HINTS FROM HORACE.

BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE "AD PISONES, DE ARTE POETICA," AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS."

"Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi."

HOR. DE ARTE POET. 304, 305.

Rhymes are difficult things-they are stubborn things, sir." FIELDING'S AMELIA, Vol. iii. Book 5. Chap. 5.

T

VOL V.

HINTS FROM HORACE.

Athens. Capuchin Convent, March 12th, 1811.

WHO would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace His costly canvas with each flatter'd face,

Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush,
Saw cits grow centaurs underneath his brush?
Or, should some limner join, for show or sale,
A maid of honour to a mermaid's tail?
Or low* Dubost (as once the world has seen)
Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen?
Not all that forced politeness, which defends
Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends.

Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas,
Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum
Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne;
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?

* In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this dirty dauber's caricature of Mr. H-, and the consequent action, &c. The circumstance is probably too well known to require further comment.

Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems
The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams,
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete,
Poetic nightmares, without head or feet.

Poets and painters, as all artists know,
May shoot a little with a lengthen'd bow;
We claim this mutual mercy for our task,
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask;
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams—
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.

A labour'd, long exordium, sometimes tends
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends;
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down,
As pertness passes with a legal gown:

Thus many a bard describes in pompous strain
The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain;

The groves of Granta, and her gothic halls,

King's Coll., Cam's stream, stain'd windows, and old walls:

Credite, Pisones, isti tabulæ fore librum

Persimilem, cujus, velut ægri somnia, vanæ
Fingentur species, ut nec pes, nec caput uni
Reddatur formæ. Pictoribus atque poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.

Scimus, et hanc veniam petimuɛque damusque vicissim:
Sed non ut placidis coëant immitia; non ut
Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.

Incœptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis
Purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter
Assuitur pannus; cum lucus et ara Dianæ,
Et properantis aquæ per amonos ambitus agros,

Or, in advent'rous numbers, neatly aims
To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames*.

You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shineBut daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign; You plan a vase-it dwindles to a pot;

Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and forgot; Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint review, Whose wit is never troublesome till true.

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire.

The greater portion of the rhyming tribe (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) Are led astray by some peculiar lure.

I labour to be brief-become obscure;
One falls while following elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to satiety;

Aut flumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus.
Sed nunc non erat his locus: et fortasse cupressum
Scis simulare: quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes
Navibus, ære dato qui pingitur? amphora cœpit
Institui; currente rotâ cur urceus exit?
Denique sit quod vis, simplex duntaxat et unum.
Maxima pars vatum, pater, et juvenes patre digni,
Decipimur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio: sectantem levia, nervi

Deficiunt animique: professus grandia, turget:

"Where pure description held the place of sense."-Pope.