A RHAPSODY ON POETRY.

All human race would fain be wits, And millions miss for one who hits: Young’s universal passion, Pride, Was never known to spread so wide. Say, Britain! could you ever boast, Three poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years, While every fool his claim alleges, As if it grew in common hedges. What reason can there be assigned For this perverseness in the mind? Brutes find out where their talents lie: A bear will not attempt to fly: A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five-barred gate: A dog by instinct turns aside, Who sees the ditch too deep and wide; But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats Nature; Who, where she loudly cries “Forbear,” With obstinacy fixes there, And where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs. Not empire to the rising sun, By valour, conduct, fortune, won: Not highest wisdom in debates, For framing laws to govern states: Not skill in sciences profound, So large to grasp the circle round, Such heavenly influence require As how to strike the Muse’s lyre. ***** Poor starveling bard! how small thy gains! How unproportioned to thy pains! And here a simile comes pat in: A chicken takes a month to fatten, Tho’ guests in less than half-an-hour Will more than half-a-score devour. So after toiling twenty days To earn a stock of pence and praise, Thy labours, grown the critic’s prey, Are swallowed o’er a dish of tea; Gone to be never heard of more, Gone where the chickens went before. How shall a new attempter learn Of different spirits to discern? And how distinguish which is which, The poet’s vein or scribbling itch? Then hear an old experienced sinner Instructing thus a young beginner. Consult yourself, and if you find A powerful impulse urge your mind, Impartial judge within your breast, What subject you can manage best: Whether your genius most inclines To satire, praise, or hum’rous lines; To elegies in mournful tone, Or prologue sent from hand unknown; Then rising with Aurora’s light, The Muse invok’d, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline; Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head and bite your nails. Your poem finished, next your care Is needful to transcribe it fair: In modern wit all printed trash is Set off with num’rous breaks—and dashes— To statesmen would you give a wipe You print it in Italic type: When letters are in vulgar shapes, ’Tis ten to one the wit escapes; But when in Capitals exprest, The dullest reader smokes the jest; Or else perhaps he may invent A better than the poet meant, As learned commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew. ***** Be sure at Will’s the foll’wing day, Lie snug and hear what critics say, And if you find the general vogue Pronounces you a stupid rogue, Damns all your thoughts as low and little, Sit still, and swallow down your spittle: Be silent as a politician, For talking may beget suspicion; Or praise the judgment of the Town, And help yourself to run it down;— Give up your fond paternal pride, Nor argue on the weaker side: For poems read without a name We justly praise or justly blame; And critics have no partial views, Except they know whom they abuse; And since you ne’er provoked their spite, Depend upon’t, their judgment’s right. But if you blab you are undone, Consider what a risk you run; You lose your credit all at once, The Town will mark you for a dunce; The vilest doggerel Grub Street sends Will pass for yours with foes and friends, And you must bear the whole disgrace, Till some fresh blockhead takes your place. Your secret kept, your poem sunk, And sent in quires to line a trunk, If still you be disposed to rhyme, Go try your hand a second time. Again you fail; yet safe’s the word; Take courage, and attempt a third: But first with care employ your thoughts Where critics marked your former fau’ts; The trivial turns, the borrow’d wit, The similies that nothing fit; The cant which every fool repeats, Town-jests and coffee-house conceits; Descriptions tedious, flat and dry, And introduced the Lord knows why; Or where we find your fury set Against the harmless alphabet; On A’s and B’s your malice vent While readers wonder whom you meant; A public or a private robber, A statesman or a South Sea jobber; A pr-l-te, who no God believes; A p-m-t or den of thieves; A pickpurse at the bar or bench, A duchess or a suburb-wench; “An House of P—rs, a gaming crew, A griping —— or a Jew.” Or oft, when epithets you link In gaping lines to fill a chink, Like stepping-stones to save a stride In streets where kennels are too wide; Or like a heel-piece to support A cripple, with one leg too short; Or like a bridge that joins a marish To moorlands of a different parish. So have I seen ill-coupled hounds Drag diff’rent ways in miry grounds; So geographers in Afric maps With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o’er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns. ***** Then, poet! if you mean to thrive, Employ your muse on kings alive, With prudence gath’ring up a cluster Of all the virtues you can muster, Which, formed into a garland sweet, Lay humbly at your monarch’s feet, Who, as the odours reach his throne, Will smile, and think them all his own: For law and gospel doth determine All virtues lodge in royal ermine; (I mean the oracles of both, Who shall depose it upon oath); Your garland, in the following reign, Change but the names, ’twill do again. ***** Hobbes clearly proves that ev’ry creature Lives in a state of war by nature; The greater for the smaller watch, But meddle seldom with their match. A whale of mod’rate size will draw A shoal of herrings in his maw; A fox with geese his belly crams; A wolf destroys a thousand lambs; But search among the rhyming race, The brave are worried by the base. If on Parnassus’ top you sit, You rarely bite, are always bit. Each poet of inferior size On you shall rail and criticize, And strive to tear you limb from limb, While others do as much for him. The vermin only tease and pinch Their foes superior by an inch, So nat’ralists observe a flea Have smaller fleas on him that prey, And these have smaller still to bite ’em, And so proceed ad infinitum. Jonathan Swift.