,320
    • When of a hundred thorns you pull out one?
    • Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
    • You ’ve play’d and lov’d, and ate and drank, your fill.
    • Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
    • Comes titt’ring on, and shoves you from the stage;
    • Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
    • Whom Folly pleases, and whose follies please.

[Page 197.]Second Epistle, Second Book.

[Line 1.]Colonel. Colonel Cotterell of Rousham, near Oxford. (Warton.)

[Line 4.]This lad, sir, is of Blois. A town in Beauce, where the French tongue is spoken in great purity. (Warburton.) It will be recalled that it was to Blois that Addison went to learn French.

[Line 24.]Sir Godfrey. Sir Godfrey Kneller. (Warburton.)

[Line 57.]Maudlin’s learned grove. Magdalen College, Oxford University.

[Line 70.]Ten Monroes. Dr. Monroe, physician to Bedlam Hospital. (Pope.)

[Line 87.]Oldfield—Dartineuf. Two noted gluttons. See Book II. Satire i. 46.

[Line 113.]Tooting—Earl’s-court. Two villages within a few miles of London. (Pope.)

[Lines 132-135.]Murray—Cowper—Talbot. William Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield; William, first Earl Cowper; Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury.

[Line 139.]Merlin’s Cave. See note on Book II. Epistle 1, 355.

[Line 140.]Stephen. Stephen Duck.

[Line 218.]Golden angels. A golden coin given as a fee by those who came to be touched by the royal hand for the Evil. (Warton.)

[Line 220.]When servile Chaplains cry, etc. The whole of this passage alludes to a dedication of Mr., afterwards Bishop, Kennet to the Duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain. (Burnet.)

[Line 240.]Heathcote. Sir Gilbert Heathcote.

[Line 273.]Townshend—Grosvenor. Lord Townshend, Sir Thomas Grosvenor. Lord Townshend is said to have introduced the turnip into England from Germany.

[Line 274.]Bubb. Bubb Dodington.

[Line 277.]Oglethorpe. James Edward Oglethorpe.