The Poetical Works of Edward Young Part 6

Aid me, great Homer! with thy epic rules, To take a catalogue of British fools.

Satire! had I thy Dorset's force divine, A knave or fool should perish in each line; Tho' for the first all Westminster should plead, And for the last, all Gresham intercede.

Begin. Who first the catalogue shall grace?

To quality belongs the highest place.

My lord comes forward; forward let him come!

Ye vulgar! at your peril, give him room: He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet, By heraldry prov'd valiant or discreet.

With what a decent pride he throws his eyes Above the man by three descents less wise!

If virtues at his n.o.ble hands you crave, You bid him raise his fathers from the grave.

Men should press forward in fame's glorious chase; n.o.bles look backward, and so lose the race.

Let high birth triumph! What can be more great?

Nothing-but merit in a low estate.

To virtue's humblest son let none prefer Vice, though descended from the conqueror.

Shall men, like figures, pa.s.s for high, or base, Slight, or important, only by their place?

t.i.tles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool, or knave, that wears a t.i.tle, lies.

They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.

Dorset, let those who proudly boast their line, Like thee, in worth hereditary, s.h.i.+ne.

Vain as false greatness is, the muse must own We want not fools to buy that Bristol stone; Mean sons of earth, who, on a south-sea tide Of full success, swarm into wealth and pride; Knock with a purse of gold at Anstis' gate, And beg to be descended from the great.

When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more.

Those governments which curb not evils, cause!

And a rich knave's a libel on our laws.

Belus with solid glory will be crown'd; He buys no phantom, no vain empty sound; But builds himself a name; and, to be great, Sinks in a quarry an immense estate!

In cost and grandeur, Chandos he'll outdo; And Burlington, thy taste is not so true.

The pile is finish'd! ev'ry toil is past; And full perfection is arriv'd at last; When, lo! my lord to some small corner runs, And leaves state-rooms to strangers and to duns.

The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, Provides a home from which to run away.

In Britain, what is many a lordly seat, But a discharge in full for an estate?

In smaller compa.s.s lies Pygmalion's fame; Not domes, but antique statues, are his flame: Not Fountaine's self more Parian charms has known, Nor is good Pembroke more in love with stone.

The bailiffs come (rude men profanely bold!) And bid him turn his Venus into gold.

"No, sirs," he cries; "I'll sooner rot in jail; Shall Grecian arts be truck'd for English bail?"

Such heads might make their very busto's laugh: His daughter starves; but(7) Cleopatra's safe.

Men, overloaded with a large estate, May spill their treasure in a nice conceit: The rich may be polite; but, oh! 'tis sad To say you're curious, when we swear you're mad.

By your revenue measure your expense; And to your funds and acres join your sense.

No man is bless'd by accident or guess; True wisdom is the price of happiness: Yet few without long discipline are sage; And our youth only lays up sighs for age.

But how, my muse, canst thou resist so long The bright temptation of the courtly throng, Thy most inviting theme? The court affords Much food for satire;-it abounds in lords.

"What lords are those saluting with a grin?"

One is just out, and one as lately in.

"How comes it then to pa.s.s we see preside On both their brows an equal share of pride?"

Pride, that impartial pa.s.sion, reigns through all, Attends our glory, nor deserts our fall.

As in its home it triumphs in high place, And frowns a haughty exile in disgrace.

Some lords it bids admire their wands so white, Which bloom, like Aaron's, to their ravish'd sight: Some lords it bids resign; and turn their wands, Like Moses', into serpents in their hands.

These sink, as divers, for renown; and boast, With pride inverted, of their honours lost.

But against reason sure 'tis equal sin, To boast of merely being out, or in.

What numbers here, through odd ambition, strive To seem the most transported things alive!

As if by joy, desert was understood; And all the fortunate were wise and good.

Hence aching bosoms wear a visage gay, And stifled groans frequent the ball and play.

Completely drest by(8) Monteuil, and grimace, They take their birth-day suit, and public face: Their smiles are only part of what they wear, Put off at night, with Lady B--'s hair.

What bodily fatigue is half so bad?

With anxious care they labour to be glad.

What numbers, here, would into fame advance, Conscious of merit, in the c.o.xcomb's dance; The tavern! park! a.s.sembly! mask! and play!

Those dear destroyers of the tedious day!

That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town!

Call it diversion, and the pill goes down.

Fools grin on fools, and, stoic-like, support, Without one sigh, the pleasures of a court.

Courts can give nothing, to the wise and good, But scorn of pomp, and love of solitude.

High stations tumult, but not bliss, create: None think the great unhappy, but the great: Fools gaze, and envy; envy darts a sting, Which makes a swain as wretched as a king.

I envy none their pageantry and show; I envy none the gilding of their woe.

Give me, indulgent G.o.ds! with mind serene, And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene; No splendid poverty, no smiling care, No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there: There pleasing objects useful thought suggest; The sense is ravish'd, and the soul is blest; On every thorn delightful wisdom grows; In every rill a sweet instruction flows.

But some, untaught, o'erhear the whisp'ring rill, In spite of sacred leisure, blockheads still; Nor shoots up folly to a n.o.bler bloom In her own native soil, the drawing-room.

The squire is proud to see his coursers strain, Or well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain.

Say, dear Hippolitus, (whose drink is ale, Whose erudition is a Christmas tale, Whose mistress is saluted with a smack, And friend receiv'd with thumps upon the back,) When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound, And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground, Is that thy praise? Let Ringwood's fame alone; Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own; Nor envies, when a gipsy you commit, And shake the clumsy bench with country wit; When you the dullest of dull things have said, And then ask pardon for the jest you made.

Here breathe, my muse! and then thy task renew: Ten thousand fools unsung are still in view.

Fewer lay-atheists made by church debates; Fewer great beggars fam'd for large estates; Ladies, whose love is constant as the wind; Cits, who prefer a guinea to mankind; Fewer grave lords to Scrope discreetly bend; And fewer shocks a statesman gives his friend.

Is there a man of an eternal vein, Who lulls the town in winter with his strain, At Bath, in summer, chants the reigning la.s.s, And sweetly whistles, as the waters pa.s.s?

Is there a tongue, like Delia's o'er her cup, That runs for ages without winding up?

Is there, whom his tenth epic mounts to fame?

Such, and such only, might exhaust my theme: Nor would these heroes of the task be glad; For who can write so fast as men run mad?

Satire II

My muse, proceed, and reach thy destin'd end; Though toils and danger the bold task attend.

Heroes and G.o.ds make other poems fine; Plain satire calls for sense in every line: Then, to what swarms thy faults I dare expose!

All friends to vice and folly are thy foes.

When such the foe, a war eternal wage; 'Tis most ill-nature to repress thy rage: And if these strains some n.o.bler muse excite, I'll glory in the verse I did not write.

So weak are human kind by nature made, Or to such weakness by their vice betray'd, Almighty vanity! to thee they owe Their zest of pleasure, and their balm of woe.

Thou, like the sun, all colours dost contain, Varying, like rays of light, on drops of rain.

For every soul finds reasons to be proud, Tho' hiss'd and hooted by the pointing crowd.

Warm in pursuit of foxes, and renown, (9)Hippolitus demands the sylvan crown; But Florio's fame, the product of a shower, Grows in his garden, an ill.u.s.trious flower!

Why teems the earth? Why melt the vernal skies?

Why s.h.i.+nes the sun? To make(10) Paul Diack rise.

From morn to night has Florio gazing stood, And wonder'd how the G.o.ds could be so good; What shape! what hue! was ever nymph so fair!

He dotes! he dies! he too is rooted there.

O solid bliss! which nothing can destroy, Except a cat, bird, snail, or idle boy.

In fame's full bloom lies Florio down at night, And wakes next day a most inglorious wight; The tulip's dead! See thy fair sister's fate, O C--! and be kind ere 'tis too late.

Nor are those enemies I mention'd, all; Beware, O florist, thy ambition's fall.

A friend of mine indulg'd this n.o.ble flame; A quaker serv'd him, Adam was his name; To one lov'd tulip oft the master went, Hung o'er it, and whole days in rapture spent; But came, and miss'd it, one ill-fated hour: He rag'd! he roar'd! "What demon cropt my flower?"

Serene, quoth Adam, "Lo! 'twas crusht by me; Fall'n is the Baal to which thou bow'dst thy knee."

But all men want amus.e.m.e.nt; and what crime In such a paradise to fool their time?

None: but why proud of this? to fame they soar; We grant they're idle, if they'll ask no more.

We smile at florists, we despise their joy, And think their hearts enamour'd of a toy: But are those wiser whom we most admire, Survey with envy, and pursue with fire?

What's he who sighs for wealth, or fame, or power?

Another Florio doting on a flower; A short liv'd flower; and which has often sprung From sordid arts, as Florio's out of dung.

With what, O Codrus! is thy fancy smit?

The flower of learning, and the bloom of wit.

The gaudy shelves with crimson bindings glow, And Epictetus is a perfect beau.

How fit for thee! bound up in crimson too, Gilt, and, like them, devoted to the view!

Thy books are furniture. Methinks 'tis hard That science should be purchas'd by the yard; And Tonson, turn'd upholsterer, send home The gilded leather to fit up thy room.

If not to some peculiar end design'd, Study's the specious trifling of the mind; Or is at best a secondary aim, A chase for sport alone, and not for game.