No More Learning

But to make the Poem
entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which
contribute to the Happiness of a Free People, and are more consistent
with the Welfare of our Neighbours.

This Epistle will show the learned World to have fallen into Two
mistakes: one, that Augustus was a Patron of Poets in general; whereas he
not only prohibited all but the Best Writers to name him, but recommended
that Care even to the Civil Magistrate: Admonebat Praetores, ne
paterentur Nomen suum obsolefieri, etc. The other, that this Piece was
only a general Discourse of Poetry; whereas it was an Apology for the
Poets, in order to render Augustus more their Patron. Horace here pleads
the Cause of his Contemporaries, first against the Taste of the Town,
whose humour it was to magnify the Authors of the preceding Age; secondly
against the Court and Nobility, who encouraged only the Writers for the
Theatre; and lastly against the Emperor himself, who had conceived them
of little Use to the Government. He shows (by a View of the Progress of
Learning, and the Change of Taste among the Romans) that the Introduction
of the Polite Arts of Greece had given the Writers of his Time great
advantages over their Predecessors; that their Morals were much improved,
and the Licence of those ancient Poets restrained: that Satire and Comedy
were become more just and useful; that, whatever extravagances were left
on the Stage, were owing to the Ill Taste of the Nobility; that Poets,
under due Regulations, were in many respects useful to the State, and
concludes, that it was upon them the Emperor himself must depend for his
Fame with Posterity.

We may farther learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his Court to
this great Prince by writing with a decent Freedom toward him, with a
just Contempt of his low Flatterers, and with a manly Regard to his own
Character. P.


EPISTLE I. TO AUGUSTUS.


While you, great patron of mankind! sustain
The balanced world, and open all the main;
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
How shall the muse from such a monarch, steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?
Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,
And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,
After a life of generous toils endured,
The Gaul subdued, or property secured,
Ambition humbled, mighty cities stormed,
Our laws established, and the world reformed;
Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find
Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind!
All human virtue, to its latest breath,
Finds envy never conquered but by death.
The great Alcides, every 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!
Oppressed 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 revered,
As heaven's own oracles from altars heard.
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 learned 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,
He swears the Muses met him at the devil.
Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not we be wiser than our sires?
In every public virtue we excel;
We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well,
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling through 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 died, perhaps, a hundred years ago?
End all dispute; and fix the year precise
When British bards begin t' immortalise?
"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?
"We shall not quarrel for a year or two;
By courtesy of England, he may do.