An Essay on Man [34]
The medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Through climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one short view subjected to our eye
Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.
With sharpened sight pale antiquaries pore,
The inscription value, but the rust adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes,
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
Poor Vadius, long with learn-ed spleen devoured,
Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scoured;
And Curio, restless by the fair one's side,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine:
Touched by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her gods and god-like heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage;
These pleased the fathers of poetic rage;
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And art reflected images to art.
Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living medals see her wars enrolled,
And vanquished realms supply recording gold?
Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face;
There warriors frowning in historic brass?
Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree;
Or in fair series laurelled bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore, another Pollio shine;
With aspect open, shall erect his head,
And round the orb in lasting notes be read,
"Statesmen, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
And praised, unenvied, by the muse he loved."
SATIRES.
EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT.
ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THIS EPISTLE.
This Paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and
drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts
of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the
authors of "Verses to the Imitator of Horace," and of an "Epistle to a
Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court") to attack, in a very
extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the
public is judge), but my person, morals, and family, whereof, to those who
know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between
the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake
so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to
this Epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am
most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything
offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious
or the ungenerous.
Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but
what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they
may escape being laughed at if they please.
I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned
and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of
theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and
honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be
directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a
nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.--
P.
EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT,
BEING THE
PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.
P. Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;
By land, by water,