The foolish, ugly, dull, impertinent, He most would be what least he should or can. nose. Thersites, who seems born to give offence, Nature to each allots his proper sphere, Next to obtaining wealth, or power, or ease, If Garth, or Blackmore, friendly potions give, We study them with profit and delight: We grieve we've learnt to read, aye, curse the time. But when such early worth so bright appears, And antedates the fame which waits on years; I can't so stupidly affected prove, Not to confess it in the man I love. Though now I aim not at that known applause You've won in arms, and in your country's cause; Nor patriot now, nor hero, I commend, But the companion praise, and boast the friend. But you may think, and some, less partial, say, That I presume too much in this essay. How should I show what pleases? How explain A rule, to which I never could attain ? To this objection I'll make no reply, But tell a tale, which, after, we'll apply. I've read, or heard, a learned person once (Concern'd to find his only son a dunce) Compos'd a book in favour of the lad, Whose memory, it seems, was very bad. This work contáin'd a world of wholesome rules, To help the frailty of forgetful fools. The careful parent laid the treatise by, Till time should make it proper to apply. Simon, at length, the look'd-for age attains, To read and profit by his father's pains; And now the sire prepares the book t' impart, Which was yclept, Of Memory the Art. But ah! how oft is human care in vain! For, now, he could not find his book again. The place where he had laid it he forgot, Nor could himself remember what he wrote. Now to apply the story that I tell, Which, if not true, is yet invented well. Such is my case: like most of theirs who teach; I ill may practise what I well may preach. Myself not trying, or not turn'd to please, May lay the line, and measure out the ways. The Mulcibers, who in the minories sweat, And massive bars on stubborn anvils beat, Deform'd themselves, yet forge those stays of steel, Which arm Aurelia with a shape to kill. And write in rugged prose the rules of softer rhymes. So Macer and Mundungus school the times, Well do they play the careful critic's part, Instructing doubly by their matchless art: Rules for good verse they first with pains indite, Then show us what are bad by what they write. A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD VISCOUNT COBHAM, 1729. Albi sermonum nostrorum candide judex. SINCEREST critic of my prose or rhyme, Tell how thy pleasing Stowe employs thy time, Say, Cobham, what amuses thy retreat? Or stratagems of war, or schemes of state? Dost thou recal to mind with joy, or grief, Great Marlborough's actions; that immortal chief, Whose slightest trophy rais'd in each campaign, More than suffie'd to signalize a reign? Does thy remembrance rising warm thy heart With glory past, where thou thyself hadst part? Or dost thou grieve indignant now to see The fruitless end of all thy victory; To see th' audacious foe, so late subdued, Dispute those terms for which so long they sued, As if Britannia now were sunk so low, But catch the morning breeze from fragrant Or shun the noontide ray in wholesome shades? Not given thee form alone, but means, and art, A precept which, unpractis'd, renders vain Who thus can think, and who such thoughts pur sues, Content may keep his life, or calmly lose : With morals much, and now and then with rhyme: Not wondering at the world's new wicked ways, WRITTEN AT TUNBRIDGE WELLS, ON AFTERWARDS LADY OF SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON. LEAVE, leave the drawing-room, Cease, cease, to ask her name, Shall only sounded be. Then look round yonder dazzling raw; You may be sure 'tis she. Like her, this charmer now A DISCOURSE ON THE PINDARIC ODE, THE following ode is an attempt towards restoring the regularity of the ancient lyric poetry, which seems to be altogether forgotten, or unknown, by our English writers. There is nothing more frequent among us, than a sort of poems entitled Pindaric Odes; pretending to be written in imitation of the manner and style of Pindar, and yet I do not know that there is to this day extant, in our language, one ode contrived after his model. What idea can an English reader have of Pindar, (to whose mouth, when a child, the bees brought their honey, in omen of the future sweetness and melody of his songs) when he shall see such rumbling and grating papers of verses, pretending to be copies of his works? The character of these late Pindarics is, a bundle of rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like parcel of irregular stanzas, which also consist of such another complication of disproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhymes. And I appeal to any reader, if this is not the condition in which these titular odes appear. On the contrary, there is nothing more regular than the odes of Pindar, both as to the exact observation of the measures and numbers of his stanzas and verses, and the perpetual coherence of his thoughts. For though his digressions are frequent, and his transitions sudden, yet is there ever some secret connection, which, though not always appearing to the eye, never fails to communicate itself to the understanding of the reader. The liberty which he took in his numbers, and which has been so misunderstood and misapplied by his pretended imitators, was only in varying the stanzas in different odes; but in each particular ode they are ever correspondent one to another in their turns, and according to the order of the ode. stanza; and which accordingly perpetually agreed whenever repeated, both in number of verses and quantity of feet: he was then again at liberty to make a new choice for his third stanza, or epode; where, accordingly, he diversified his numbers, as his ear or fancy led him: composing that stanza of more or fewer verses than the former, and those verses of different measures and quantities, for the greater variety of harmony, and entertainment of the ear. But then this epode being thus formed, he was strictly obliged to the same measure as often as he should repeat it in the order of his ode, so that every epode in the same ode is eternally the same in measure and quantity, in respect to itself; as is also every strophé and antistrophe, in respect to each other. The lyric poet Stesichorus (whom Longinus reckons amongst the ablest imitators of Homer, and of whom Quintilian says, that if he could have kept within bounds, he would have been nearest of any body, in merit, to Homer) was, if not the inventor of this order in the ode, yet so strict an observer of it in his compositions, that the three stanzas of Stesichorus became a common proverb to express a thing universally known, ne tria quidem Stesichori nôstri; so that when any one had a mind to reproach another with excessive ignorance, he could not do it more effectually than by telling him, "he did not so much as know the three stanzas of Stesichorus ;" that is, did not know that an ode ought to consist of a strophé, an antistrophé, and an epode. If this was such a mark of ignorance among them, I am sure we have been pretty long liable to the same reproof; I mean, in respect of our imitations of the odes of Pindar. My intention is not to make a long preface to All the odes of Pindar which remain to us, are a short ode, nor to enter upon a dissertation of songs of triumph, victory, or success, in the Gre-lyric poetry in general: but thus much I thought cian games: they were sung by a chorus, and proper to say, for the information of those readers adapted to the lyre, and sometimes to the lyre whose course of study has not led them into such and pipe: they consisted oftenest of three stanzas; inquiries. the first was called the strophe, from the version or circular motion of the singers in that stanza from the right hand to the left. The second stanza was called the antistrophé, from the contraversion of the chorus; the singers, in performing that, turning from the left hand to the right, contrary always to their motion in the strophe. The third stanza was called the epode, (it may be as being the after-song) which they sung in the middle, neither turning to one hand nor the other. What the origin was of these different motions and stations in singing their odes, is not our present business to inquire. Some have thought, that, by the contrariety of the strophé and antistrophé, they intended to represent the contrarotation of the primum mobile, in respect of the secunda mobilia; and that, by their standing still at the epode, they meant to signify the stability of the Earth. Others ascribe the institution to Theseus, who thereby expressed the windings and turnings of the labyrinth, in celebrating his return from thence. The method observed in the composition of these odes, was therefore as follows: The poet having made choice of a certain number of verses to constitute his strophé, or first stanza, was obliged to observe the same in his antistrophé, or second I hope I shall not be so misunderstood, as to have it thought that I pretend to give an exact copy of Pindar in this ensuing ode; or that I look upon it as a pattern for his imitators for the future: far from such thoughts, I have only given an instance of what is practicable, and am sensible that I am as distant from the force and elevation of Pindar, as others have hitherto been from the harmony and regularity of his numbers. Again, we having no chorus to sing our odes, the titles, as well as use of strophé, antistrophe, and epode, are obsolete and impertinent: and certainly there may be very good English odes, without the distinction of Greek appellations to their stanzas. That I have mentioned them here, and observed the order of them in the ensuing ode, is therefore only the more intelligibly to explain the extraordinary regularity of the composition of these odes, which have been represented to us hitherto, as the most confused structures in nature. However, though there be no necessity that our triumphal odes should consist of the three aforementioned stanzas; yet if the reader can observe, that the great variation of the numbers in the third stanza (call it epode, or what you please), has a pleasing effect in the ode, and makes him return to the first and second stanzas with more appetite than he could do, if always cloyed with the same quantities and measures; I cannot see why some use may not be made of Pindar's example, to the great improvement of the English ode. There is certainly a pleasure in beholding any thing that has art and difficulty in the contrivance; especially if it appears so carefully executed, that the difficulty does not show itself, till it is sought for; and that the seeming easiness of the work, first sets us upon the inquiry. Nothing can be called beautiful without proportion. When symmetry and harmony are wanting, neither the eye nor the ear can be pleased. Therefore certainly poetry, which includes painting and music, should not be destitute of them; and of all poetry, especially the ode, whose end and essence is harmony. Mr. Cowley, in his preface to his Pindaric Odes, speaking of the music of numbers, says, which sometimes (especially in songs and odes) almost without any thing else, makes an excellent poet." Having mentioned Mr. Cowley, it may very well be expected, that something should be said of him, at a time when the imitation of Pindar is the theme of our discourse. But there is that great deference due to the memory, great parts, and learning, of that gentleman, that I think nothing should be objected to the latitude he has taken in his Pindaric odes. The beauty of his verses is an atonement for the irregularity of his stanzas; and though he did not imitate Pindar in the strictness of his numbers, he has very often happily copied him in the force of his figures, and sublimity of his style and sentiments. Yet I must beg leave to add, that I believe those irregular cles of Mr. Cowley may have been the principal, though innocent, occasion of so many deformed poems since, which, instead of being true pictures of Pindar, have (to use the Italian painters' term) been only caricatures of him, resemblances that, for the most part, have been either horrid or ridiculous. For my own part, I frankly own my errour in having heretofore miscalled a few irregular stanzas a Pindaric ode; and possibly, if others, who have been under the same mistake, would ingenuously confess the truth, they might own, that, never having consulted Pindar himself, they took all his irregularity upon trust; and, finding their account in the great case with which they could produce odes without being obliged either to measure or design, remained satisfied; and, it may be, were not altogether unwilling to neglect being undeceived. Though there be little (if any thing) left of Orpheus but his name, yet, if Pausanias was well informed, we may be assured that brevity was a beauty which he most industriously laboured to preserve in his hymns, notwithstanding, as the same author reports, that they were but few in number. to copy his brevity, and take the advantage of a remark he has made in the last strophé of the same. ode; which take in the paraphrase of Sudorius. The shortness of the following ode will, I hope, atong for the length of the preface, and, in some measure, for the defects which may be found in it. It consists of the same number of stanzas with that beautiful ode of Pindar, which is the first of his Pythics; and though I was unable to imitate him in any other beauty, I resolved to endeavour Qui multa paucis stringere commode ODE. DAUGHTER of Memory, immortal Muse, To whom wilt thou thy fire impart, Without thy aid, the most aspiring mind Nor e'er can hope with equal lays May High in the starry orb is hung, And next Alcides' guardian arm, That harp which on Cyllene's shady hill, With more than mortal skill A god the gift, a god th' invention show'd. Who sings of Anna's name. The lyre is struck! the sounds I hear! O Muse, propitious to my prayer! O well-known sounds! O Melody, the same That kindled Mantuan fire, and rais'd Mæonian flame. Nor are these sounds to British bards unknown, raise, [praise And mighty William sing with well proportion'd Rise, fair Augusta, lift thy head, With golden towers thy front adorn; PINDARIC ODE. While distant realms and neighbouring lands, | Attempt not to proceed, unwary Muse, Arm'd troops and hostile bands On every side molest : Thy happier clime is free, Fair Capital of Liberty! And plenty knows, and days of halcyon rest. As Britain's isle, when old vex'd Ocean roars, His foaming billows beat; So Britain's queen, amidst the jars Fix'd on the base of her well-founded state, Serene and safe looks down, nor feels the shocks of fate. But greatest souls, though blest with sweet repose, Are soonest touch'd with sense of others' woes. Thus Anna's mighty mind, To mercy and soft pity prone, And mov'd with sorrows not her own, Fly, Tyranny; no more be known Fly every hospitable ground. And rob those lands of legal right. Again Astrea reigns! Anna her equal scale maintains, And Marlborough wields her sure-deciding sword. [hand Now, couldst thou soar, my Muse, to sing the man Nor there thy song should end; though all the Might well their harps and heavenly voices join When bold Bavaria fled the field, And spoils and trophies won, perplex'd the victor's way. But could thy voice of Blenheim sing, For as the Sun ne'er stops his radiant flight, To all who want his light Alternately transfers the day : To climes remote and near His conquering arms by turns appear, 303 For O! what notes, what numbers could'st thou Though in all numbers skill'd, [choose, To sing the hero's matchless deed, In the short course of a diurnal Sun, What verse such worth can raise ? But deeds sublime, exalted high like these, Transcend his utmost flight, and mock his distant To hazardous attempts and hardy toils And some desire of martial spoils Others insatiate thirst of gain Nor swelling seas, nor threatening skies, Their lives to selfish ends decreed, Suspend th' impetuous and unjust pursuit: But power and wealth obtain'd, guilty and great, Their fellow-creatures fears they raise, or urge their hate. 1 |