To Greece, fair Greece, ambitious but of praise, The Muse gave ready wit, and rounded phrase.

Our Roman boys, by puzzling days and nights, Bring down a shilling to a hundred mites.

Come, young Albinus, tell us, if you take A penny from a sixpence, what 'twill make.

Fivepence. Good boy! you'll come to wealth one day.

Now add a penny. Sevenpence, he will say.

O, when this cankering rust, this greed of gain, Has touched the soul and wrought into its grain, What hope that poets will produce such lines As cedar-oil embalms and cypress shrines?

A bard will wish to profit or to please, Or, as a tertium quid, do both of these.

Whene'er you lecture, be concise: the soul Takes in short maxims, and retains them whole: But pour in water when the vessel's filled, It simply dribbles over and is spilled.

Keep near to truth in a fict.i.tious piece, Nor treat belief as matter of caprice.

If on a child you make a vampire sup, It must not be alive when she's ripped up.

Dry seniors scout an uninstructive strain; Young lordlings treat grave verse with tall disdain: But he who, mixing grave and gay, can teach And yet give pleasure, gains a vote from each: His works enrich the vendor, cross the sea, And hand the author down to late posterity.

Some faults may claim forgiveness: for the lyre Not always gives the note that we desire; We ask a flat; a sharp is its reply; And the best bow will sometimes shoot awry.

But when I meet with beauties thickly sown, A blot or two I readily condone, Such as may trickle from a careless pen, Or pa.s.s unwatched: for authors are but men.

What then? the copyist who keeps stumbling still At the same word had best lay down his quill: The harp-player, who for ever wounds the ear With the same discord, makes the audience jeer: So the poor dolt who's often in the wrong I rank with Ch.o.e.rilus, that dunce of song, Who, should he ever "deviate into sense,"

Moves but fresh laughter at his own expense: While e'en good Homer may deserve a tap, If, as he does, he drop his head and nap.

Yet, when a work is long, 'twere somewhat hard To blame a drowsy moment in a bard.

Some poems, like some paintings, take the eye Best at a distance, some when looked at nigh.

One loves the shade; one would be seen in light, And boldly challenges the keenest sight: One pleases straightway; one, when it has pa.s.sed Ten times before the mind, will please at last.

Hope of the Pisos! trained by such a sire, And wise yourself, small schooling you require; Yet take this lesson home; some things admit A moderate point of merit, e'en in wit.

There's yonder counsellor; he cannot reach Messala's stately alt.i.tudes of speech, He cannot plumb Cascellius' depth of lore, Yet he's employed, and makes a decent score: But G.o.ds, and men, and booksellers agree To place their ban on middling poetry.

At a great feast an ill-toned instrument, A sour conserve, or an unfragrant scent Offends the taste: 'tis reason that it should; We do without such things, or have them good: Just so with verse; you seek but to delight; If by an inch you fail, you fail outright.

He who knows nought of games abstains from all, Nor tries his hand at quoit, or hoop, or ball, Lest the thronged circle, witnessing the play, Should laugh outright, with none to say them nay: He who knows nought of verses needs must try To write them ne'ertheless. "Why not?" men cry: "Free, gently born, unblemished and correct, His means a knight's, what more can folks expect?"

But you, my friend, at least have sense and grace; You will not fly in queen Minerva's face In action or in word. Suppose some day You should take courage and compose a lay, Entrust it first to Maecius' critic ears, Your sire's and mine, and keep it back nine years.

What's kept at home you cancel by a stroke: What's sent abroad you never can revoke.

Orpheus, the priest and harper, pure and good, Weaned savage tribes from deeds and feasts of blood, Whence he was said to tame the monsters of the wood.

Amphion too, men said, at his desire Moved ma.s.sy stones, obedient to the lyre, And Thebes arose. 'Twas wisdom's province then To judge 'twixt states and subjects, G.o.ds and men, Check vagrant l.u.s.t, give rules to wedded folk, Build cities up, and grave a code in oak.

So came great honour and abundant praise, As to the G.o.ds, to poets and their lays.

Then Homer and Tyrtaeus, armed with song, Made manly spirits for the combat strong: Verse taught life's duties, showed the future clear, And won a monarch's favour through his ear: Verse gave relief from labour, and supplied Light mirth for holiday and festal tide.

Then blush not for the lyre: Apollo sings In unison with her who sweeps its strings.

But here occurs a question some men start, If good verse comes from nature or from art.

For me, I cannot see how native wit Can e'er dispense with art, or art with it.

Set them to pull together, they're agreed, And each supplies what each is found to need.

The youth who suns for prizes wisely trains, Bears cold and heat, is patient and abstains: The flute-player at a festival, before He plays in public, has to learn his lore.

Not so our bardlings: they come bouncing in-- "I'm your true poet: let them laugh that win: Plague take the last! although I ne'er was taught, Is that a cause for owning I know nought?"

As puffing auctioneers collect a throng, Rich poets bribe false friends to hear their song: Who can resist the lord of so much rent, Of so much money at so much per cent.?

Is there a wight can give a grand regale, Act as a poor man's counsel or his bail?

Blest though he be, his wealth will cloud his view, Nor suffer him to know false friends from true.

Don't ask a man whose feelings overflow For kindness that you've shown or mean to show To listen to your verse: each line you read, He'll cry, "Good! bravo! exquisite indeed!"

He'll change his colour, let his eyes run o'er With tears of joy, dance, beat upon the floor.

Hired mourners at a funeral say and do A little more than they whose grief is true: 'Tis just so here: false flattery displays More show of sympathy than honest praise.

'Tis said when kings a would-be friend will try, With wine they rack him and with b.u.mpers ply: If you write poems, look beyond the skin Of the smooth fox, and search the heart within.

Read verses to Quintilius, he would say, "I don't like this and that: improve it, pray:"

Tell him you found it hopeless to correct; You'd tried it twice or thrice without effect: He'd calmly bid you make the three times four, And take the unlicked cub in hand once more.

But if you chose to vindicate the crime, Not mend it, he would waste no further time, But let you live, untroubled by advice, Sole tenant of your own fool's paradise.

A wise and faithful counsellor will blame Weak verses, note the rough, condemn the lame, Retrench luxuriance, make obscureness plain, Cross-question this, bid that be writ again: A second Aristarch, he will not ask, "Why for such trifles take my friend to task?"

Such trifles bring to serious grief ere long A hapless bard, once flattered and led wrong.

See the mad poet! never wight, though sick Of itch or jaundice, moon-struck, fanatic, Was half so dangerous: men whose mind is sound Avoid him; fools pursue him, children hound.

Suppose, while spluttering verses, head on high, Like fowler watching blackbirds in the sky, He falls into a pit; though loud he shout "Help, neighbours, help!" let no man pull him out: Should some one seem disposed a rope to fling, I will strike in with, "Pray do no such thing: I'll warrant you he meant it," and relate His brother bard Empedocles's fate, Who, wishing to be thought a G.o.d, poor fool, Leapt down hot AEtna's crater, calm and cool.

"Leave poets free to perish as they will: Save them by violence, you as good as kill.

'Tis not his first attempt: if saved to-day, He's sure to die in some outrageous way.

Beside, none knows the reason why this curse Was sent on him, this love of making verse, By what offence heaven's anger he incurred, A grave denied, a sacred boundary stirred: So much is plain, he's mad: like bear that beats His prison down and ranges through the streets, This terrible reciter puts to flight The learned and unlearned left and right: Let him catch one, he keeps him till he kills, As leeches stick till they have sucked their fills."

NOTES.

PAGE 6.

Enough: you'll think I've rifled the scrutore Of blind Crispinus, if I prose on more.

Howes has a very similar couplet:--

But hold! you'll think I've pillaged the scrutore Of blear Crispinus: not one word then more!

I believe it however to be a mere coincidence on my part.

The word "scrutore" is an uncommon one; but it was the recollection of an altogether different pa.s.sage which suggested it to me here. At any rate, Howes is not the first who has used it in translating the present lines.

Now 'tis enough: lest you should think I've dipt in blear-eyed Crispin's ink, And stolen my work from his scrutore, I will not add a sentence more.

SMART.

PAGE 9.

Gives Varus' name to knock-kneed boys, and dubs His club-foot youngster Scaurus, king of clubs.

This is, of course, in no sense a translation: it is simply an attempt (a desperate one, I fear) to give point to a sentence which otherwise to an English reader would have no point at all.

PAGE 13.

Heal to your majesty! yet, ne'ertheless, Rude boys are pulling at your beard, I guess.

Those commentators are clearly right who understand "vellunt," not of what the boys are apt to do, but of what they are actually doing, while the Stoic is talking and making himself out to be a king.