Where bursting glorious, with departing ray,
True genius gilds the close of Britain's day:
With joy she sees the stream of Roman art
From Murray's tongue flow purer to the heart:
Sees Yorke to fame, ere yet to manhood known,
And just to every virtue but his own:
Hears unstain'd Cam with generous pride pro-
claim
A sage's, critic's, and a poet's name :
Beholds, where Widcombe's happy hills ascend,
Each orphan'd art and virtue find a friend : 330
To Hagley's honor'd shade directs her view;
And culls each flower, to form a wreath for you.
But tread with cautious step this dangerous
ground,
Beset with faithless precipices round:
Truth be your guide: disdain ambition's call;
And if you fall with truth, you greatly fall.
'Tis virtue's native lustre that must shine;
The poet can but set it in his line:
And who unmoved with laughter can behold
A sordid pebble meanly graced with gold?
Let real merit then adorn your lays,
For shame attends on prostituted praise :
And all your wit, your most distinguish'd art,
But make us grieve you want an honest heart.
Nor think the Muse by Satire's law confined:
She yields description of the noblest kind.
Inferior art the landscape may design,
And paint the purple evening in the line:
Her daring thought essays a higher plan;
Her hand delineates passion, pictures man:
And great the toil, the latent soul to trace,
To paint the heart, and catch internal grace;
By turns bid vice or virtue strike our eyes;
Now bid a Wolsey or a Cromwell rise;
Now, with a touch more sacred and refined,
Call forth a Chesterfield's or Lonsdale's mind.
Here sweet or strong may every color flow:
Here let the pencil warm, the canvass glow:
Of light and shade provoke the noble strife;
And wake each striking feature into life.
THROUGH ages thus has Satire keenly shined,
The friend to truth, to virtue, and mankind :
Yet the bright flame from virtue ne'er had sprung,
And man was guilty ere the poet sung.
This Muse in silence joy'd each better age,
Till glowing crimes had waked her into rage.
Truth saw her honest spleen with new delight,
And bade her wing her shafts, and urge their
First on the sons of Greece she proved her art,
And Sparta felt the fierce iambic dart:
To Latium next avenging Satire flew :
The flaming falchion rough Lucilius drew;
With dauntless warmth in virtue's cause engaged; And conscious villains trembled as he raged.
Then sportive Horace caught the generous fire;
For Satire's bow resign'd the sounding lyre:
Each arrow polish'd in his hand was seen;
And, as it grew more polish'd, grew more keen.
His art, conceal'd in studied negligence,
Politely sly, cajoled the foes of sense:
He seem'd to sport and trifle with the dart;
But while he sported, drove it to the heart.
In graver strains majestic Persius wrote,
Big with a ripe exuberance of thought:
Greatly sedate, contemn'd a tyrant's reign;
And lash'd corruption with a calm disdain.
More ardent eloquence, and boundless rage,
Inflame bold Juvenal's exalted page :
His mighty numbers awed corrupted Rome,
And swept audacious greatness to its doom:
The headlong torrent, thundering from on high,
Rent the proud rock that lately braved the sky.
But, lo! the fatal victor of mankind!
Swoln Luxury!-pale Ruin stalks behind!
As countless insects from the north-east pour, 395
To blast the spring, and ravage every flower;
So barbarous millions spread contagious death:
The sickening laurel wither'd at their breath.
Deep superstition's night the skies o'erhung,
Beneath whose baleful dews the poppy sprung.
No longer Genius woo'd the Nine to love,
But Dulness nodded in the Muses'
grove:
Wit, spirit, freedom, were the sole offence;
Nor aught was held so dangerous as sense.
At length, again fair Science shot her ray, 405 Dawn'd in the skies, and spoke returning day. Now, Satire, triumph o'er thy flying foe; Now, load thy quiver, string thy slacken'd bow! 'Tis done!-See, great Erasmus breaks the spell, And wounds triumphant Folly in her cell! In vain the solemn cowl surrounds her face; Vain all her bigot cant, her sour grimace; With shame compell'd her leaden throne to quit, And own the force of reason urged by wit.
'Twas then plain Donne in honest vengeance
His wit harmonious, though his rhyme was prose :
He, 'midst an age of puns and pedants, wrote With genuine sense, and Roman strength of thought.
Yet scarce had Satire well relumed her flame, (With grief the Muse records her country's shame)
Ere Britain saw the foul revolt commence,
And treacherous Wit began her war with Sense.
Then rose a shameless, mercenary train,
Whom latest time shall view with just disdain :
A race fantastic, in whose gaudy line
Untutor'd thought and tinsel beauty shine:
Wit's shatter'd mirror lies in fragments bright;
Reflects not nature, but confounds the sight.
Dry morals the court-poet blush'd to sing:
'Twas all his praise to say the oddest thing:' 430
Proud, for a jest obscene, a patron's nod,
To martyr virtue, or blaspheme his God.
Ill-fated Dryden! who unmoved can see
The 'extremes of wit and meanness join'd in thee?
Flames that could mount, and gain their kindred skies,
Low creeping in the putrid sink of vice;
A Muse, whom wisdom woo'd, but woo'd in vain;
The pimp of power, the prostitute to gain :
Wreaths, that should deck fair Virtue's form
alone,
To strumpets, traitors, tyrants vilely thrown: 440
Unrival'd parts, the scorn of honest fame;
And genius rise, a monument of shame!
More happy France! immortal Boileau there Supported genius with a sage's care:
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