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ever be capable of making a Revolution in Parnasus.

will not attempt, in this place, to fay any thing particular of your Lyrick Poems, tho' they are the Delight and Wonder of this Age, and will be the Envy of the next. The Subject of this Book confines me to Satyr; and in that, an Author of your own Quality, (whofe Afhes I will not difturb,) has given you all the Commendation, which his Self-fufficiency cou'd afford to any Man: The best good Man, with the worst-natur'¿ Mufe. In that Character, methinks, I am reading Johnson's Verfes to the Memory of Shakespear: .. An Infolent, Sparing, and Invidious Panegyrick: Where good Nature, the moft Godlike Commendation of a Man, it only attributed to your Perfon, and deny'd to your Writings: For they are every-where fo full of Candor, that, like Horace, you only expofe the Follies of Men, without arraigning their Vices; and in this excel him, that you add that pointedness of Thought, which is vifibly wanting in our great Roman. There is more of Salt in all your Verfes, than I have seen in any of the Moderns, or even of the Ancients : But you have been fparing of the Gall; by which means you have pleas'd all Readers, and offended none. Donn alone, of all our Country-men, had your Talent; but was not happy enough to arrive at your Verfification. And were he tranflated into Numbers, and English, he wou'd yet be wanting in the Dignity of Expreffion. That which is the Prime Virtue, and chief Ornament of Virgil, which diftinguishes him from the reft of Writers, is fo confpicuous in your Verses, that it cafts Shadow on all your Contemporaries; we cannot be feen, or but obfcurely, while you are prefent.

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You equal Donn in the Variety, Multiplicity, and Choice of Thoughts; you excel him in the Manner, and the Words. I read you both, with the fame Admiration, but not with the fame Delight. He affects the Metaphyficks, not only in his Satyrs, but in his amorous Verfes, where Nature only fhould reign; and perplexes the Minds of the fair Sex with nice Speculations of Philofophy, when he fhou'd engage their Hearts, and entertain them with the Softnefs of Love. In this (if I may be pardon'd for fo bold a Truth) Mr. Cowley has copy'd him to a Fault; fo great a one in my Opinion, that it throws his Mistress infinitely below his Pindariques, and his latter Compofitions, which are undoubtedly the beft of his Poems, and the moft correct. For my own part, I must avow it freely to the World, that I never attempted any thing in Satyr, wherein I have not study'd your Writings as the most perfect Model. I have continually laid them before me; and the greatest Commendation, which my own Partiality can give to my Productions, is, that they are Copies, and no farther to be allow'd, than as they have fomething more or lefs of the Original. Some few Touches of your Lordship, fome secret Graces which I have endeavour'd to exprefs after your manner, have made whole Poems of mine to pafs with Approbation: But take your Verfes altogether, and they are inimitable. If therefore I have not written better, 'tis because you have not written more. You have not fet me fufficient Copy to tranfcribe; and I cannot add one Letter of my own Invention, of which I have not the Example there.

'Tis a géneral Complaint against your Lordship, and I must have leave to upbraid you with it, that, because you need not write, you will not. Mankind

Mankind that wishes you fo well, in all things that relate to your Profperity, have their Intervals of wishing for themselves, and are within a little of grudging you the Fulness of your Fortune: They wou'd be more malicious if you us'd it not fo well, and with fo much Generofity.

Fame is in it felf a real Good, if we may believe Cicero, who was perhaps too fond of it./ But even Fame, as Virgil tells us, acquires strength by going forward. Let Epicurus give Indolency as an Attribute to his Gods, and place in it the Happiness of the Bleft: The Divinity which we' worship, has given us not only a Precept against it, but his own Example to the contrary. The: World, my Lord, wou'd be content to allow you a Seventh Day for Reft; or if you thought that hard upon you, we wou'd not refuse you half your time: If you came out, like fome Great Monarch, to take a Town but once a Year, as it were for your Diverfion, tho' you had no need to extend your Territories: In fhort, if you were a bad, or which is worse, an indifferent Poet, we wou'd thank you for our own Quiet, and not expofe you to the want of yours. But when you are so great and fo fuccefsful, and when we have that neceffity of your Writing, that we cannot fubfift intirely without it; any more (I may almost fay) than the World without the daily Courfe of ordinaryProvidence, methinks this Argument might prevail with you, my Lord, to forego a little of your Repofe for the publick Benefit. Tis not that you are under any force of working daily Miracles, to prove your Being; but now and then fomewhat of extraordinary, that is any thing of your Production, is requifite to refresh your Character.

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This, I think, my Lord, is a fufficient Reproach to you; and fhou'd I carry it as far as Mankind wou'd authorize me, wou'd be little less than Satyr. And, indeed, a Provocation is almoft neceffary, in behalf of the World, that you might be induc'd fometimes to write; and in relation to a - multitude of Scriblers, who daily pefter the World with their infufferable ftuff, that they might be difcouraged from Writing any more. I complain not of their Lampoons and Libels, tho' I have been the publick Mark for many Years. I am vindictive enough to have repelled Force by Force, if I cou'd imagine that any of them had ever reach'd me; but they either fhot at Rovers, and therefore miffed, or their Powder was fo weak, that I might fafely ftand them, at the nearest Distance. I anfwer'd not the Rehearsal, because I knew the Author fate to himself when he drew the Picture, and was the very Bays of his own Farce. Because alfo I knew, that my Betters were more concerned than I was in that Satyr: and, laftly, because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson, the main Pillars of it, were two fuch languishing Gentlemen in their Converfation, that I cou'd liken them to nothing but to their own Relations, thofe Noble Characters of Men of Wit and Pleasure about the Town. The like Confiderations have hinder'd me from dealing with the lamentable Companions of their Profe and Doggrel, I am fo far from defending iny Poetry against them, that I will not fo much as expofe theirs. And for my Morals, if they are not Proof against their Attacks, let me be thought by Pofterity, what thofe Authors wou'd be thought, if any Memory of them, or of their Writings, cou'd endure fo long, as to another Age. But thefe dull Makers of Lampoons, as harmless as

they

they have been to me, are yet of dangerous Example to the Publick: Some witty Men may perhaps fucceed to their Defigns, and mixing Senfe with Malice, blast the Reputation of the moft Innocent amongft Men, and the moft Virtuous amongft Women.

Heaven be prais'd, our common Libellers are as free from the imputation of Wit, as of Morality; and therefore whatever Mifchief they have defign'd, they have perform'd but little of it. Yet thefe ill Writers, in all Justice, ought themselves to be expos'd: As Perfius has given us a fair Example in his Firft Satyr; which is levell'd particularly at them: And none is fo fit to correct their Faults, as he who is not only clear from any in his own Writings, but is alfo fo juft, that he will never defame the Good; and is armed with the Power of Verfe, to punish and make Examples of the Bad. But of this I fhall have occafion to speak further, when I come to give the Definition and Character of true Satyrs.

In the mean time, as a Counsellor bred up in the Knowledge of the Municipal and StatuteLaws, may honeftly inform a Juft Prince how far his Prerogative extends; fo I may be allowed to tell your Lordship, who by an undifputed Title, are the King of Poets, what an extent of Power you have, and how lawfully you may exercife it, over the petulant Scriblers of this Age. As Lord Chamberlain, I know, you are abfolute by your Office, in all that belongs to the Decency and Good Manners of the Stage. You can banish from thence Scurrility and Profanenefs, and restrain the licencious Infolence of Poets and their Actors in all things that fhock the publick Quiet; or the Reputation of Private Perfons, under the Notion of

;

Humour.

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