JOHN GAY (1685-1732)

FROM FABLES

XLIV. THE HOUND AND THE HUNTSMAN

Impertinence at first is borne

With heedless slight, or smiles of scorn;
Teased into wrath, what patience bears
The noisy fool who perseveres?

The morning wakes, the Huntsman sounds,
At once rush forth the joyful hounds.
They seek the wood with eager pace,
Through bush, through brier, explore the chase.
Now scattered wide, they try the plain,
And snuff the dewy turf in vain.
What care, what industry, what pains!
What universal silence reigns!

Ringwood, a Dog of little fame,
Young, pert, and ignorant of game,
At once displays his babbling throat;
The pack, regardless of the note,
Pursue the scent; with louder strain
He still persists to vex the train.

The Huntsman to the clamour flies;
The smacking lash he smartly plies.
His ribs all welked, with howling tone
The puppy thus expressed his moan:
"I know the music of my tongue
Long since the pack with envy stung.
What will not spite? These bitter smarts
I owe to my superior parts.''

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ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.*

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Descend, ye Nine! descend and sing:
The breathing instruments inspire;
Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre!
In a sadly-pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain:
Let the loud trumpet sound,

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This ode, composed in 1708, when Pope was but twenty years of age, is interesting chiefly for comparison with the odes written by Dryden for similar occasions. Pope has drawn freely upon classical mythology-the nine Muses, Morpheus, god of dreams, the voyage of the Argonauts with Orpheus drawing the trees of Mt. Pelion down to the sea by the sweetness of his strain, and especially the sad story of Orpheus' descent into Hades to win back his lost Eurydice only to lose her again and wander forlorn until the jealous and enraged Bacchantes stoned him to death and threw his limbs into the Hebrus. It is pointed out by Mr. W. J. Courthope that Dryden, by weaving in history instead of legend, secured greater human interest.

But when our country's cause provokes to arms,
How martial music every bosom warms!
So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian raised his
strain,

While Argo saw her kindred trees
Descend from Pelion to the main.
Transported demi-gods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,
Inflamed with glory's charms:
Each chief his sevenfold shield displayed,
And half unsheathed the shining blade
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound,
To arms, to arms, to arms!

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But when through all th' infernal bounds, Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,

Love, strong as Death, the poet led

To the pale nations of the dead,

What sounds were heard,

What scenes appeared,

O'er all the dreary coasts!

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Sullen moans,

Hollow groans,

And cries of tortured ghosts! But hark! he strikes the golden lyre; And see! the tortured ghosts respire,

See, shady forms advance!

Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,

And the pale spectres dance!

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The Furies sink upon their iron beds, And snakes uncurled hang listening round their heads.

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By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er th' Elysian flowers;

By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,

Or amaranthine bowers;
By the hero's armed shades,
Glittering through the gloomy glades,
By the youths that died for love,
Wandering in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Eurydice to life:
Oh take the husband, or return the wife!

He sung, and hell consented

To hear the poet's prayer:
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair.
Thus song could prevail
O'er death, and o'er hell,

A conquest how hard and how glorious!
Though fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her,
Yet music and love were victorious.

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Yet even in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice still trembled on his tongue,

Eurydice the woods,

Eurydice the floods,

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FROM AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. 'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But, of the two, less dangerous is th' offence To tire our patience, than mislead our sense. Some few in that, but numbers err in this, Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself alone expose, Now one in verse makes many more in prose. 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In poets as true genius is but rare, True taste as seldom is the critic's share; Both must alike from Heaven derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others, who themselves excel. And censure freely who have written well. Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not critics to their judgment too? 2 A mountain of Thrace.

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Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply provides, Works without show, and without pomp pre

sides;

In some fair body thus th' informing1 soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heaven in wit* has been pro-
fuse,

Want as much more to turn it to its use; 81
For wit and judgment often are at strife;
Though meant each other's aid, like man and
wife.

'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed;

Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his

And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid proved,
To dress her charms and make her more be-
loved:

But following wits from that intention strayed, Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid;

Against the poets their own arms they turned, Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned.

So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art

By doctor's bills3 to play the doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, 110
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,
Nor time nor moths e'er spoiled so much as
they.

Some drily plain without invention's aid,
Write dull receipts how poems may be made;
These leave the sense, their learning to display,
And those explain the meaning quite away.
You then whose judgment the right course
would steer,

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Know well each ancient 's proper character;
His fable, subject, scope in every page;
Religion, country, genius of his age;
Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise.
Be Homer's works your study and delight,
Read them by day, and meditate by night;
Thence form your judgment, thence your max-
ims bring,

And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
Still with itself compared, his text peruse;
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.5
When first young Maro5 in his boundless
mind

A work t'outlast immortal Rome designed, 131
Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law,
And but from nature's fountains scorned to
draw;

But when t' examine every part he came,
Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design;
And rules as strict his laboured work confine,
As if the Stagirites o'erlooked each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy nature is to copy them.

Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, For there's a happiness as well as care. Music resembles poetry, in each

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Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can reach.
If, where the rules not far enough extend,

(Since rules were made but to promote their end)

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Some lucky licence answer to the full
Th' intent proposed, that licence is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common track.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,
Which, without passing through the judgment,
gains

The heart, and all its end at once attains.
In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice. 160
But though the ancients thus their rules invade;
(As kings dispense with laws themselves have
made)

Moderns beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;
Let it be seldom, and compelled by need;
And have, at least, their precedent to plead.
The critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame and puts his laws in force.
I know there are to whose presumptuous
thoughts

Those freer beauties, even in them, seem

Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend-and every foe.

7 The winged horse of the Muses.