14

The vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality. The abuse of the word taste. That the first principle and foundation in this, as in every thing else, is good sense. The chief proof of it is to follow nature, even in works of mere luxury and elegance. Instanced in architecture and gardening, where all must be adapted to the genius, and use of the place, and the beauties not forced into it,

5 The author has placed the scene of these shipwrecks in Cornwall, not only from their frequency on that coast, but from the inhumanity of the inhabitants to those to whom that misfortune arrives. When a ship happens to be stranded there, they have been known to bore holes in it, to prevent its getting off; to plunder, and sometimes even to massacre the people. Nor has the Parliament of England been yet able wholly to suppress these barbarities.

but resulting from it. How men are disappointed in their
most expensive undertakings, for want of this true founda-
tion, without which nothing can please long, if at all;
and the best examples and rules will be but perverted into
something burdensome and ridiculous. A description of
the false taste of magnificence; the first grand error of
which is to imagine that greatness consists in the size and
dimension, instead of the proportion and harmony of the
whole, and the second, either in joining together parts in-
coherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the repetition
of the same too frequently. A word or two of false taste in
books, in music, in painting, even in preaching and prayer,
and lastly in entertainments. Yet PROVIDENCE is justified
in giving wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it
is dispersed to the poor and laborious part of mankind
(recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii.
and in the epistle preceding this). What are the proper
objects of magnificence, and a proper field for the expense
of great men, and finally the great and public works which
become a prince.

'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy :
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham', drawings and designs,
For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane2.
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.

For what has Virro painted, built, and planted?
Only to show how many tastes he wanted.
What brought Sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste?
Some demon whisper'd, "Visto! have a taste."
Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool,
And needs no rod but Ripley3 with a rule.
See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide:
A standing sermon, at each year's expense,
That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence !

You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse',
And pompous buildings once were things of use.
Yet shall (my lord) your just, your noble rules,
Fill half the land with imitating fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets shall take,
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state,
Turn ares of triumph to a garden-gate;
Reverse your ornaments; and hang them all
On some patch'd dog-hole eked with ends of wall;
Then clap four slices of pilaster on't,
That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front:
Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
Oft have you hinted to your brother peer,
A certain truth, which many buy too dear:

A gentleman famous for a judicious collection of drawings.

2 Two eminent physicians: the one had an excellent library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity.

3 This man was a carpenter, employed by a first minister, who raised him to an architect, without any genius in the art; and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public buildings, made him comptroller of the board of works.

4 The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the designs of Inigo Jones, and the antiquities of Rome by Palladio.

Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous even to taste-'tis sense:
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven:
A light, which in yourself you must perceive;
Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.

To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;
In all, let nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty everywhere be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.

Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise or fall;
Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale :
Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades;
Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.

Still follow sense, of every art the soul,
Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,
Start even from difficulty, strike from chance;
Nature shall join you; Time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at-perhaps a Srows,

Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls;
And Nero's terraces desert their walls:
The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make,
Lo! COBHAM comes, and floats them with a lake:
Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain,
You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again".
Even in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in an hermitage set Dr. Clarke'.

Behold Villario's ten-years' toil complete;
His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet;
The wood supports the plain, the parts unite,
And strength of shade contends with strength of
A waving glow the bloomy beds display, [light;
Blushing in bright diversities of day,
With silver-quivering rills meander'd o'er-
Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more;
Tired of the scene parterres and fountains yield,
He finds, at last, he better likes a field.

Through his young woods how pleased Sabinus
Or sat delighted in the thickening shade, [stray'd,
With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet,
Or see the stretching branches long to meet !
His son's fine taste an opening vista loves,
Foe to the dryads of his father's groves;
One boundless green, or flourish'd carpet views,
With all the mournful family of yews";

5 The seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham, in Buckinghamshire.

6 This was done in Hertfordshire by a wealthy citizen, at the expense of above five thousand pounds, by which means (merely to overlook a dead plain) he let in the north wind upon his house and parterre, which were before adorned and defended by beautiful woods.

7 Dr. S. Clarke's busto, placed by the queen in the her mitage, while the doctor duly frequented the court.

8 The two extremes in parterres, which are equally faulty; a boundless green, large and naked as a field, or a flourished carpet, where the greatness and nobleness of the piece is lessened by being divided into too many parts, with scrolled works and beds, of which the examples are frequent.

Touches upon the ill taste of those who are so fond of

Dense,

is sense:

en, even:

Live;

-ale,

dest

The thriving plants, ignoble broomsticks made,
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.
At Timon's villa let us pass a day,

Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away!"
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect, shivering at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole, a labour'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call,
On every side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,

No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suffering eye inverted nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain, never to be play'd;
And there a summer-house, that knows no shade;
Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers;
There gladiators fight, or die in flowers 2;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.

My Lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure, to be seen :
But soft-by regular approach-not yet—
First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat3;
And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your
thighs,

Just at his study-door he'll bless your eyes.

His study with what authors is it stored'?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord;
To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Suëil has bound!
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good
For all his lordship knows, but they are wood.
For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look,
These shelves admit not any modern book.

And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of pray'r3:
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heaven.

evergreens (particularly yews, which are the most tonsile,) as to destroy the nobler forest trees to make way for such little ornaments as pyramids of dark green continually repeated, not unlike a funeral procession.

This description is intended to comprise the principles of a false taste of magnificence, and to exemplify what was said before, that nothing but good sense can attain it.

The two statues of the gladiator pugnans, and gladi

stor moriens.

1 The approaches and communication of house with garden, or one part with another, ill-judged, and inconvenient.

The false taste in books; a satire on the vanity in llecting them, more frequent in men of fortune, than the study to understand them. Many delight chiefly in the elegance of the print, or of the binding; some have erried it so far, as to cause the upper shelves to be filled with painted books of wood; others pique themselves so uch upon books in a language they do not understand, as to exclude the most useful in one they do.

The false taste in music, improper to the subjects; as flight airs in churches, often practised by the organist,

On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre7,
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polites.

But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall:
The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace",
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner this a genial room';
No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there".
Between each act the trembling salvers ring,
From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the king.
In plenty starving, tantalized in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave,
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost, and little skill,
And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.

Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed12;
Health to himself, and to his infants bread
The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity supplies.

Another age shall see the golden ear
Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre,
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.

Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil ?
Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like
"Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, [BOYLE.
And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.
His father's acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase :
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed
The milky heifer, and deserving steed ;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town.

You too proceed! make falling arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;

6 And in painting (from which even Italy is not free) of naked figures in churches, &c., which has obliged some popes to put draperies on some of those of the best masters. 7 Verrio (Antonio) painted many ceilings, &c., at Windsor, Hampton Court, &c., and Laguerre at Blenheim Castle, and other places.

This is a fact. A reverend dean, preaching at court, threatened the sinner with punishment in "a place which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly." 9 Taxes the incongruity of ornaments (though sometimes practised by the ancients), where an open mouth ejects the water into a fountain, or where the shocking images of serpents, &c., are introduced into grottoes or buffets.

10 The proud festivals of some men are here set forth to ridicule, where pride destroys the ease, and formal regularity all the pleasurable enjoyment, of the entertainment. 11 See Don Quixote, chap. xlvii.

12 This is the moral of the whole; where Providence is justified in giving riches to those who squander them in this manner. A bad taste employs more hands, and diffuses wealth more usefully than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book I. Ep. ii. ver. 230-7, and in the epistle preceeding this, ver. 161, &c.

H

98

Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before:
Till kings call forth the ideas of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd)
Bid harbours open, public ways extend',
Bid temples, worthier of the God, ascend;
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main;
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land:
These honours, peace to happу BRITAIN brings,
These are imperial works, and worthy kings.

EPISTLE V2.

TO MR. ADDISON.

OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS.

SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears!
With nodding arches, broken temples spread !
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders raised on nations spoil'd,
Where, mix'd with slaves, the groaning martyr
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods, [toil'd:
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods :
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey,
Statues of men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

Perhaps, by its own ruins saved from flame,
Some buried marble half preserves a name;
That name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.

Ambition sigh'd: she found it vain to trust
The faithless column, and the crumbling bust:
Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore
to shore,

Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more!

1 The Poet, after having touched upon the proper objects of magnificence and expense, in the private works of great men, comes to those great and public works which become a prince. This poem was published in the year 1732, when some of the new-built churches, by the act of Queen Anne, were ready to fall, being founded in boggy land (which is satirically alluded to in our author's imitation of Horace, Lib. ii. sat. ii.

"Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall?) " others were vilely executed, through fraudulent cabals between undertakers, officers, &c. Dagenham-breach had done very great mischiefs; many of the highways throughout England were hardly passable; and most of those which were repaired by turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre, and infamously executed, even to the entrance of London itself. The proposal of building a bridge at Westminster had been petitioned against and rejected; but in two years after the publication of this poem, an act for building a bridge passed through both houses. After many debates in the committee, the execution was left to the carpenter above-mentioned, who would have made it a wooden one; to which our author alludes in these lines: "Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile?

Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile." This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr. Addison intended to publish his book of medals; it was sometime before he was Secretary of State; but not published till Mr. Tickel's edition of his works: at which time the verses on Mr. Craggs, which conclude the poem, were added, viz. in 1720.

Convinced, she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin.
A narrow ORB each crowded conquest keeps,
Beneath her palm here sad Judea weeps.
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;
A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.

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 sharpen'd 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 learned spleen devour'd,
Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd:
And Curio, restless by the fair one's side,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.

Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine :
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her gods, and godlike 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 enroll❜d,
And vanquish'd 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 laurel'd 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,
"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
And praised, unenvied, by the muse he loved."

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 any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth, and the sentiment; and if any thing 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.

Tie

Three things another's modest wishes bound,
My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.
Pitholeon sends to me: "You know his Grace,
I want a patron; ask him for a place."
Pitholeon libel'd me-" but here's a letter
Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him? Curl invites to dine,
He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine.'
Bless me! a packet.-" "Tis a stranger sues,
A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse."
If I dislike it, "Furies, death, and rage!"
If I approve," Commend it to the stage."
There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The players and are, luckily, no friends.
Fired that the house reject him, "'Sdeath, I'll
print it,
[Lintot."
And shame the fools-Your interest, sir, with
Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much:
"Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch."

All my demurs but double his attacks;

At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks."
Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door,

P. SHUT, shut the door, good John! fatigued I Sir, let me see your works and you no more.

said,

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, they renew the charge,
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Even Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at dinner-time.

Is there a parson much be-mused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross ?
Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darken'd walls!
All fly to TwIr'NAM, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped,
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:

To laugh,
were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years."
Nine years! cries he, who high in Drury-lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends,
Obliged by hunger, and request of friends:
"The piece, you think, is incorrect? why take it,
I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it."

'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) His very minister who spied them first, (Some say his queen2) was forced to speak, or And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, [burst. When every coxcomb perks them in my face?

A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang'rous
things.

I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings;
Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,
'Tis nothing-P. Nothing? if they bite and kick?
Out with it, DUNCIAD! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he's an ass:
The truth once told (and wherefore should wo lie?)
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.

You think this cruel? take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurl'd,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world3.
Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb thro'.
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew :
Destroy his fib, or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again,
Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arch'd eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colley still his lord, and whore?
His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore?
Does not one table Bavius still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?
Still Sappho-A. Hold for God's sake-you'll

offend.

No names-be calm-learn prudence of a friend:
I too could write, and I am twice as tall; [all.
But foes like these-P. One flatterer's worse than

The name taken from a foolish poet of Rhodes, who pretended much to Greek. Schol. in Horat. 1. 1. Dr. Bentley pretends, that this Pitholeon libeled Cæsar also See notes on Hor. Sat. 10. 1. i.

2 The story is told, by some, of his barber, but by Chaucer, of his queen. See Wife of Bath's Tale in Dryden's fables.

3 "Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinæ."-HOR.