Put on the critic's brow, and sit
At Will's, the puny judge of wit.
A nod, a shrug, a scornful smile,
With caution used, may serve a while.
Proceed no further in your part
Before you learn the terms of art;
For you can never be too far gone
In all our modern critics' jargon:
Then talk with more authentic face
Of unities in time and place:

Get scraps of Horace from your friends,
And have them at your fingers' ends;
Learn Aristotle's rules by rote,
And at all hazards boldly quote;
Judicious Rymer oft review,

Wise Dennis, and profound Bossu,
Read all the prefaces of Dryden,
For these our critics much confide in;
Though merely writ at first for filling,
To raise the volume's price a shilling.
A forward critic often dupes us
With sham quotations peri hupsous:
And if we have not read Longinus,
Will magisterially outshine us.
Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye,
Procure the book for love or money,
Translated from Boileau's translation,
And quote quotation on quotation.

At Will's you hear a poem read,
Where Battus from the table-head,
Reclining on his elbow-chair,
Gives judgment with decisive air;
To whom the tribe of circling wits
As to an oracle submits.

He gives directions to the town,
To cry it up or run it down;
Like courtiers, when they send a note,
Instructing members how to vote.
He sets the stamp of bad and good,
Though not a word be understood.
Your lesson learn'd, you'll be secure
To get the name of connoisseur:
And, when your merits once are known,
Procure disciples of your own.

For poets (you can never want them),
Spread through Augusta Trinobantum,
Computing by their pecks of coals,
Amount to just nine thousand souls:
These o'er their proper districts govern,
Of wit and humor judges sovereign.
In every street a city bard

His undisputed rights extend

Through all the lane, from end to end;
The neighbors round admire his shrewdness
For songs of loyalty and lewdness;
Outdone by none in rhyming well,
Although he never learn'd to spell.

Two bordering wits contend for glory;
And one is Whig, and one is Tory:
And this, for epics claims the bays,
And that, for elegiac lays:

Some famed for numbers soft and smooth,
By lovers spoke in Punch's booth;
And some as justly fame extols
For lofty lines in Smithfield drolls.
Bavius in Wapping gains renown,
And Mævius reigns o'er Kentish town:
Tigellius placed in Phoebus' car
From Ludgate shines to Temple-bar:
Harmonious Cibber entertains

The court with annual birthday strains;
Whence Gay was banish'd in disgrace;
Where Pope will never show his face;
Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
But these are not a thousandth part
Of jobbers in the poet's art,
Attending each his proper station,
And all in due subordination,
Through every alley to be found,
In garrets high, or under ground;
And when they join their pericranies,
Out skips a book of miscellanies.
Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in state of war by nature.
The greater for the smaller watch,
But meddle seldom with their match.
A whale of moderate size will draw
A shoal of herrings down 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 teaze and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
Thus every poet, in his kind,

Is bit by him that comes behind:
Who, though too little to be seen,
Can teaze, and gall, and give the spleen;
Call dunces, fools, and sons of whores,
Lay Grub-street at each other's doors;
Extol the Greek and Roman masters,
And curse our modern poetasters;
Complain, as many an ancient bard did,
How genius is no more rewarded;
How wrong a taste prevails among us;
How much our ancestors outsung us;
Can personate an awkward scorn
For those who are not poets born;
And all their brother dunces lash,

Who crowd the press with hourly trash.
O Grub-street! how do I bemoan thee,
Whose graceless children scorn to own thee!
Their filial piety forgot,

Deny their country, like a Scot;
Though, by their idiom and grimace,
They soon betray their native place:
Yet thou hast greater cause to be
Ashamed of them than they of thee,
Degenerate from their ancient brood
Since first the court allow'd them food.
Remains a difficulty still,

To purchase fame by writing ill.
From Flecknoe down to Howard's time,
How few have reach'd the low sublime!
For when our high-born Howard died,
Blackmore alone his place supplied:
And lest a chasm should intervene,
When death had finish'd Blackmore's reign,
The leaden crown devolved to thee,
Great poet of the hollow tree.1
But ah! how unsecure thy throne!
A thousand bards thy right disown:
They plot to turn, in factious zeal,
Duncenia to a commonweal;
And with rebellious arms pretend
An equal privilege to descend.

In bulk there are not more degrees
From elephants to mites in cheese,
Than what a curious eye may trace
In creatures of the rhyming race.
From bad to worse and worse they fall;
But who can reach the worst of all?

Lord Grimston was the author of this celebrated performance, of which he

For though in nature, depth and height
Are equally held infinite,

In poetry the height we know;
'Tis only infinite below.

For instance: when you rashly think,
No rhymer can like Welsted sink,
His merits balanced, you shall find
The laureat2 leaves him far behind.
Concannen, more aspiring bard,
Soars downward deeper by a yard.
Smart Jemmy Moores with vigor drops;
The rest pursue as thick as hops:
With heads to point the gulf they enter,
Link'd perpendicular to the centre;
And as their heels elated rise,
Their heads attempt the nether skies.
O, what indignity and shame,

To prostitute the Muses' name!

By flattering kings, whom Heaven design'd
The plagues and scourges of mankind;
Bred up in ignorance and sloth,
And every vice that nurses both.

Fair Britain, in thy monarch bless'd,
Whose virtues bear the strictest test;
Whom never faction could bespatter,
Nor minister nor poet flatter;
What justice in rewarding merit!
What magnanimity of spirit!
What lineaments divine we trace

Through all his figure, mien, and face!
Though peace with olive binds his hands,
Confess'd the conquering hero stands.
Hydaspes, Indus, and the Ganges,
Dread from his hand impending changes.
From him the Tartar and Chinese,
Short by the knees, entreat for peace.
The consort of his throne and bed,
A perfect goddess born and bred,
Appointed sovereign judge to sit
On learning, eloquence, and wit.
Our eldest hope, divine Iülus,
(Late, very late, O may he rule us!)
What early manhood has he shown
Before his downy beard was grown!

'Mr. Weld's poems were reprinted in 1787, and contain specimens of little worth.

2 In some editions, instead of the laureat, was maliciously inserted the name of Mr. Fielding; for whose ingenious writings the supposed author manifested a great esteem." Little," says Dr. Wharton, "did Swift imagine that Fielding would hereafter equal him in works of humor, and excel him in drawing and supporting characters, and in the artful conduct and plan of a comic epopee."

Then think what wonders will be done
By going on as he begun,

An heir for Britain to secure
As long as sun and moon endure.
The remnant of the royal blood
Comes pouring on me like a flood.
Bright goddess, in number five:
Duke William, sweetest prince alive.
Now sing the minister of state,
Who shines alone without a mate.
Observe with what majestic port
This Atlas stands to prop the court:
Intent the public debts to pay,
Like prudent Fabius, by delay.
Thou great vicegerent of the king,
Thy praises every Muse shall sing!
In all affairs thou sole director,
Of wit and learning chief protector;
Though small the time thou hast to spare,
The church is thy peculiar care.
Of pious prelates what a stock

You choose to rule the sable flock!
You raise the honor of the peerage,
Proud to attend you at the steerage.
You dignify the noble race,
Content yourself with humbler place.
Now learning, valor, virtue, sense,
To titles give the sole pretence.
St. George beheld thee with delight,
Vouchsafe to be an azure knight,

When on thy breast and sides Herculean,
He fixed the star and string cerulean.
Say, poet, in what other nation

Shone ever such a constellation!

Attend, ye Popes, and Youngs, and Gays,
And tune your harps, and strew your bays:
Your panegyrics here provide;
You cannot err on flattery's side.
Above the stars exalt your style,
You still are low ten thousand mile.
On Lewis all his bards bestow'd
Of incense many a thousand load;
But Europe mortified his pride,
And swore the fawning rascals lied.
Yet what the world refused to Lewis,
Applied to George, exactly true is.
Exactly true! invidious poet!
'Tis fifty thousand times below it.

Translate me now some lines, if you can,

From Virgil, Martial, Ovid, Lucan,

They could all power in heaven divide,