Ambition humbled, mighty Cities storm'd,
Or Laws establish'd, and the World reform'd;
eClos'd their long Glories with a sigh, to find
Th' unwilling Gratitude of base mankind!
All human Virtue, to its latest breath,
fFinds Envy never conquer'd, but by Death.
The great Alcides, ev'ry labour past,
Had still this Monster to subdue at last.
Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray
Each star of meaner merit fades away!
Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat,
Those Suns of Glory please not till they set.
To thee, the World its present homage pays,
The Harvest early, but mature the praise:
Great Friend of LIBERTY! in Kings a Name
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame*:
Whose Word is Truth, as sacred and rever'd,
¡As Heav'n's own Oracles from Altars heard.
Dum terras hominumque colunt genus, aspera
Componunt, agros adsignant, oppida condunt;
ePloravere suis non respondere favorem
Speratum meritis. diram qui contudit Hydram,
Notaque fatali portenta labore subegit,
Comperit finvidiam supremo, fine domari.
8Urit enim fulgore suo, qui praegravat artes
Infra se positas: extinctus amabitur idem.
hPraesenti tibi maturos largimur honores, Jurandasque tuum per numen ponimus aras,
Ver. 17. The great Alcides,] This instance has not the same grace here as in the Original, where it comes in well after those of Romulus, Bacchus, Castor, and Pollux, though awkwardly after Edward and Henry. But it was for the sake of the beautiful thought in the next line; which, yet, does not equal the force of his Original.
Wonder of Kings! like whom, to mortal eyes
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise.
Just in one instance, be it yet confest
Your People, Sir, are partial in the rest:
Foes to all living worth except your own,
And Advocates for folly dead and gone.
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old;
It is the rust we value, not the gold.
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote:
One likes no language but the Faery Queen:
A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green:
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
mHe swears the Muses met him at the Devil,
*Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale fatentes.
Sed tuus hoc populus sapiens et justus in uno,
*Te nostris ducibus, te Graiis anteferendo,
Caetera nequaquam simili ratione modoque
Aestimat; et, nisi quae terris semota suisque
Temporibus defuncta videt, fastidit et odit:
Sic fautor veterum, ut tabulas peccare vetantes
Quas bis quinque viri sanxerunt, foedera regum,
Vel Gabiis vel cum rigidis aequata Sabinis,
Pontificum libros, annosa volumina Vatum,
mDictitet Albano Musas in monte locutas.
Ver. 38. And beastly Skelton, etc.] Skelton, Poet Laureat to Henry VIII. a volume of whose verses has been lately reprinted, consisting almost wholly of ribaldry, obscenity, and scurrilous language.
Ver. 40. Christ's Kirk o' the Green:] A Ballad made by a King of Scotland.
Ver. 42. met him at the Devil.] The Devil Tavern, where Ben Johnson held his Poetical Club.
Tho' justly "Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not We be wiser than our sires?
In ev'ry Public Virtue we excel;
We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well,
And plearned Athens to our arts must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling thro' a hoop.
If Time improve our Wit as well as Wine,
Say at what age a Poet grows divine ?
Shall we, or shall we not, account him so,
Who dy'd, perhaps, an hundred years ago?
End all dispute; and fix the year precise
When British Bards begin t' immortalize?
"Who lasts a century can have no flaw,
"I hold that Wit a Classic, good in law."
Suppose he wants a year, will you compound?
And shall we deem him Ancient, right and sound,
Or damn to all eternity at once,
At ninety-nine, a Modern and a Dunce ?
Si, quia "Graiorum sunt antiquissima quaeque
Scripta vel optima, Romani pensantur eadem
Scriptores trutina; non est quod multa loquamur:
Nil intra est oleam, nil extra est in nuce duri.
Venimus ad summum fortunae: pingimus, atque
•Psallimus, et pluctamur Achivis doctius unctis.
Si ameliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit;
Scire velim, chartis pretium quotus arroget annus.
Scriptor ab hinc annos centum qui decidet, inter
Perfectos veteresque referri debet, an inter
Viles atque novos ? excludat jurgia finis.
Est vetus atque probus, centum qui perficit annos.
Quid ? qui deperiit minor uno mense vel anno,
Inter quos referendus erit? sveteresne poetas,
An quos et praesens et postera respuat aetas?
"We shall not quarrel for a year or two; "By tcourtesy of England, he may do."
Then, by the rule that made the "Horse-tail bare,
I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,
And melt wdown Ancients like a heap of snow:
While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe,
And estimating authors by the year,
Bestow a Garland only on a Bier.
Shakespear (whom you and ev'ry Playhouse bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And
grew Immortal in his own despite.
Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed
aThe life to come, in ev'ry Poet's Creed.
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His Moral pleases, not his pointed Wit;
Iste quidem veteres inter ponetur thoneste,
Qui vel mense brevi, vel toto est junior anno.
Utor permisso, caudaeque pilos ut "equinae
Paulatim vello: et demo unum, demo et item unum;
Dum cadat elusus ratione wruentis acervi,
Qui redit in fustos, et virtutem aestimat annis,
Miraturque nihil, nisi quod Libitina sacravit.
zEnnius et sapiens, et fortis, et alter Homerus,
Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur
Quo apromissa cadant, et somnia Pythagorea.
Naevius in manibus non est; at ementibus haeret
Ver. 69. Shakespear] Shakespear and Ben Johnson may truly be said not to have thought much of this immortality; the one in many pieces composed in haste for the Stage; the other in his latter works in general, which Dryden called his Dotages.
Ver. 74. The Life to come, in ev'ry Poet's Creed.]
Quo promissa cadant, et somnia Pythagorea.
Forgot his Epic, nay Pindaric Art,
But still I love the language of his heart.
"Yet surely, d surely, these were famous men! "What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? "In all edebates where Critics bear a part, "Not one but nods, and talks of Johnson's Art, "Of Shakespear's Nature, and of Cowley's Wit; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ;
"How Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow;
"But, for the Passions, Southern sure and Rowe. "These, fonly these, support the crowded stage, "From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age."
Pene recens: dadeo sanctum est vetus omne poema.
Ambigitur quoties, uter utro sit prior; aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Accius alti:
Dicitur Afranî toga convenisse Menandro ;
Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte:
Hos ediscit, et hos arcto stipata theatro
Spectat Roma potens ; fhabet hos numeratque poetas
Ad nostrum tempus, Livî scriptoris ab aevo.
The beauty of this arises from a circumstance in Ennius's story. But as this could not be imitated, our Poet endeavoured to equal it, and has succeeded.
Ver. 77. Pindaric Art,] Which has much more merit than his Epic, but very unlike the Character, as well as Numbers, of Pindar.
Ver. 81. In all debates, etc.] The Poet has here put the bald cant of women and boys into extreme fine verse. This is in strict imitation of his original, where the same impertinent and gratuitous criticism is admirably ridiculed.
Ver. 85. Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow;] Nothing was less true than this particular: But the whole paragraph has a mixture of Irony, and must not altogether be taken for Horace's own Judgment, only the common Chat of the pretenders to Criticism; in some things right, in others wrong; as he tells us in his answer,
Interdum vulgus rectum videt: est ubi peccat.
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