Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,

What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme?
If every wheel of that unwearied mill,

That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?

h

But after all, what would you have me do? 80 When out of twenty I can please not two;

[ocr errors]

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.

85

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, business, 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- 95

NOTES.

were most excellent reciters. Just reading is an uncommon talent. The Duke de la Rochefoucault would never become a member of the French Academy, lest he should expose himself by his pronunciation of the speech necessary on that occasion. I had once the pleasure of hearing Quin read the Second Book of Milton, with marvellous propriety and harmony. And the late Mr. Henderson excelled in recitation. Warton.

Ver. 94. In Palace-yard] I am sorry he omitted, intervalla humanè commoda; which heightens the distress and inconvenience. In verse 101, a hackney-coach is better than, calidus redemptor. But verse 107, contains an image unnecessarily coarse and filthy.

And

Omnibus officiis: cubat hic in colle Quirini,
Hic extremo in Aventino; visendus uterque ;
Intervalla vides humanè commoda. " Verùm
Puræ sunt plateæ, nihil ut meditantibus obstet."
Festinat calidus mulis gerulisque redemptor:
Torquet nunc lapidem, nunc ingens machina tig-

num:

Tristia robustis luctantur funera plaustris :
Hâc rabiosa fugit canis, hâc lutulenta ruit sus.
*I nunc, et versus tecum meditare canoros.
Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus, et fugit urbes,
Ritè cliens Bacchi, somno gaudentis et umbrâ.
Tu me inter strepitus nocturnos atque diurnos
Vis canere, et contracta sequi vestigia vatum?
'Ingenium, sibi quod vacuas desumpsit Athenas
Et studiis annos septem dedit, insenuitque

NOTES.

And verse 115, is little to the purpose. I will give the reader an opportunity of comparing, and if he is impartial, of preferring, this passage of Pope with one of Boileau on the same subject:

Qu'en tous lieux les chagrins m'attendent un passage;
Un cousin abusant d'un factieux parentage,

Veut qu'encore tout poudreux, et sans me débotter,
Chez vingt juges pour lui j'aille solliciter;

Il faut voir de ce pas le plus considerables,

L'un demeure au Marais, et l'autre aux incurables;
Je recois vingt airs qui me glacent d'effroi,
Hier, dit on, de vous en parla chez le roi-

Epître vi. v. 47. Compare also the sixth satire of Boileau, containing the description of Les Embarras de Paris, from verse 3 to verse 82; particularly verse 45. Warton.

Ver. 112. Blackmore himself,] In the Battle of the Books, we are surprized to find Swift preferring Blackmore to Dryden.

Warton.

Before the Lords at twelve my cause comes onThere'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,
Even 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 grottoes and to groves we run,
To ease and silence, every Muse's son:
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,

105

110

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 be

fore?

115

'The man, who stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat, To books and study gives seven years complete, See! strow'd with learned dust, his nightcap on, He walks, an object new beneath the sun! The boys flock round him, and the people stare : So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, Stepp'd from its pedestal to take the air!

NOTES.

Ver. 113. Tooting-Earl's-Court.] Two villages within a few miles of London.

Pope.

Libris et curis, statuâ taciturnius exit

Plerumque, et risu populum quatit; hîc ego rerum Fluctibus in mediis, et tempestatibus urbis,.

Verba lyræ motura sonum connectere digner?

m

Frater erat Romæ consulti rhetor; ut alter Alterius sermone meros audiret honores: Gracchus ut hic illi foret; huic ut Mucius ille. Qui minùs argutos vexat furor iste poëtas?

Carmina compono, hic elegos; mirabile visu, Cælatumque novem Musis opus. Aspice primùm,

NOTES.

Ver. 123. court, and city roars,] Not so strong as the original metaphor:

Fluctibus in mediis, et tempestatibus urbis,

Milton wrote his Paradise Lost in London, as did Thomson his three last Seasons, and his charming Castle of Indolence; and Armstrong his Art of Preserving Health, a fine classical poem, omitted in the Collection of English Poets. Warton.

Ver. 132. And shook his head at MURRAY, as a wit.] It is the silly consolation of blockheads in all professions, that he, whom nature has formed to excel, does it not by his superior knowledge, but his wit; and so they keep themselves in countenance as not fairly outdone, but only outwitted. The miserable glory of knowing nothing but in their own trade, M. de Voltaire has well exposed, where, speaking of a great French Lawyer, of the like genius and talents with our admirable countryman, he 66 II says: faisait ressouvenir la France de ces tems, où les plus austères Magistrats, consommés comme lui dans l'étude des Lois, se delassoient des fatigues de leur état, dans les travaux de la literature. Que ceux qui méprisent ces travaux amiables; que ceux qui mettent je ne sai quelle miserable grandeur à se renfermer dans le cercle étroit de leurs emplois, sont à plaindre! ignorent ils que CICERON, après avoir rempli la première place du monde, plaidoit encore les causes des Citoyens, écrivoit sur la nature des Dieux, conferoit avec des Philosophes; qu'il alloit au Théatre; qu'il daignoit cultiver l'amitié d'Esopus et de Roscius, et laissoit

aux

125

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 serjeants 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;
Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at MURRAY, as a wit.

"Twas, "Sir, your law," and, "Sir, your eloquence,"

66

Yours, Cowper's manner"-" and yours, Talbot's

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

aux petits esprits, leur constante gravité, qui n'est que la masque de la mediocrité ?"

The miserable malice of the human heart has been always backward to confess that great parts and great science were to be found together. The eminent person, here mentioned, hath long triumphed over so vile a prejudice. BACON was not so happy. The blemishes in his moral character disabled him from stemming and subduing it. Indeed, envy was ever unwilling to allow any man to excel in more than one accomplishment. As to the particular application of this wayward judgment, it is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Thus, for instance, when the public would not allow the great lawyer, Coke, to be a classic scholar and a wit too, (though he had given so many delectable specimens of both,) they were perhaps in the right. But when they assumed (though they spoke by the organ of Queen Elizabeth herself) that Bacon, a great philosopher, was yet no lawyer, they were certainly in the Warburton.

wrong.

Ver. 132. MURRAY, as a wit.] Alluding to the common cant of that time, as if this eminent and accomplished person was more of

a polite

« ZurückWeiter »