Part 10

Killala, in the county of Mayo, in Ireland, June 7, 1715.

Hail, sacred bard! a muse unknown before Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore. To our dark world thy shining page is shown, And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own. The Eastern pomp had just bespoke our care, 5 And India poured her gaudy treasures here: A various spoil adorned our naked land, } The pride of Persia glittered on our strand, } And China's earth was cast on common sand: } Tossed up and down the glossy fragments lay, 10 And dressed the rocky shelves, and paved the painted bay. Thy treasures next arrived: and now we boast A nobler cargo on our barren coast: From thy luxuriant Forest we receive More lasting glories than the East can give. 15 Where'er we dip in thy delightful page, What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage! The pompous scenes in all their pride appear, Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were; Nor half so true the fair Lodona shows 20 The sylvan state that on her border grows, While she the wond'ring shepherd entertains With a new Windsor in her wat'ry plains; Thy juster lays the lucid wave surpass, The living scene is in the muse's glass. 25 Nor sweeter notes the echoing forests cheer, When Philomela sits and warbles there, Than when you sing the greens and op'ning glades, And give us harmony as well as shades: A Titian's hand might draw the grove, but you 30 Can paint the grove, and add the music too. With vast variety thy pages shine; A new creation starts in ev'ry line. How sudden trees rise to the reader's sight, } And make a doubtful scene of shade and light, } 35 And give at once the day, at once the night! } And here again what sweet confusion reigns, In dreary deserts mixed with painted plains! And see! the deserts cast a pleasing gloom, And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom: 40 Whilst fruitful crops rise by their barren side, And bearded groves display their annual pride. Happy the man, who strings his tuneful lyre, Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields inspire! Thrice happy you! and worthy best to dwell 45 Amidst the rural joys you sing so well. I in a cold, and in a barren clime, } Cold as my thought, and barren as my rhyme, } Here on the western beach attempt to chime. } O joyless flood! O rough tempestuous main! 50 Bordered with weeds, and solitudes obscene! Let me ne'er flow like thee! nor make thy stream My sad example, or my wretched theme. Like bombast now thy raging billows roar, And vainly dash themselves against the shore; 55 About like quibbles now thy froth is thrown, And all extremes are in a moment shown. Snatch me, ye gods! from these Atlantic shores, And shelter me in Windsor's fragrant bow'rs; Or to my much loved Isis' walks convey, 60 And on her flow'ry banks for ever lay. Thence let me view the venerable scene, The awful dome, the groves' eternal green: Where sacred Hough long found his famed retreat, And brought the muses to the sylvan seat, 65 Reformed the wits, unlocked the classic store, And made that music which was noise before. There with illustrious bards I spent my days Nor free from censure, nor unknown to praise, Enjoyed the blessings that his reign bestowed, 70 Nor envied Windsor in the soft abode. The golden minutes smoothly danced away, And tuneful bards beguiled the tedious day: They sung, nor sung in vain, with numbers fired That Maro taught, or Addison inspired. 75 Ev'n I essayed to touch the trembling string: Who could hear them, and not attempt to sing? Roused from these dreams by thy commanding strain, I rise and wander through the field or plain; Led by thy muse, from sport to sport I run, 80 Mark the stretched line, or hear the thund'ring gun. Ah! how I melt with pity, when I spy On the cold earth the flutt'ring pheasant lie; His gaudy robes in dazzling lines appear, And ev'ry feather shines and varies there. 85 Nor can I pass the gen'rous courser by, } But while the prancing steed allures my eye, } He starts, he's gone! and now I see him fly } O'er hills and dales, and now I lose the course, Nor can the rapid sight pursue the flying horse. 90 O could thy Virgil from his orb look down, He'd view a courser that might match his own! Fired with the sport, and eager for the chase, Lodona's murmurs stop me in the race. Who can refuse Lodona's melting tale? 95 The soft complaint shall over time prevail; The tale be told, when shades forsake her shore, The nymph be sung, when she can flow no more. Nor shall thy song, old Thames! forbear to shine, At once the subject and the song divine; 100 Peace, sung by thee, shall please ev'n Britons more Than all their shouts for victory before. Oh! could Britannia imitate thy stream, The world should tremble at her awful name: From various springs divided waters glide, 105 In diff'rent colours roll a diff'rent tide, Murmur along their crooked banks awhile, At once they murmur and enrich the isle; A while distinct through many channels run, But meet at last, and sweetly flow in one; 110 There joy to lose their long-distinguished names, And make one glorious and immortal Thames.

ELIJAH FENTON.

TO MR. POPE.

IN IMITATION OF A GREEK EPIGRAM ON HOMER.

When Phoebus, and the nine harmonious maids, Of old assembled in the Thespian shades; What theme, they cried, what high immortal air, Befit these harps to sound, and thee to hear? Replied the god: "Your loftiest notes employ, 5 To sing young Peleus, and the fall of Troy." The wond'rous song with rapture they rehearse; Then ask who wrought that miracle of verse? He answered with a frown: "I now reveal A truth, that envy bids me not conceal: 10 Retiring frequent to this laureat vale, I warbled to the lyre that fav'rite tale, Which, unobserved, a wand'ring Greek and blind, Heard me repeat, and treasured in his mind; And fired with thirst of more than mortal praise, 15 From me, the god of wit, usurped the bays. But let vain Greece indulge her growing fame, Proud with celestial spoils to grace her name; Yet when my arts shall triumph in the west, And the white isle with female pow'r is blest; 20 Fame, I foresee, will make reprisals there, And the translator's palm to me transfer. With less regret my claim I now decline, The world will think his English Iliad mine."

DR. THOMAS PARNELL.

TO MR. POPE.

To praise, and still with just respect to praise A bard triumphant in immortal bays, The learn'd to show, the sensible commend, Yet still preserve the province of the friend; What life, what vigour must the lines require? 5 What music tune them, what affection fire? O might thy genius in my bosom shine, Thou should'st not fail of numbers worthy thine: The brightest ancients might at once agree To sing within my lays, and sing of thee. 10 Horace himself would own thou dost excel In candid arts to play the critic well. Ovid himself might wish to sing the dame Whom Windsor Forest sees a gliding stream; On silver feet, with annual osier crowned, 15 She runs for ever through poetic ground. How flame the glories of Belinda's hair, Made by thy muse the envy of the fair! Less shone the tresses Egypt's princess wore, Which sweet Callimachus so sung before. 20 Here courtly trifles set the world at odds; Belles war with beaus, and whims descend for gods. The new machines, in names of ridicule, Mock the grave phrenzy of the chomic fool. But know, ye fair, a point concealed with art, 25 The sylphs and gnomes are but a woman's heart. The graces stand in sight; a satire-train Peeps o'er their head, and laughs behind the scene. In Fame's fair temple, o'er the boldest wits Inshrined on high the sacred Virgil sits, 30 And sits in measures such as Virgil's muse To place thee near him might be fond to choose. How might he tune th' alternate reed with thee, Perhaps a Strephon thou, a Daphnis he; While some old Damon, o'er the vulgar wise, 35 Thinks he deserves, and thou deserv'st the prize! Rapt with the thought, my fancy seeks the plains, And turns me shepherd while I hear the strains. Indulgent nurse of ev'ry tender gale, Parent of flow'rets, old Arcadia, hail! 40 Here in the cool my limbs at ease I spread, Here let thy poplars whisper o'er my head: Still slide thy waters soft among the trees, Thy aspens quiver in a breathing breeze! Smile, all ye valleys, in eternal spring, 45 Be hushed, ye winds, while Pope and Virgil sing. In English lays, and all sublimely great, Thy Homer warms with all his ancient heat; He shines in council, thunders in the fight, And flames with ev'ry sense of great delight. 50 Long has that poet reigned, and long unknown, Like monarchs sparkling on a distant throne; In all the majesty of Greek retired; Himself unknown, his mighty name admired; His language failing wrapt him round with night; 55 Thine, raised by thee, recalls the work to light. So wealthy mines, that ages long before Fed the large realms around with golden ore, When choked by sinking banks, no more appear, And shepherds only say, the "mines were here:" 60 Should some rich youth (if nature warm his heart, And all his projects stand informed with art) Here clear the caves, there ope the leading vein; The mines detected flame with gold again. How vast, how copious, are thy new designs! 65 How ev'ry music varies in thy lines! Still, as I read, I feel my bosom beat, And rise in raptures by another's heat. Thus in the wood, when summer dressed the days, While Windsor lent us tuneful hours of ease, 70 Our ears the lark, the thrush, the turtle blest, And Philomela sweetest o'er the rest: The shades resound with song--O softly tread, While a whole season warbles round my head. This to my friend--and when a friend inspires, 75 My silent harp its master's hand requires; Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound; For fortune placed me in unfertile ground; Far from the joys that with my soul agree, From wit, from learning--very far from thee. 80 Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf; Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf; Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet, Rocks at their sides, and torrents at their feet; Or lazy lakes unconscious of a flood, 85 Whose dull, brown naiads ever sleep in mud. Yet here content can dwell, and learned ease, A friend delight me, and an author please; Ev'n here I sing, when POPE supplies the theme, Show my own love, though not increase his fame. 90

THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT.

TO MR. POPE,

ON THE PUBLISHING HIS WORKS.

He comes, he comes! bid ev'ry bard prepare The song of triumph, and attend his car. Great Sheffield's muse the long procession heads, And throws a lustre o'er the pomp she leads; First gives the palm she fired him to obtain, 5 Crowns his gay brow, and shows him how to reign. Thus young Alcides, by old Chiron taught, Was formed for all the miracles he wrought: Thus Chiron did the youth he taught applaud, Pleased to behold the earnest of a god. 10 But hark, what shouts, what gath'ring crowds rejoice! Unstained their praise by any venal voice, Such as th' ambitious vainly think their due, When prostitutes, or needy flatt'rers sue. And see the chief! before him laurels borne; 15 Trophies from undeserving temples torn; Here Rage enchained reluctant raves, and there Pale Envy dumb, and sick'ning with despair; Prone to the earth she bends her loathing eye, Weak to support the blaze of majesty. 20 But what are they that turn the sacred page? Three lovely virgins, and of equal age; Intent they read, and all enamoured seem, As he that met his likeness in the stream: The Graces these; and see how they contend, 25 Who most shall praise, who best shall recommend. The chariot now the painful steep ascends, The pæans cease; thy glorious labour ends. Here fixed, the bright eternal temple stands, Its prospect an unbounded view commands: 30 Say, wond'rous youth, what column wilt thou choose, What laurelled arch for thy triumphant muse? Though each great ancient court thee to his shrine, Though ev'ry laurel through the dome be thine, (From the proud epic, down to those that shade 35 The gentler brow of the soft Lesbian maid) Go to the good and just, an awful train, Thy soul's delight, and glory of the fane: While through the earth thy dear remembrance flies, "Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies." 40

WILLIAM BROOME.

TO MR. POPE.

Let vulgar souls triumphal arches raise, Or speaking marbles, to record their praise, And picture (to the voice of fame unknown) The mimic feature on the breathing stone; Mere mortals! subject to death's total sway, 5 Reptiles of earth, and beings of a day! 'Tis thine, on ev'ry heart to grave thy praise, A monument which worth alone can raise: Sure to survive, when time shall whelm in dust The arch, the marble, and the mimic bust: 10 Nor till the volumes of th' expanded sky Blaze in one flame, shalt thou and Homer die: Then sink together in the world's last fires, What heav'n created, and what heav'n inspires. If aught on earth, when once this breath is fled, 15 With human transport touch the mighty dead, Shakespear, rejoice! his hand thy page refines; Now ev'ry scene with native brightness shines; Just to thy fame, he gives thy genuine thought; So Tully published what Lucretius wrote; 20 Pruned by his care, thy laurels loftier grow, And bloom afresh on thy immortal brow. Thus when thy draughts, O Raphael! time invades, And the bold figure from the canvas fades, A rival hand recalls from ev'ry part 25 Some latent grace, and equals art with art; Transported we survey the dubious strife, While each fair image starts again to life. How long, untuned, had Homer's sacred lyre Jarred grating discord, all extinct his fire! 30 This you beheld; and taught by heav'n to sing, Called the loud music from the sounding string. Now waked from slumbers of three thousand years, Once more Achilles in dread pomp appears, Towers o'er the field of death; as fierce he turns, 35 Keen flash his arms, and all the hero burns; With martial stalk, and more than mortal might, He strides along, and meets the gods in fight: Then the pale Titans, chained on burning floors, Start at the din that rends th' infernal shores, 40 Tremble the tow'rs of heav'n, earth rocks her coasts, And gloomy Pluto shakes with all his ghosts. To ev'ry theme responds thy various lay; Here rolls a torrent, there meanders play; Sonorous as the storm thy numbers rise, 45 Toss the wild waves, and thunder in the skies; Or softer than a yielding virgin's sigh, The gentle breezes breathe away and die. Thus, like the radiant god who sheds the day, You paint the vale, or gild the azure way; 50 And while with ev'ry theme the verse complies, Sink without grov'ling, without rashness rise. Proceed, great bard! awake th' harmonious string, Be ours all Homer; still Ulysses sing. How long that hero, by unskilful hands, 55 Stripped of his robes, a beggar trod our lands! Such as he wandered o'er his native coast, Shrunk by the wand, and all the warrior lost; O'er his smooth skin a bark of wrinkles spread; Old age disgraced the honours of his head; 60 Nor longer in his heavy eye-ball shined The glance divine, forth-beaming from the mind. But you, like Pallas, ev'ry limb infold With royal robes, and bid him shine in gold; Touched by your hand his manly frame improves 65 With grace divine, and like a god he moves. Ev'n I, the meanest of the muses' train, Inflamed by thee, attempt a nobler strain; Advent'rous waken the Mæonian lyre, Tuned by your hand, and sing as you inspire: 70 So armed by great Achilles for the fight, Patroclus conquered in Achilles' right: Like theirs, our friendship! and I boast my name To thine united--for thy friendship's fame. This labour past, of heav'nly subjects sing, 75 While hov'ring angels listen on the wing, To hear from earth such heart-felt raptures rise, As, when they sing, suspended hold the skies: Or nobly rising in fair virtue's cause, From thy own life transcribe th' unerring laws: 80 Teach a bad world beneath her sway to bend: To verse like thine fierce savages attend, And men more fierce: when Orpheus tunes the lay, Ev'n fiends relenting hear their rage away.

LORD LYTTELTON.

TO MR. POPE.

From Rome, 1730.

Immortal bard! for whom each muse has wove The fairest garlands of th' Aonian grove; Preserved, our drooping genius to restore, When Addison and Congreve are no more; After so many stars extinct in night, 5 The darkened age's last remaining light! To thee from Latian realms this verse is writ, Inspired by memory of ancient wit: For now no more these climes their influence boast, Fall'n is their glory, and their virtue lost: 10 From tyrants, and from priests, the muses fly, Daughters of reason and of liberty. Nor Baiæ now, nor Umbria's plain they love, Nor on the banks of Nar, or Mincio rove; To Thames's flow'ry borders they retire, 15 And kindle in thy breast the Roman fire. So in the shades, where cheered with summer rays Melodious linnets warbled sprightly lays, Soon as the faded, falling leaves complain Of gloomy winter's unauspicious reign, 20 No tuneful voice is heard of joy or love, But mournful silence saddens all the grove. Unhappy Italy! whose altered state Has felt the worst severity of fate: Not that barbarian hands her fasces broke 25 And bowed her haughty neck beneath their yoke; Nor that her palaces to earth are thrown, Her cities desert, and her fields unsown; But that her ancient spirit is decayed, That sacred wisdom from her bounds is fled, 30 That there the source of science flows no more, Whence its rich streams supplied the world before. Illustrious names! that once in Latium shined, Born to instruct, and to command mankind; Chiefs, by whose virtue mighty Rome was raised, 35 And poets, who those chiefs sublimely praised! Oft I the traces you have left explore, Your ashes visit, and your urns adore; Oft kiss, with lips devout, some mould'ring stone, With ivy's venerable shade o'ergrown; 40 Those hallowed ruins better pleased to see Than all the pomp of modern luxury. As late on Virgil's tomb fresh flow'rs I strowed, While with th' inspiring muse my bosom glowed, Crowned with eternal bays my ravished eyes 45 Beheld the poet's awful form arise: Stranger, he said, whose pious hand has paid These grateful rites to my attentive shade, When thou shalt breathe thy happy native air, To Pope this message from his master bear: 50 "Great bard! whose numbers I myself inspire, To whom I gave my own harmonious lyre, If high exalted on the throne of wit, Near me and Homer thou aspire to sit, No more let meaner satire dim the rays, 55 That flow majestic from thy nobler bays; In all the flow'ry paths of Pindus stray, But shun that thorny, that unpleasing way; Nor, when each soft engaging muse is thine, Address the least attractive of the nine. 60 "Of thee more worthy were the task to raise A lasting column to thy country's praise, To sing the land, which yet alone can boast That liberty corrupted Rome has lost, Where science in the arms of peace is laid, 65 And plants her palm beneath the olive's shade. Such was the theme for which my lyre I strung, Such was the people whose exploits I sung; Brave, yet refined, for arms and arts renowned, With diff'rent bays by Mars and Phoebus crowned, 70 Dauntless opposers of tyrannic sway, But pleased, a mild AUGUSTUS to obey. "If these commands submissive thou receive, Immortal and unblamed thy name shall live; Envy to black Cocytus shall retire, 75 And howl with furies in tormenting fire; Approving time shall consecrate thy lays, And join the patriot's to the poet's praise."

FOOTNOTES:

Pope commenced the interchange of praise with the Duke of Buckingham by celebrating him in the Essay on Criticism. The return verses of the Duke are little better than drivelling. His Essay on Satire and Essay on Poetry are his principal works, but though one was retouched by Dryden and the other by Pope, they are very second-rate performances. The Duke died in February, 1721, aged 72.]

She wrote a tragedy called Aristomenes, or the Royal Shepherd, to which Pope may be supposed to allude in his letter to Caryll of Dec. 15, 1713, where he says, "I was invited to dinner to my Lady Winchelsea, and after dinner to hear a play read, at both which I sat in great disorder with sickness at my head and stomach." Pope omitted her rugged, bald, prosaic verses in 1736, probably because they were intrinsically worthless, and because the name of the author had ceased to carry any weight. In 1727 and 1732 they were printed with Pope's poems in Lintot's Miscellany, and doubtless with the sanction of Pope himself.]

He graduated M.A. April 30, 1695, and as he could hardly have been an M.A. before he was twenty-five, he would have been forty-five at the date of these verses. There is a rhyming "Epistle to Mr. B----, by Mr. Fr. Knapp, of Magdalen College, in Oxford," in Tonson's Fourth Miscellany.--CROKER.

He died in, or before 1727; for in one of Lintot's advertisements of that year he is described as the "late Rev. Mr. Francis Knapp, Dean of Killala."]

There is little merit in borrowing a compliment from the Anthology, and the felicity of its application in the present instance may be questioned, notwithstanding the emphatic praise of Warton. The mythological basis of the lines, which is appropriate in the Greek, becomes childish when adopted by an English poet, and the point of the piece, which turns upon the assumption that Pope's translation was vastly superior to the original, is too extravagant to be pleasing. Fenton was a scholar, and could not have thought what he said.]

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