A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
BYRON: Eng. Bards and Scot. Reviewers. So dost thou aim thy darts, which ev'n when They kill the poisons do but wake the men. CARTWRIGHT.
When satire flies abroad on falsehood's wing,
Short is her life, and impotent her sting;
But when to truth allied, the wound she gives
Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives.
CHURCHILL.
The man whose hardy spirit shall engage
To lash the vices of a guilty age,
At his first setting forward ought to know
That every rogue he meets must be his foe;
That the rude breath of satire will provoke
Many who feel and more who fear the stroke.
CHURCHILL.
Unless a love of virtue light the flame,
Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame:
He hides behind a magisterial air
His own offences, and strips others' bare.
Poets alone found the delightful way
Mysterious morals gently to convey
In charming numbers; so that as men grew
Pleased with their poems, they grew wiser too.
Satire has always shone among the rest,
And is the boldest way, if not the best,
To tell men freely of their foulest faults,
To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts.
DRYDEN.
With whate'er gall thou sett'st thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
DRYDEN. Frontless and satire-proof he scours the streets, And runs an Indian muck at all he meets. DRYDEN.
The labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone,
Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone;
Such is a satire when you take away
The rage in which his noble vigour lay.
DRYDEN.
When Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold sweat stands in drops on ev'ry part,
And rage succeeds to tears, revenge to smart.
SCANDAL.-SCEPTICISM.-SCIENCE.-SCOLDING.
Him also for my censor I disdain,
Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain;
In fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve Who counts geometry and numbers toys,
As that abominable tittle-tattle
Which is the cud eschew'd by human cattle.
BYRON.
Assail'd by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;
And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
COWPER.
My known virtue is from scandal free,
And leaves no shadow for your calumny.
DRYDEN.
And there's a lust in man no charm can tame
Of loudly publishing our neighbor's shame :
On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly,
While virtuous actions are but born and die.
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes, At every word a reputation dies.
POPE: Rape of the Lock. No particular scandal once can touch, But it confounds the breather.
Before me lay the sacred text: The help, the guide, the balm of souls perplex'd. ARBUTHNOT. Thus man by his own strength to heav'n would
And would not be obliged to God for more:
Vain, wretched creature! how art thou misled,
To think thy wit these godlike notions bred!
These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropt from heaven, and of a nobler kind:
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,
And Reason saw not till Faith sprung the light.
DRYDEN: Religio Laici.
Or whether more abstractedly we look,
Or on the writers, or the written Book,
Whence but from Heav'n could men unskill'd
in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price!
DRYDEN: Religio Laici.
In solemn silence stand
Stern tyrants, whom their cruelties renown,
And emperors in Parian marble frown.
So clean, as might instruct the sculptor's art.
DRYDEN.
The lids are ivy, grapes in cluster lurk
Beneath the carving of the curious work.
The nodding statue clash'd his arms,
And with a sullen sound, and feeble cry,
Half sunk, and half pronounced the word of
Victory!
When in those oratories might you see
Rich carvings, portraitures, and imagery,
Where ev'ry figure to the life express'd
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath The godhead's pow'r.
In him alone. Can nature show so fair?
An hard and unrelenting she
As the new-crusted Niobe,
Or, what doth more of statue carry,
A nun of the Platonic quarry.
The meanest sculptor in th' Æmilian square
Can imitate in brass the nails and hair;
Expert in trifles, and a cunning fool,
Let others better mould the running mass
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,
And soften into flesh a marble face.
Where statues breathed, the works of Phidias' hands,
A wooden pump or lonely watch-house stands.
Thy statue, Venus, though by Phidias' hands
Able t' express the parts, but not dispose the Design'd immortal, yet no longer stands;
So stands the statue that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
THOMSON: Summer.
Let the faint copier on old Tiber's shore,
Nor mean the task, each breathing bust explore;
Line after line with painful patience trace,
This Roman grandeur, that Athenian grace.
TICKELL.
To famed Apelles, when young Amnon brought
The darling idol of his captive heart,
And the pleased nymph with kind attention sat,
To have her charms recorded by his art.
WALLER.
In that corroding secrecy, which gnaws
The heart to show the effect, but not the cause,
BYRON: Lara.
No muse hath been so bold,
Or of the latter or the old,
Those elvish secrets to unfold
Which lie from others' reading.
I loved thee, as too well thou knew'st,
Too well, unbosom'd all my secrets to thee,
Not out of levity, but overpower'd
By thy request, who could deny thee nothing.
MILTON.
To have reveal'd Secrets of man, the secrets of a friend, Contempt and scorn of all, to be excluded All friendship, and avoided as a blab.
Each in his breast the secret sorrow kept,
And thought it safe to laugh, though Cæsar wept.
ROWE.
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