of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compafs, I was failing in a vaft ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage amongst the moderns, which are extremely different from ours, by reafon of their oppofite taste; yet even then, I had the prefumption to dedicate to your lordship: a very unfinished piece, I must confefs, and which only can be excus'd by the little experience of the author, and the modeity of the title, An Effay. Yet I was ftronger in prophecy than I was in criticism; I was infpired to foretel you to mankind, as the restorer of Poetry, the greatest genius, the trueft judge, and the best patron.

Good fenfe and good nature are never feparated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reafon; which of neceffity will give allowance to the failings of others, by confidering that there is nothing perfect in mankind; and by distinguishing that which comes nearest to excellency, though not abfolutely free from faults, will certainly produce a candour in the judge. It is incident to an elevated understanding, like your lordfhip's, to find out the errors of other men: but it is your prerogative to pardon them; to look with pleafure on thofe things, which are fomewhat congenial, and of a remote kindred to your own conceptions: and to forgive the many failings of thofe, who with their wretched art, cannot arrive to those heights that you poffefs, from a happy, abundant, and native genius: which are as in born to you, as they were to Shakefpear; and for ought I know, to Homer; in either of whom we find all arts and sciences, all moral and natural philofophy, without knowing that they ever ftudied them.

There is not an English writer this day living, who is not perfectly convinced, that your Lordship excels all others, in all the feveral parts of Poetry which you have undertaken to adorn. The moft vain, and the most ambitious of our age, have not dared to affume

I 2

fume fo much, as the competitors of Themiftocles: they have yielded the first place without difpute; and have been arrogantly content to be efteemed as fecond to your lordship; and even that also with a Long fed proximi intervallo. If there have been, or are any, who go farther in their felf-conceit, they muft be very fingular in their opinion: they must be like the Officer in a play, who was called Captain, Lieutenant and Company. The world will eafily conclude, whether fuch unattended generals can ever be capable of making a revolution in Parnaffus.

I will not attempt, in this place to fay any thing particular of your Lyric Poems, though they are the delight and wonder of this age, and will be the envy. of the next. The fubject of this book confines me to Satire; and in that, an author of your own quaJity, (whofe afhes I will not disturb) has given you all the commendation, which his felf-fufficiency could afford to any man: "The best good man, with the worft-natur'd Mufe." In that character, methinks, I am reading Johnson's verfes to the memory of Shakefpear: an infolent, fparing, and invidious panegyric: where good nature, the moft godlike commendation of a man, is only attributed to your perfon, and denied to your writings: for they are every where fo full of candour, that, like Horace, you only expose 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 falt 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 pleafed all readers, and offended none. Donn alone, of all our countrymen, had your talent; but was not happy enough to arrive at your verfification. And were he translated into numbers, and English, he would 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 confpicu

3

ous

eus in your verses, that it cafts a fhadow on all your contemporaries we cannot be feen, or but obfcurely, while you are prefent. 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 metaphyfics, not only in his fatires, but in his amorous verfes, where nature only fhould reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair fex with nice fpeculations of philofophy, when he fhould engage their hearts, and entertain them with the foftnefs of love. In this (if I may be pardoned for fo bold a truth) Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault; fo great a one in my opinion, that it throws his miftrefs infinitely below his Pindariques, and his latter compofitions, which are undoubtedly the best of his Poems, and the most correct. For my own part, I must avow it freely to the world, that I never attempted any thing in fatire, wherein I have not studied 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 allowed, than as they have fomething more or lefs of the original. Some few touches of your lordfhip, fome fecret graces which I have endeavoured 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, it is because you have not written more. You have not fet me fufficient copy to transcribe; and I cannot add one letter of my own invention, of which I have not the example there.

It is a general complaint against your Lordship, and I must have leave to upbraid you with it, that, because you need not write, you will not. Mankind that wishes you fo well, in all things that relate to your profperity, have their intervals of wifhing for themselves, and are within a little of grudging you

the fullness of your fortune: they would be more malicious if you ufed it not fo well, and with fo much generofity.

Fame is in itself a real good, if we may believe Cicero, who was perhaps too fond of it. But even fame, as Virgil tells us, acquires ftrength by going forward. Let Epicurus give indolence 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, would be content to allow you a feventh day for rest; or if you thought that hard upon you, we would not refufe you half your time: if you come out, like fome great monarch, to take a town but once a year, as it were for your diverfion, though you had no need to extend your territories: in thort, if you were a bad, or which is worse, an indifferent poet, we would thank you for our own quiet, and not expofe you to the want of yours, But when you are fo 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 ordinary Providence, methinks this argument might prevail with you, my Lord, to forego a little of your repofe for the public benefit. It is 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.

This, I think, my Lord, is a fufficient reproach to you; and fhould I carry it as far as mankind would authorife me, would be little less than fatire. And, indeed, a provocation is almoft neceffary, in behalf of the world, that you might be induced fometimes to write; and in relation to a multitude of fcriblers, 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,

libels, though I have been the public mark for many years. I am vindictive enough to have repelled force by force, if I could imagine that any of them had ever reached me; but they either fhot at rovers, and therefore miffed, or their power was fo weak, that I might fafely ftand them, at the neareft diftance. I anfwered 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 fatire: and, laftly, because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnfon, the main pillars of it, were two fuch languifhing gentlemen in their converfation, that I could 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 hindered me from dealing with the lamentable companions of their profe and doggrel; I am fo far from defending my 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 would be thought, if any memory of them, or of their wri tings, could endure fo long, as to another age. But thefe dull makers of lampoons, as harmless as they have been to me, are yet of dangerous example to the public: fome witty men may perhaps fucceed to their defigns, and mixing fenfe with malice, blaft the reputation of the most innocent amongst men, and the moft virtuous amongst women.

Heaven be praised, our common libellers are as free from the imputation of wit, as of morality; and therefore whatever mischief they have defigned, they have performed but little of it. Yet thefe ill writers, in all justice, ought themfelves to be expofed: as Perfius has given us a fair example in his first fatire; which is levelled 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 also fo juft, that he will never defame the good; and is armed I 4

with