IN DIALOGUE

BETWIXT THE POET AND HIS FRIEND OR MONITOR

P ERSIUS. How anxious are our cares, and yet how vain
The bent of our desires!
F RIEND. Thy spleen contain;
For none will read thy satires.
P ER. This to me?
F RIEND. None; or what's next to none, but two or three.
'T is hard, I grant.
P ER. 'T is nothing; I can bear
That paltry scribblers have the public ear:
That this vast universal fool, the Town,
Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down.
They damn themselves; nor will my Muse descend
To clap with such, who fools and knaves commend:
Their smiles and censures are to me the same;
I care not what they praise, or what they blame.
In full assemblies let the crowd prevail:
I weigh no merit by the common scale.
The conscience is the test of ev'ry mind;
" Seek not thyself, without thyself, to find. "
But where's that Roman? — Somewhat I would say,
But fear — let Fear, for once, to Truth give way.
Truth lends the Stoic courage: when I look
On human acts, and read in Nature's book,
From the first pastimes of our infant age,
To elder cares, and man's severer page;
When stern as tutors, and as uncles hard,
We lash the pupil, and defraud the ward:
Then, then I say — or would say, if I durst —
But thus provok'd, I must speak out, or burst.
F RIEND. Once more forbear.
P ER. I cannot rule my spleen;
My scorn rebels, and tickles me within.
First, to begin at home: our authors write
In lonely rooms, secur'd from public sight;
Whether in prose, or verse, 'tis all the same;
The prose is fustian, and the numbers lame:
All noise, and empty pomp, a storm of words,
Lab'ring with sound, that little sense affords.
They comb, and then they order ev'ry hair:
A gown, or white, or scour'd to whiteness, wear;
A birthday jewel bobbing at their ear:
Next, gargle well their throats, and thus prepar'd,
They mount, a-God's name, to be seen and heard,
From their high scaffold, with a trumpet cheek,
And ogling all their audience ere they speak.
The nauseous nobles, ev'n the chief of Rome,
With gaping mouths to these rehearsals come,
And pant with pleasure, when some lusty line
The marrow pierces, and invades the chine;
At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And slimy jests applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute, thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays,
And gives the sign where he expects their praise.
Why have I learn'd, say'st thou, if, thus confin'd,
I choke the noble vigor of my mind?
Know, my wild fig tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head.
Fine fruits of learning! old ambitious fool,
Dar'st thou apply that adage of the school;
As if 't is nothing worth that lies conceal'd,
And " science is not science till reveal'd " ?
O, but 't is brave to be admir'd, to see
The crowd, with pointing fingers, cry:
" That's he:
That's he whose wondrous poem is become
A lecture for the noble youth of Rome!
Who, by their fathers, is at feasts renown'd;
And often quoted when the bowls go round. "
Full gorg'd and flush'd, they wantonly rehearse,
And add to wine the luxury of verse.
One, clad in purple, not to lose his time,
Eats, and recites some lamentable rhyme:
Some senseless Phyllis, in a broken note,
Snuffling at nose, or croaking in his throat.
Then graciously the mellow audience nod;
Is not th' immortal author made a god?
Are not his manes blest, such praise to have?
Lies not the turf more lightly on his grave?
And roses (while his loud applause they sing)
Stand ready from his sepulcher to spring?
All these, you cry, but light objections are;
Mere malice, and you drive the jest too far.
For does there breathe a man who can reject
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
In cedar tablets worthy to appear,
That need not fish, or frankincense to fear?
Thou, whom I make the adverse part to bear,
Be answer'd thus. — If I by chance succeed
In what I write, (and that's a chance indeed,)
Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard,
Not to feel praise, or fame's deserv'd reward:
But this I cannot grant, that thy applause
Is my work's ultimate, or only cause.
Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize;
For mark what vanity within it lies.
Like Labeo's Iliads , in whose verse is found
Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound:
Such little elegies as nobles write,
Who would be poets, in Apollo's spite.
Them and their woful works the Muse defies:
Products of citron beds, and golden canopies.
To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart
To make a supper, with a fine dessert;
And to thy threadbare friend, a cast old suit impart.
Thus brib'd, thou thus bespeak'st him:
" Tell me, friend,
(For I love truth, nor can plain speech offend,)
What says the world of me and of my Muse? "
The poor dare nothing tell but flatt'ring news:
But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched rhyme,
And all thy labors are but loss of time.
Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high;
Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry.
All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind,
To see the people, what splaymouths they make;
To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back;
Their tongues loll'd out, a foot beyond the pitch,
When most athirst, of an Apulian bitch:
But noble scribblers are with flatt'ry fed;
For none dare find their faults, who eat their bread.
To pass the poets of patrician blood,
What is 't the common reader takes for good?
The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow,
Soft without sense, and without spirit slow:
So smooth and equal, that no sight can find
The rivet, where the polish'd piece was join'd:
So even all, with such a steady view,
As if he shut one eye to level true.
Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings,
The people's riots, or the rage of kings,
The gentle poet is alike in all;
His reader hopes no rise, and fears no fall.
F RIEND. Hourly we see some raw pinfeather'd thing
Attempt to mount, and fights and heroes sing;
Who for false quantities was whipp'd at school
But t'other day, and breaking grammar rule;
Whose trivial art was never tried above
The bare description of a native grove;
Who knows not how to praise the country store,
The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar;
Nor paint the flow'ry fields, that paint themselves before;
Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born,
Whose shining plowshare was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife, returning home,
And rustically joy'd, as chief of Rome:
She wip'd the sweat from the dictator's brow,
And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw;
The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant plow.
Some love to hear the fustian poet roar,
And some on antiquated authors pore;
Rummage for sense, and think those only good
Who labor most, and least are understood.
When thou shalt see the blear-ey'd fathers teach
Their sons this harsh and moldy sort of speech;
Or others new affected ways to try,
Of wanton smoothness, female poetry;
One would enquire from whence this motley style
Did first our Roman purity defile:
For our old dotards cannot keep their seat,
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.
Others, by foolish ostentation led,
When call'd before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes, instead of solid sense,
And mind their figures more than their defense;
Are pleas'd to hear their thick-skull'd judges cry;
" Well mov'd, O finely said, and decently! "
" Theft, " says th' accuser, " to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius! " What does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times,
With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes:
" He robb'd not, but he borrow'd from the poor;
And took but with intention to restore. "
He lards with flourishes his long harangue;
" 'T is fine, " say'st thou; — what, to be prais'd and hang?
Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a shipwrack'd sailor sing his woe,
Wouldst thou be mov'd to pity, or bestow
An alms? What's more prepost'rous than to see
A merry beggar? Mirth in misery?
P ER. He seems a trap for charity to lay,
And cons, by night, his lesson for the day.
F RIEND. But to raw numbers, and unfinish'd verse,
Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse:
" 'T is tagg'd with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys,
The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is.
The dolphin brave, that cut the liquid wave,
Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribb'd Apennine. "
P ER. All this is dogg'rel stuff.
F RIEND. What if I bring
A nobler verse? " Arms and the man I sing. "
P ER. Why name you Virgil with such fops as these?
He 's truly great, and must for ever please;
Not fierce, but awful is his manly page;
Bold is his strength, but sober is his rage.
F RIEND. What poems think you soft? and to be read
With languishing regards, and bending head?
P ER. " Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew
With blasts inspir'd; and Bassaris who slew
The scornful calf, with sword advanc'd on high,
Made from his neck his haughty head to fly.
And Maenas, when with ivy bridles bound,
She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around;
Evion from woods and floods repairing echoes sound. "
Could such rude lines a Roman mouth become,
Were any manly greatness left in Rome?
Maenas and Atys in the mouth were bred,
And never hatch'd within the lab'ring head:
No blood from bitten nails those poems drew;
But churn'd, like spettle, from the lips they flew.
F RIEND. 'T is fustian all; 't is execrably bad:
But if they will be fools, must you be mad?
Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce;
The great will never bear so blunt a verse.
Their doors are barr'd against a bitter flout:
Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without.
Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve,
Y' are in a very hopeful way to sterve.
P ER. Rather than so, uncensur'd let 'em be;
All, all is admirably well, for me.
My harmless rhyme shall scape the dire disgrace
Of common shores, and ev'ry pissing-place.
Two painted serpents shall on high appear:
" 'T is holy ground; you must not urine here. "
This shall be writ to fright the fry away,
Who draw their little baubles, when they play.
Yet old Lucilius never fear'd the times,
But lash'd the city, and dissected crimes.
Mutius and Lupus both by name he brought;
He mouth'd 'em, and betwixt his grinders caught.
Unlike in method, with conceal'd design,
Did crafty Horace his low numbers join;
And, with a sly insinuating grace,
Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face;
Would raise a blush, where secret vice he found,
And tickle, while he gently prob'd the wound;
With seeming innocence the crowd beguil'd,
But made the desperate passes, when he smil'd.
Could he do this, and is my Muse controll'd
By servile awe? Born free, and not be bold?
At least, I'll dig a hole within the ground,
And to the trusty earth commit the sound:
The reeds shall tell you what the poet fears:
" King Midas has a snout, and ass's ears. "
This mean conceit, this darling mystery,
Which thou think'st nothing, friend, thou shalt not buy;
Nor will I change for all the flashy wit
That flatt'ring Labeo in his Iliads writ.
Thou, if there be a thou in this base town,
Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown;
He who, with bold Cratinus, is inspir'd
With zeal, and equal indignation fir'd;
Who at enormous villainy turns pale,
And steers against it with a full-blown sail,
Like Aristophanes; let him but smile
On this my honest work, tho' writ in homely style:
And if two lines or three in all the vein
Appear less drossy, read those lines again.
May they perform their author's just intent,
Glow in thy ears, and in thy breast ferment.
But from the reading of my book and me,
Be far, ye foes of virtuous poverty:
Who Fortune's fault upon the poor can throw,
Point at the tatter'd coat and ragged shoe;
Lay Nature's failings to their charge, and jeer
The dim weak eyesight, when the mind is clear:
When thou thyself, thus insolent in state,
Art but, perhaps, some country magistrate;
Whose pow'r extends no farther than to speak
Big on the bench, and scanty weights to break.
Him, also, for my censor I disdain,
Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain;
Who counts geometry and numbers toys,
And with his foot the sacred dust destroys;
Whose pleasure is to see a strumpet tear
A Cynic's beard, and lug him by the hair.
Such, all the morning, to the pleadings run;
But, when the bus'ness of the day is done,
On dice, and drink, and drabs, they spend their afternoon.