Sooth, as you only can, each differing taste,
And for the future charm as in the past.
Then should the verse of ev'ry artful hand,
Before your numbers eminently stand;
In you no vanity could thence be shewn,
Unless, since short in beauty, of your own,
Some envious scribbler might in spite declare,
That for comparison you plac'd them there.
But envy could not against you succeed,
"Tis not from friends that write, or foes that read; Censure or praise must from ourselves proceed.
THE following lines by Wycherley afford a very favourable specimen of his poetical talents; insomuch that Dennis and others contended that Pope was himself the author of them; a charge which Pope thought it worth his while to refute, by stating that "the first brouillon of them, and the second copy with corrections, were both extant in Wycherley's own hand-writing." They were written in 1708, before the publication of the pastorals; and are repeatedly referred to in Wycherley's Letters to Pope; in one of which he says, "I have made a damn'd compliment in verse upon the printing your pastorals, which you shall see when you see me.”
TO MR. POPE, ON HIS PASTORALS.
In these more dull, as more censorious days,
When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A Muse sincere, that never Flatt'ry knew,
Pays what to friendship and desert is due.
Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found 5
Art strength'ning Nature, sense improv'd by sound.
Unlike those Wits, whose numbers glide along
So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song:
Laboriously enervate they appear,
And write not to the head, but to the ear:
Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull,
And are at best most musically dull:
So purling streams with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into sleep.
As smoothest speech is most deceitful found, 15
The smoothest numbers oft are empty sound.
But Wit and Judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as youth, as age consummate too :
Your strains are regularly bold, and please
With unforc'd care, and unaffected ease,
With proper thoughts, and lively images:
Such as by Nature to the Ancients shewn,
Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own:
For great men's fashions to be follow'd are,
Altho' disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear.
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall;
Like some fair Shepherdess, the Sylvan Muse
Should wear those flow'rs her native fields produce;
And the true measure of the Shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit:
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common swains be wrought.
So, with becoming art, the Players dress
In silks, the shepherd and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely russet of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long lost graces of simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her modesty those charms conceal'd,
'Till by men's envy to the world reveal'd;
For Wits industrious to their trouble seem,
And needs will envy what they must esteem.
Live and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate, Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait; Whose Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight; Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight; So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise, Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies. W. WYCHERLEY.
THE following lines were addressed to Mr. Pope, from Killala, in the county of Mayo, in Ireland, (a circumstance which serves to explain the allusion at the commencement of them); and were dated June 7, 1715. They were printed in the first edition of the works of Pope, where some lines appear which have been judiciously omitted in the subsequent editions.
TO MR. POPE, ON HIS WINDSOR FOREST.
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,
And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here:
A various spoil adorn'd our naked land,
The pride of Persia glitter'd on our strand,
And China's Earth was cast on common sand:
Toss'd up and down the glossy fragments lay, 10
And dress'd the rocky shelves, and pav'd the
painted bay.
Thy treasures next arriv'd: 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.
Where-e'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
The sylvan state that on her border grows,
While she the wand'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.
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 mix'd 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 thou! 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 rhime,
Here on the Western beach attempt to chime.
O joyless flood! O rough tempestuous main! 50
Border'd with weeds, and solitudes obscene!
Snatch me, ye Gods! from these Atlantic shores,
And shelter me in Windsor's fragrant bow'rs;
Or to my much lov'd Isis' walks convey,
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 fam'd retreat,
And brought the Muses to the sylvan seat,
Reform'd the wits, unlock'd the Classic store, 60
And made that Music which was noise before.
There with illustrious Bards I spent my days,
Nor free from censure, nor unknown to praise,
Enjoy'd the blessings that his reign bestow'd
Nor envy'd Windsor in the soft abode.
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