Essays on Taste | Page 6

more solid heads than one. 80
Let such admire each great or specious name; For right or wrong the joy to them's the same. "Right!" Yes a thousand times.--Each fool has heard That Homer was a wonder of a bard. Despise them civilly with all my heart-- 85 But to convince them is a desperate part, Why should you teize one for what secret cause One doats on Horace, or on Hudibras? 'Tis cruel, Sir, 'tis needless, to endeavour To teach a sot of Taste he knows no flavour, 90 To disunite I neither wish nor hope A stubborn blockhead from his fav'rite fop. Yes--fop I say, were Maro's self before 'em: For Maro's self grows dull as they pore o'er him.
But hear their raptures o'er some specious rhime Dub'd by the musk'd and greasy mob sublime. 96 For spleen's dear sake hear how a coxcomb prates As clam'rous o'er his joys as fifty cats; _"Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, To soften rocks, and oaks"_--and all the rest: 100 _"I've heard"_--Bless these long ears!--"Heav'ns what a strain! Good God! What thunders burst in this Campaign! Hark Waller warbles! Ah! how sweetly killing! Then that inimitable Splendid Shilling! Rowe breathes all Shakespear here!--That ode of Prior 105 Is Spencer quite! egad his very fire!-- As like"--Yes faith! as gum-flowers to the rose, Or as to Claret flat Minorca's dose; As like as (if I am not grosly wrong) Erle Robert's Mice to aught e'er Chaucer sung. 110
Read boldly, and unprejudic'd peruse Each fav'rite modern, ev'n each ancient muse. With all the comic salt and tragic rage The great stupendous genius of our stage, Boast of our island, pride of human-kind, 115 Had faults to which the boxes are not blind. His frailties are to ev'ry gossip known: Yet Milton's pedantries not shock the town. Ne'er be the dupe of Names, however high; For some outlive good parts, some misapply. 120 Each elegant Spectator you admire; But must you therefore swear by Cato's fire? Masques for the court, and oft a clumsey jest, Disgrac'd the muse that wrought the Alchemist. "But to the ancients."--Faith! I am not clear, 125 For all the smooth round type of Elzevir, That every work which lasts in prose or song, Two thousand years, deserves to last so long. For not to mention some eternal blades Known only now in th' academic shades, 130 (Those sacred groves where raptur'd spirits stray, And in word-hunting waste the live-long day) Ancients whom none but curious critics scan, Do, read[A] Messala's praises if you can. Ah! who but feels the sweet contagious smart 135 While soft Tibullus pours his tender heart? With him the Loves and Muses melt in tears; But not a word of some hexameters. "You grow so squeamish and so dev'lish dry, You'll call Lucretius vapid next." Not I. 140 Some find him tedious, others think him lame: But if he lags his subject is to blame. Rough weary roads thro' barren wilds he tried, Yet still he marches with true Roman pride: Sometimes a meteor, gorgeous, rapid, bright, 145 He streams athwart the philosophic night. Find you in Horace no insipid Odes?-- He dar'd to tell us Homer sometimes nods; And but for such a aide's hardy skill Homer might slumber unsuspected still. 150
[Footnote A: A poem of Tibullus's in hexameter verse; as yawning and insipid as his elegies are tender and natural.]
Tasteless, implicit, indolent and tame, At second-hand we chiefly praise or blame. Hence 'tis, for else one knows not why nor how, Some authors flourish for a year or two: For many some, more wond'rous still to tell; 155 Farquhar yet lingers on the brink of hell. Of solid merit others pine unknown; } At first, tho'[A] Carlos swimmingly went down, } Poor Belvidera fail'd to melt the town. } Sunk in dead night the giant Milton lay 160 'Till Sommer's hand produc'd him to the day. But, thanks to heav'n and Addison's good grace Now ev'ry fop is charm'd with Chevy Chace.
[Footnote A: Don Carlos, a tragedy of Otway's, now long and justly forgotten, went off with great applause; while his Orphan, a somewhat better performance, and what is yet more strange, his Venice Preserved, according to the theatrical anecdotes of those times, met with a very cold reception.]
Specious and sage, the sovereign of the flock Led to the downs, or from the wave-worn rock 165 Reluctant hurl'd, the tame implicit train Or crop the downs, or headlong seek the main. As blindly we our solemn leaders follow, And good, and bad, and execrable swallow.
Pray, on the first throng'd evening of a play 170 That wears the[A] facies hippocratica, Strong lines of death, signs dire of reprobation; Have you not seen the angel of salvation Appear sublime; with wise and solemn