A. Is genius only found in epic lays? Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise. Make their heroic pow'rs your own at once, Or candidly confess yourself a dunce.
B. These were the chief: each interval of night Was grac'd with many an undulating light In less illustrious hards his beauty shone A meteor, or a star; in these, the sun.
The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, While the poor grasshopper must chirp below: Like him, unnotic'd, I, and such as I,
Spread little wings, and rather skip than fly; Perch'd on the meagre produce of the land, An ell or two of prospect we command; But never peep beyond the thorny bound, Or oaken fence, that hems the paddoc round. In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart
Had faded, poetry was not an art; Language, above all teaching, or, if taught, Only by gratitude and glowing thought,
Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy, unmanacled by form,
Not prompted, as in our degen'rate days, By low ambition and the thirst of praise, Was natural as is the flowing stream, And yet magnificent-a God the theme; That theme on earth exhausted, though above 'Tis found as everlasting as his love,
Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things- The feats of heroes, and the wrath of kings: But still, while virtue kindled his delight, The song was moral, and so far was right. 'Twas thus till luxury seduc'd the mind To joys less innocent, as less refin'd;
Then genius danc'd a bacchanal; he crown'd The brimming goblet, seiz'd the thyrsus, bound His brows with ivy, rush'd into the field Of wild imagination, and there reel❜d,
The victim of his own lascivious fires
And, dizzy with delight, profan'd the sacred wires.
Cromwell no friend to Poetry.
Anacreon, Horace, play'd in Greece and Rome This Bedlam part; and others nearer home. When Cromwell fought for pow'r and while he reign'd The proud protector of the pow'r he gain'd, Religion harsh, intolerant, austere,
Parent of manners like herself severe, Drew a rough copy of the Christian face Without the smile, the sweetness, or the grace; The dark and sullen humour of the time Judg'd ev'ry effort of the muse a crime; Verse, in the finest mould of fancy cast,
Was lumber in an age so void of taste: But, when the second Charles assum'd the sway, And arts reviv'd beneath a softer day,
Then, like a bow long forc'd into a curve,
The mind, releas'd from too constrain'd a nerve, Flew to its first position with a spring
That made the vaulted roofs af pleasure ring. His court, the dissolute and hateful school Of wantonness, where vice was taught by rule,
Under Charles the Second Poets licentious.
Swarm'd with a scribbling herd, as deep inlaid With brutal lust as ever Circe made. From these a long succession, in the rage Of rank obscenity, debauch'd their age; Nor ceas'd, 'till, ever anxious to redress. Th' abuses of her sacred charge, the press, The muse instructed a well nurtur'd train Of abler votaries to cleanse the stain, And claim the palm for purity of song, That lewdness had usurp'd and worn so long. Then decent pleasantry and sterling sense, That neither gave nor would endure offence, Whipp'd out of sight, with satire just and keen, The puppy pack that had defil'd the scene.
In front of these came Addison.
Humor in holiday and sightly trim, Sublimity and attic taste, combin'd,
To polish, furnish, and delight, the mind. Then Pope, as harmony itself exact,
In verse well disciplin'd complete compact,
Pope's Poetry-Arbuthnot-Swift.
Gave virtue and morality a grace,
That, quite eclipsing pleasure's painted face, Levied a tax of wonder and applause,
Ev'n on the fools that trampled on their laws. But he (his musical finesse was such,
So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) Made poetry a mere mechanic art; And ev'ry warbler has his tune by heart. Nature imparting her satiric gift,
Her serious mirth, to Arbuthnot and Swift, With droll sobriety they rais'd a smile
At folly's cost, themselves unmov'd the while. That constellation set, the world in vain Must hope to look upon their like again.
A. Are we then left-B. Not wholly in the dark; Wit now and then, struck smartly, shows a spark, Sufficient to redeem the modern race
From total night and absolute disgrace. While servile trick and imitative knack Confine the million in the beaten track,
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